Assessment PSY 10005 final PDF

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final assignment for research methods information...

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Running Head: CRITICAL REVIEW OF YOUNG ADULTS ON TINDER

Critical Review of why emerging adults use Tinder

Leona Freeman

Student Number: 102528258

Submitted as a PSY 10005 Critical Review Due Date: 17th August Tutor: Janelle Cleary Word Count:

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Introduction Years ago, people met being chaperoned by family members in the safety of their own homes (Timmermans & Courtois, 2018). Nowadays, applications and websites are specially created to facilitate new potential romantic relationships (Duncan & March, 2019). Tinder was one of the first social networking applications designed to be used as an application and not as a part of a dating website (Sumter, Vandenbosch, & Ligtenberg, 2017), and it allows people from all walks of life and all corners of the globe to meet. This critical analysis will summarize the aim of the study done by Sumter et al., (2017), on why emerging adults use Tinder, the methods used by the researchers, its results, highlight its strengths, weaknesses, and make note of the fact that more study needs to be done on this subject.

Summary Two hundred and sixty-six emerging Dutch adults between the 18 and 30 were recruited through a link on the social media accounts of two graduate students. Those who had never used Tinder before were excluded from the dataset, and completed another part of the study. Of the 163 people involved in this study, the average age being 23.74, 59 of them were current Tinder users, 104 had used Tinder in the past and the gender split was almost equal with 83 males. The researchers used a survey designed with Qualtrics software, and used cross-sectional research with a parallel analysis method to gain the information they required. They also used an exploratory factor analysis. No money or course credits were offered to the respondents for doing the survey, and they were given the option to continue with the questions at the end of the first part, or at any time they wanted to. The researchers asked what reasons emerging adults have for using Tinder, do these

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reasons differ depending on one’s gender and age group, do their reasons relate to how often they use it, and what happens when or if, they meet offline? The participants were told what the aim of the study was, told what rights they had as participants of the said study, and were told that it was anonymous. Six main reasons for using Tinder were found. These were: Easy communication, casual sex, love, self-worth validation, the thrill of the excitement and because it is trendy. They also state that with the findings of this study, the reasons why emerging adults use Tinder is different depending on the participants ages and their gender. Sumter et al. (2017) sums up the study by saying that a more comprehensive look needs to be done as to why emerging adults use this application to find romantic partners.

Critical evaluation Several weaknesses were found in this study. With only 163 participants, is not a large enough group to have a substantial amount of reliability and validity. They also excluded anyone who had never used Tinder. In a study done by Timmermans and De Caluwe, (2017), they used 502 participants, having more people in their study gave more insight into more of the reasons for Tinder use, and this study also included people who had never used the application before. Sumter et al. (2017) stated that Tinder is used not only for entertainment, but as a way to meet a partner for a serious relationship. LeFebvre (2017), disagrees and states that one of the most important uses for the Tinder app is for casual sex hook-ups. This study only discussed six reasons why emerging adults use Tinder, and there are other perspectives to consider, like the Timmermans and De Caluwe, (2017) study which

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highlights five personality traits of people who use Tinder. Strengths of this research highlighted by Sumter et al., (2017), was the validation of self-worth. Duncan and March, (2019) agreed with this in the study they did highlighting the dark side of Tinder use. They also stated the enhancement of one’s self-esteem as being a reason for people to use Tinder. Sumter et al., (2017) also noted that gender creates a difference in Tinder use. Sevi, Aral, & Eskenazi, (2018) agreed with this in an article they did where they state that women different reasons for using Tinder than men do. Another positive is that the questionnaire di not take long to complete and the participants had the option of leaving the survey after the first page.

Conclusion This critical review highlighted six reasons why emerging adults use Tinder, and that this changes according to the ages and gender of the users. The six reasons Tinder is used are to find a love relationship, for casual sex, the comfort of communicating with someone online is easier than offline, for validation of one’s appearance and self-worth, and some for some Tinder users because it is the ‘in-thing” to do. More study, however, is required possibly using bigger groups, to uncover why emerging adults use Tinder not only for fun, but to find their romantic partners for committed relationships.

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References Duncan, Z., & March, E. (2019). Using Tinder® to Start a Fire: Predicting antisocial use of Tinder® with gender and the Dark Tetrad. Personality and Individual Differences, ELSEVIER,145, 9-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.03.014 LeFebre, L.E. (2017). Swiping me off my feet. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35(9), 1205-1229. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407517706419 Sevi, B., Aral, T., & Eskenazi, T. (2018). Exploring the hook-up app: Low sexual disgust and high sociosexuality predict motivation to use Tinder for casual sex. Personality and Individual Differences, 133, 17-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.053. Sumter, S. R., Vandenbosch, L., Ligtenberg, L. (2017). Love me Tinder: Untangling emerging adults' motivations for using the dating application Tinder. Telematics and Informatics, ELSEVIER, 34(1), 67-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2016.04.009 Timmermans, E., & Courtois, C. (2018). From swiping to casual sex and/or committed Relationships: Exploring the experiences of Tinder users. The Information Society, 34(2), 59-70. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2017.1414093 Timmermans, E., & De Caluwé, E. (2017). To Tinder or not to Tinder, that's the question: An individual differences perspective to Tinder use and motives. Personality and Individual Differences, 110, 74-79. https://doi.org/101016/j.paid.2017.01.026...