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This paper examines how and why online daters, differentiated by gender, strategically self-present in online dating profiles when pursuing two competing goals: attracting potential daters and avoiding detection as a liar.

A survey and a content analysis were employed to test four hypotheses.

The results revealed that seeking to project an attractive image in online dating was significantly associated with acquisitive self-presentation. The online daters adopted falsification more than any other strategies, and women were more likely than men to embellish their self-presentation, especially their physical appearance.

The findings clarify people's mate selection processes in light of the interpersonal deception theory (IDT) and the information manipulation theory (IMT) as well as take an evolutionary psychological perspective on computer-mediated communication. For practitioners, they provide a more nuanced picture of deceptive communication in online dating and, for online daters, can guide the adaptation of their online behaviors.

Online dating facilitates both dater interactions and rejections. Given the vast offer of potential mates and daters' limited time, several rejections may occur. On online dating platforms, most of these rejections are simply the absence of a reply (ignoring). The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of implicit rejection (ignoring) vs explicit rejection (declining) on the behavioral intentions of daters, considering self-esteem as a moderator.

Experiment 1 investigated the effect of the extent of rejection (implicit vs explicit vs control) on the behavioral intentions of online daters. Experiment 2 assessed observers' recommended actions to a male (vs female) online dater following rejection (implicit vs explicit vs control).

Implicit rejections generate greater behavioral intentions than explicit rejections. Both daters (study 1) and observers of the dating scenario (study 2) indicated greater intent to revise their profiles (study 1) or recommend a profile revision (study 2) when implicitly (vs explicitly) rejected by interaction partners. Self-esteem moderated the effect of the extent of rejection. Higher levels of self-esteem eliminate and lower levels of self-esteem intensify the effect of the extent of rejection on behavioral intentions. Additionally, observers' recommendations based on the extent of rejection depend on the rejected dater's gender.

Ignoring is a frequent practice among dating platform users, and this paper provides an original contribution to better understand the differences stemming from implicit or explicit rejection of online daters.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2020-0207

Online dating services have been growing rapidly in recent years. However, adopting these services may involve high risk and trust issues among potential users toward both online dating services and the daters they introduce to users. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceived benefits vs risks, and trust vs distrust affect user adoption vs non-adoption intentions toward using this rather controversial information and communications technology in the context of online dating.

Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the research model using data from a survey of 451 single individuals.

The results indicated that perceived benefits play more essential roles in adoption, while perceived risks affect non-adoption more. Individuals' trust in online dating service predicts a major portion of the variation in user benefit perceptions, while distrust in online dating service and in daters that users might select significantly influence perceived risks. Moreover, benefit and risk perceptions can mediate the impacts of trust and distrust on both adoption and non-adoption decisions.

This study extends theories of decision-making in the use of controversial information technologies such as in the case of online dating. It investigates the coexistence of various trust and distrust beliefs as well as benefit and risk perceptions, and their different impacts on adoption and non-adoption in online dating services.

An online survey was carried out with the purpose of finding out the extent to which internet users subscribe to online dating services. The paper aims to assess users' experiences of such services and their eventual outcomes.

Data were obtained through a self‐completion online questionnaire survey posted on the website of a leading internet research agency, utilising its online panel of c. 30,000 UK respondents.

More than 3,800 online panellists responded of whom 29 per cent said they had used an online dating site. Most of these respondents (90 per cent) had spent up to £200 on internet dating in the past two years, with 70 per cent of users achieving at least one date, 43 per cent enjoying at least one sexual relationship, and 9 per cent finding a marriage partner.

Despite the limitations over sample control of self‐completion surveying, a large online sample was achieved that indicated the growing importance of the internet for finding social and even sexual companionship.

Data indicate the kinds of factors that are important to internet daters in choosing online dating agencies and that drive eventual satisfaction with service received.

This survey provides original and up‐to‐date findings on a growing online and social phenomenon and represents one of the largest surveys of its kind yet carried out in the UK.

Purpose: The present study examines how relationship status and gender are associated with social network experiences among older adults. Two relationship status groupings were examined: comparisons of (1) marrieds, divorced, and widowed individuals and (2) never marrieds, cohabiters, and daters.

Methodology: Data from the second wave of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), a nationally representative dataset, was used. Of the final sample of respondents, 10.3% identified as Black, 6.8% identified as Hispanic, 52.9% identified as female, and the mean age of respondents was 72.54 (SD = 7.52). Linear mixed models were conducted.

Results: Overall, men reported talking less and received less family and friend support than women. For only those who were divorced, widowed, or married, men were less close with their social networks and had less friend support than women. Widows were closer to their social networks than married and divorced individuals. Among women, divorced women were less close to their social network than married or widowed women. Those who were married talked less to their social networks than those who were divorced or widowed and cohabiters talked less than daters. Widows reported receiving greater family support than those who were married. Cohabiters had lower neighborhood social ties than those who were dating. Several significant interaction effects between gender and relationship status also occurred.

Value: The present study found that both gender and relationship status plays a role in how social network experiences and lends some support to marriage and cohabitation serving as “greedy” institutions.

In this paper, the authors present insights and findings drawn from the authors’ experiences of containing a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak in a large prison in northern Italy.Within penitentiaries, close-quarter living is ripe terrain for outbreaks of disease among detainees and staff. If left unchecked, these outbreaks can easily spill over the prison walls to threaten the general public. Moreover, these risks are heightened by preexisting environmental conditions, especially overcrowding. It is thus paramount to establish effective protocols for prevention, early detection and outbreak management. The purpose of this article is to document a strategy that been at least partially successful in reducing the damage that could potentially be caused by a sustained SARS-CoV-2 outbreak within a correctional facility.

The authors conducted a retrospective analysis on patients’ and health-care workers’ medical records to obtain demographic and clinical information. Descriptive data analysis was then carried out.

In total, the authors tested 453 people with oropharyngeal swabs from March 15, 2020, to June 30, 2020. Of these people, 58 were positive and 395 were negative, with a prevalence of 12.8%.Of the 453 patients, 60 were health workers: 24 tested positive for SARS-CoV2 ribonucleic acid (RNA); 18 developed symptoms; and three needed hospitalization.Among patients in detention, 34 resulted positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Two were hospitalized and later died. Both had severe preexisting conditions; they were aged 76 and 59 years old, respectively.

In this study, the authors describe the design and effective implementation of prevention and containment measures against SARS-CoV-2 within the walls of a correctional facility. The authors describe how they rapidly created clean confinement sections to isolate cases in an environment designed for security at the expense of virus containment and how educational efforts have played a vital role in their strategy.

The spread of the Internet has transformed the dating landscape. Given the increasing popularity of online dating and rising immigration to Canada, this study takes an intersectional lens to examine nativity and gender differentials in heterosexual online dating.

In 2018, a random-digit-dial telephone survey was conducted in Canada. Logistic regression models were used to analyze original data from this survey (N = 1,373).

Results show that immigrants are more likely than native-born people to have used online dating in Canada, possibly because international relocation makes it more difficult for immigrants to meet romantic partners in other ways. In online-to-offline transitions, both native-born and immigrant online daters follow gendered scripts where men ask women out for a first date. Finally, immigrant men, who likely have disadvantaged positions in offline dating markets, also experience the least success in finding a long-term partner online.

Extending search theory of relationship formation to online dating, this study advances the understanding of change and continuity in gendered rituals and mate-selection processes in the digital and globalization era. Integrating search theory and intersectionality theory, this study highlights the efficiency of using the Internet to search for romantic partners and the socially constructed hierarchy of desirability as interrelated mechanisms that produce divergent online dating outcomes across social groups. Internet dating, instead of acting as an agent of social change, may reproduce normative dating practices and existing hierarchies of desirability.

This chapter explores courage as an emotionally involved form of action. The notion of courage is challenging as we have physical, psychological, moral and existential forms of courage but also because what engenders courageous actions is still somewhat of a puzzle within social science. Firstly, I introduce the main forms and explanations of courage. Secondly, dating is discussed to illustrate how courage is an important analytical category to understand people's actions. In dating persons often overcome their fear of being rejected. During the COVID-19 crisis, new insecurities and fears were added to the practice of dating which now could imply both fear of being infected and fear of moral condemnation by others who would consider dating a morally irresponsible behaviour. Thirdly, I discuss theoretical and methodological implications of a mini analysis of a story about active and direct dating interactions during the first lockdown period in Denmark during the COVID-19 crisis. Often courage is thought of as so extraordinary that it is not part of people's ordinary social life. But it is not. People do experience situations that call forth courage, which implies overcoming fear and insecurity in striving to realise goals more important than avoiding feeling such uncomfortable emotions – situations in which they cannot merely rely on routine and/or self-confidence and others' trust. Consequently, this chapter explains how and why courage is an important analytical category for the sociological enterprise. Finally, the conclusion offers some reflections concerning courage and dating in future neo-COVID predicaments and how courage can be studied methodologically speaking.

Although relational commitment increases the likelihood that intimates will confront each other about relational problems, commitment may promote decisions to withhold complaints in some circumstances. We conducted a survey of undergraduate daters that focused on the conditions under which relational commitment prompts individuals to express or withhold relational complaints. As expected, we documented a positive association between relational commitment and the willingness to confront a partner; the magnitude of this association was stronger among respondents who had dated for less than a year compared to those who had been involved for a longer time. Despite this general trend, we also found that relational commitment was positively associated with withholding grievances because the respondent believed that the problem was minor and perceived the partner would not change. Finally, we observed an interaction between relational commitment and partner's supportiveness when predicting the number of complaints withheld. Among individuals who were not very committed to their relationships, the association between partner supportiveness and the number of irritations withheld was negative and statistically significant. Among highly committed respondents, the same association was positive and not significant.