Cross-Cultural Blog

I wanted to share an article that I found in a 2004 issue of the North American Journal of Psychology, called “Do Online Matchmaking Tests Work? An Assessment of Preliminary Evidence for a Publicized ‘Predictive Model of Marital Success.’” Right away this source caught my attention, since its first author is James Houran, who lists his affiliation as “TRUE, LLC” (Houran 507). Since the author of this source is associated with one of the most widely-used online dating websites, bias is a strong possibility in this source. Houran’s primary argument is that since compatibility is the big buzz word in online dating culture, online matchmakers need to be more thorough about making publicly available their evidence for claiming that their compatibility tests are scientifically valid (Houran 508). He then goes on to point out that eHarmony, Match.com, and PerfectMatch.com all describe the scientific validity of their matchmaking methods, but none provide specific empirical evidence in support of this.

This sounds like a legitimate argument. However, upon paying a visit to Houran’s site True, I discovered that it was even less satisfactory than the sites he wrote about in providing substantiation for its claims. “Scientific compatibility testing” is a listed selling point, but no elaboration existed; I could not even find links to another page that described True’s process or analyses. I was surprised by this, since Houran wrote his paper with such an air of authority and conviction – however, this shows that I was fooled by his attempts to make his website sound better by putting down his competitors.

In his conclusion, Houran states, “The prospect that millions of singles are making life-changing decisions based on compatibility tests that are not scientifically sound is a sobering one” (521). My question is, how is finding love without scientific intervention such a “sobering” idea? People have been doing it for centuries; “scientific” is not always better when it comes to love, because often love is beyond reason. This quote seemed to imply that online dating websites are the one way to accomplish this, but no matter how much technology we have at our disposal, daters are still perfectly capable of finding love the more old-fashioned, human way.