The Gain-Loss Theory Of Social Media

This study found the gain-loss theory of attraction is applicable and holds true when social media is used as the initial judgment platform. Subjects significantly rated their likeness of confederates who had a negative profile higher than those with a positive one after meeting them in person. The implications of this are critical in today’s world for many reasons. First, this study undermines the entire online dating industry, which is heavily scrutinized as it is. These services claim to be able to match people together through magic love algorithms and they will be compatible. Their business model has customers searching for the best, most compatible, and most positive profiles in searching for love. Our study contradicts this model of …show more content…
First, subjects were all college-aged students with psychological backgrounds. While using an age of subjects that are functional social media experts gives this study more internal validity, it may prove differently had we used the oft highly opinionated moms and grandmothers on Facebook, or conversely with high school and middle school aged children. Another limitation we faced was the ability to control for the face-to-face conversation. Subjects were given the listed topics to guide discussion but it is difficult to control for subject matter and keeping the confederates character or aura the same throughout each discussion. There certainly could have been some self-reporting bias involved as well with each questionnaire. Finally, the subjects own thoughts on social media personality could not be controlled for, as every subject reported having their own social media presence when asked. Depending on their view on how important social media is, or if they had previously had a positive or negative experience in meeting someone through social media, this could add or take weight to how much the subjects rated their initial likeness towards …show more content…
By bridging the gap between gain-loss and social media literature, I believe it opens the door for further studies concerning this topic. It would be interesting to see a study done on gain-loss on dating websites and how effective it may be. The problem lies therein in that no one would want to go on a date with someone they have any negative feelings toward based off their online profile. Another area that deserves attention is the connection between the amounts of influence someone has on social media vs. in real life. There are some people who are considered “Instagram famous”, with thousands of dedicated followers, but they are nothing more than a normal person outside of the social media world. If a similar study was done in which amount of followers or influence was used as the independent variable the results could be significant and serve as another piece of the puzzle as to why we feel the things we do based off only judging someone through a social media