Do you know about TED? From Wikipedia: TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading”. I don’t know very much about TED, except that once in awhile I zip over to the site to look around. I regularly run across links to videos of talks given at TED events and watch if I have 20 minutes to spare (TED talks are generally restricted to 20 minutes). I thought about going to a TED event until I found out the cost (around $6,000 each). Thank goodness for the Internet and videos.
Anyway, I stumbled on this video of Helen Fisher talking at TED about “Why we love and cheat.” Helen Fisher is the Rutgers anthropologist that Match.com asked to develop the science behind Chemistry.com. I heard her talk at at matchmaking convention a few years ago. She is fascinating.
If you enter “Helen Fisher” in the search box on the TED site, there are quite a few entries. I plan to do some watching over the next few days, and you might want to consider doing so as well. If you want to know the “why and how” behind romantic love, she is on the cutting edge.
Regular readers know that I comb the NY Times for tidbits. This article in the Style section last month was a lot more than a tidbit. In fact, there were so many juicy bits that I have pulled some out for your edification:
The major dating sites had more than 593 million visits in the United States last month
Of the romantic partnerships formed in the United States between 2007 and 2009, 21 percent of heterosexual couples and 61 percent of same-sex couples met online
81 percent of people misrepresent their height, weight or age in their profiles
People tend to tell small lies because, since they may eventually meet in person.
People were most honest about their age, probably because they can claim ignorance about weight and height. A different study found that women’s profile photographs were on average a year and a half old. Men’s were on average six months old.
Liars tend to use fewer first-person pronouns. Liars use more negative words like “not” and “never,” yet another way of putting up a buffer. Liars use fewer negative emotion words like “sad” and “upset,” and they write shorter online personal essays. (It’s easier not to get caught if you say less.)
Same dates same: Internet dating shows a very high proportion of same-ethnicity dating—white more than black, women more than men, and old more than young prefer a same-race partner.
Women prefer men who are slightly overweight, while men prefer women who are slightly underweight and who do not tower over them. Women have a stronger preference than men do for income over physical attributes.
Unwillingness to state political affiliations—“People were much more likely to say ‘I’m fat’ than ‘I’m a conservative.’ ”
I’ve had a clipping from the New York Times sitting on my desk for months now, yellowing. It is too good to throw away, but too complicated for me to summarize in any meaningful way. So I am going to put a link here and hope it stays active so that you can see it too.
The graph presents census data on interracial and interethnic marriages, spelling out graphically who is doing what to whom, or at least marrying. Regardless of what individuals say (indicating openness to matches with other racial or ethnic groups), more than 91% marry the same as they are. That almost 9% who cross racial and ethnic lines is more than double that of 30 years ago. And the accompanying artcle suggests that we are heading for more and more loosening.
According to the graph, white men (5.3%) and women (4.4%) “marry out” at the lowest rate, while American Indians “marry out” at the highest rates, around 55% for both genders.
But take a look at the graph. You’ll find it very interesting, I’ll bet.
