Selling yourself short: How sexualized online dating profiles affect viewers’ perceptions and relationship intentions

People often use sexualized images in their online dating profiles to stand out. However, this strategy can backfire, hurting their chances of finding a partner. Three studies examined the effects of sexualized profiles on how viewers see profile owners while investigating why and when sexualization can have negative effects. Across all studies, unpartnered participants assessed sexualized and non-sexualized dating profiles, providing ratings on their perceptions of profile owners and their own relationship intentions. Study 1 revealed that owners of sexualized profiles faced heightened negative judgments and were perceived as less desirable partners (although these findings should be regarded as preliminary due to the use of different profile owners across conditions). Study 2 found diminished interest in establishing long-term relationships with sexualized profile owners due to perceiving them as less suitable partners. Study 3 showed that adding humanizing self-descriptions counteracted the negative effects of sexualization for female profiles but not for male profiles. These findings suggest that whether sexualization leads to negative judgments depends on its contextual meaning.