Yes. Dating research is a thing.

by Chris Gunter, science education editor

In the course of writing a paper on women and STEM, I came across articles in the Journal of Sex Research, as one does. [The “related papers” button on PubMed is one of the best ways ever to let a whole day get away from you.] Given that I have just moved to a new area and may dip toes into the dating pool, and I’m a scientist, of course I had to investigate the latest research on dating, sex, and loooooove.

Let’s start with Langeslag, S. J. E., Muris, P., & Franken, I. H. A. (2012). Measuring Romantic Love: Psychometric Properties of the Infatuation and Attachment Scales. Journal of Sex Research, 1–9. doi:10.1080/00224499.2012.714011. After all, as the authors say, “The high prevalence of romantic love and its extensive effects on people’s lives demand a thorough scientific investigation of this intriguing phenomenon.”

We’ve all experienced (according to a number of references cited within) romantic love at least once in our lives, and can attest to multiple stages with different feelings involved. In order to measure two distinct but not mutually exclusive states, the authors propose a new 20-item Infatuation and Attachment Scales questionnaire. Dutch and Welsh study participants were asked to rate their levels of agreement on a 7-point Likert scale to questions serving as proxies for each state. For example, “I search for alternative meanings to [the person of interest]’s words” was strongly correlated with infatuation, while “I am prepared to share my possessions with [the person of interest]” was correlated with attachment. Not creepy at all. The researchers used a number of statistical analyses to break down the results.

Their conclusions:

-the two variables of infatuation and attachment are “moderately inversely related”;

-agreeing with previous studies, “infatuation is stressful while attachment has a calming effect”;

-they don’t have enough information to say whether or not men and women view this differently;

-with many caveats, their test works.

So, as common sense might suggest, this whole dating thing might be stressful, especially at the start when we are dissecting each other’s every word. Great.

The next study only confirmed this: Willoughby, B. J., Carroll, J. S., & Busby, D. M. (2012). Differing Relationship Outcomes When Sex Happens Before, On, or After First Dates. Journal of Sex Research, 1–10. doi:10.1080/00224499.2012.714012. Nearly 11,000 participants who were not married but said they were in steady relationships took a lengthy online questionnaire, some referred by friends/therapists/clergy members and others by seeing an ad online.

Based on their answers, they fell into one of four groups: (1) had sex prior to dating; (2) had sex on their first date or within the first few weeks of dating; (3) had sex after a few weeks of dating; and (4) had not had sexual intercourse.

These groups were then parsed by their self-reported satisfaction with, and stability of the relationship. In this study, haste in having sex in a new relationship was associated with an “eroding pattern of relationship satisfaction, stability, and positive communication as relationship length increased.” The authors acknowledge that their ascertainment methods resulted in a participant group with more education and more income than a “truly representative sample,” but argue [as authors do!] that their data are meaningful given that they confirm previous results and have a large sample size.

Unfortunately, the authors did not comment on what potential dates might do if we sent them this paper right up front, just to get their reaction.

Let’s say we find this pressure to have a long-term relationship to be too much. In that case, we might be interested in a third article: Mongeau, P. A., Knight, K., Williams, J., Eden, J., & Shaw, C. (2013). Identifying and Explicating Variation among Friends with Benefits Relationships. Journal of Sex Research, 50(1), 37–47. doi:10.1080/00224499.2011.623797.

I learned something right in the abstract:

“Qualitative analysis of these data identified seven types of FWBRs (true friends, network opportunism, just sex, three types of transition in [successful, failed, and unintentional], and transition out).”

Seven types of “friends with benefits relationships”?? The researchers arrive at this stunning number via surveys of 279 university students; in fact, the authors admit that even they started the study thinking there was only “one type” but the survey results lead them to “reject the unitary assumption.” A second survey of 258 students described these seven types and asked the students to pick the paragraph that most closely resembled their own FWBR. All seven types were selected, validating the descriptions, but men and women selected each type with significantly different frequencies. The authors essentially chalk this up to difference between the sexes in the stories we tell ourselves about why we engaged in a relationship in the first place. Hmmmm.

Mongeau et al. include this optimistic tip for those of us trying out dating again: “It is possible that only about 15% of first dates end up generating a romantic relationship.” Great, again. So, if you are a scientist who wants to factor the primary literature into all of your decisions — you have a few choices. If looking for a new long-term relationship, it seems the best tips are the same ones your parents probably mentioned a few times: recognizing the difference between infatuation and attachment, and delaying sex to give the latter time to develop. If you aren’t looking for long-term, then there appears to be a whole menu of alternative relationship patterns to choose from.