Dating psychology articles

Edward Royzman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, asks me to list four qualities on a piece of paper: physical attractiveness, income, kindness, and fidelity.

Then he gives me 200 virtual “date points” that I’m to distribute among the four traits.

Walk into a room full of people and it won’t take you long to pick out those who appeal to you, based on the colour of their shirt, the style of their shoes, how they speak, or the countless other indicators that work beneath our conscious awareness. Try deliberating your way through all those social signals and weighing them up based on their individual merits and you’ll end up making some strange choices, or going home single.

Curious, then, that this is exactly what many dating sites compel us to do.

As kids grow and mature, they begin identifying more heavily with their peers than with their parents.

Humans are remarkably adept at navigating complex social worlds and instinctively picking up on familiar signs that might indicate compatibility.

As a species we’ve been doing this for millions of years; as individuals all our lives.

'Find out about their interests, passions, hobbies, how they take their tea, how they grew up and their favourite memories.'Madeleine also advises making the questions quirky.

She advises asking: What is your favourite childhood cartoon character and why?