Quite a number of speed dating events occur in New York, both for Jewish and general groups of singles. So do they help people meet and marry? According to some of the comment on an article that appeared this week in Discovery News, the answer is yes. However, the fact that the title of the article is ""Why Speed Dating Rarely Works" indicates that it often is an exercise in futility and frustration. In an analysis of speed dating with nearly 1870 partipants for each sex, the researchers found "overall, as option variety increased, the number of proposals decreased. Some participants made no choices at all, while those who did choose were less likely to select the consensually preferred mate." Why?
"Speed dating presents individuals with such an unnatural number of choices that people either usually avoid making selections or choose the wrong person, according to a study in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters." It seems that even animals can get overwhlemed by too many choices because the brain focuses better with only a limited number of selections. That explains why grocery shopping can be such an exhausting experience. With so many varieties of breakfast cereal, laundry detergent, and even napkins to select from, one has to go through numerous calculations to try to make the best choice on all we have to put in the cart. Ah, yes, that is what Barbara Fasolo, from the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science found: "variety backfires and is an impediment to choice in the context of mate choice, something that has been shown in consumer choice, and have myself documented in the context of supermarket assortments."
Applying that to situations that are not as concentrated as speed dating but still seem to offer limitless choices, it "could help to explain all sorts of transaction and social failures, from inability to select a proper home after viewing dozens to what could be called the 'George Clooney effect' -- the inability of some people to" select one among "multiple attractive, wealthy and otherwise desirable partners." Even for those who do attend speed dating events in search of a possible mate, it is better to look at each person in relation to yourself rather than in relation to all the others you meet. Or, as some have put it, it's impossible to commit to one, if you're always going to be looking over his/her shoulder to see if there is someone out there that may be better.
Related post: https://www.examiner.com/jewish-bridal-in-new-york/the-danger-of-a-dinner-date
Comments