IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/118862.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Love or politics? Political views regarding the war in Ukraine in an online dating experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Beloborodova, Anna

Abstract

How polarized is Russian society regarding the war in Ukraine? Political views have an impact on various behaviors, including relationship formation. In this paper I study the extent of polarization in the Russian society regrading the war in Ukraine by conducting a field experiment on a large Russian dating site and collecting data on more than 3,000 profile evaluations. The findings reveal sizable penalties for those who express pro-war or anti-war positions on their dating profiles, suggesting considerable levels of polarization in the Russian society regarding the war. Age of the online dating site users is the most divisive factor, as younger individuals are less likely to approach pro-war profiles but not anti-war profiles, while older individuals are less likely to respond positively to profiles indicating anti-war views but not pro-war views.

Suggested Citation

  • Beloborodova, Anna, 2023. "Love or politics? Political views regarding the war in Ukraine in an online dating experiment," MPRA Paper 118862, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:118862
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/118862/1/MPRA_paper_118862.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raymond Fisman & Sheena S. Iyengar & Emir Kamenica & Itamar Simonson, 2008. "Racial Preferences in Dating," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(1), pages 117-132.
    2. Michelitch, Kristin, 2015. "Does Electoral Competition Exacerbate Interethnic or Interpartisan Economic Discrimination? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Market Price Bargaining," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 43-61, February.
    3. Raymond Fisman & Sheena S. Iyengar & Emir Kamenica & Itamar Simonson, 2006. "Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence From a Speed Dating Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 673-697.
    4. Michèle Belot & Marco Francesconi, 2013. "Dating Preferences and Meeting Opportunities in Mate Choice Decisions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(2), pages 474-508.
    5. David Ong, 2016. "Education and income attraction: an online dating field experiment," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(19), pages 1816-1830, April.
    6. Christopher McConnell & Yotam Margalit & Neil Malhotra & Matthew Levendusky, 2018. "The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 5-18, January.
    7. Brecht Neyt & Stijn Baert & Jana Vynckier, 2022. "Job Prestige and Mobile Dating Success: A Field Experiment," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 435-458, November.
    8. Neyt, Brecht & Vandenbulcke, Sarah & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Are men intimidated by highly educated women? Undercover on Tinder," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    9. Hobolt, Sara B. & Leeper, Thomas J. & Tilley, James, 2021. "Divided by the Vote: Affective Polarization in the Wake of the Brexit Referendum," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 1476-1493, October.
    10. Gunter J. Hitsch & Ali Hortaçsu & Dan Ariely, 2010. "Matching and Sorting in Online Dating," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 130-163, March.
    11. Ong, David & Wang, Jue, 2015. "Income attraction: An online dating field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 13-22.
    12. Easton, Matthew J. & Holbein, John B., 2021. "The Democracy of Dating: How Political Affiliations Shape Relationship Formation," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 260-272, November.
    13. Egebark, Johan & Ekström, Mathias & Plug, Erik & van Praag, Mirjam, 2021. "Brains or beauty? Causal evidence on the returns to education and attractiveness in the online dating market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Neyt, Brecht & Vandenbulcke, Sarah & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Are men intimidated by highly educated women? Undercover on Tinder," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Ong, David & Yang, Yu (Alan) & Zhang, Junsen, 2020. "Hard to get: The scarcity of women and the competition for high-income men in urban China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Eva Raiber & Weiwei Ren & Jeanne Bovet & Paul Seabright & Charlotte Wang, 2023. "What Do Parents Want? Parental Spousal Preferences in China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(3), pages 903-939.
    4. Quentin Lippmann & Khushboo Surana, 2022. "The Hierarchy of Partner Preferences," Discussion Papers 22/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
    5. Egebark, Johan & Ekström, Mathias & Plug, Erik & van Praag, Mirjam, 2021. "Brains or beauty? Causal evidence on the returns to education and attractiveness in the online dating market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. Adda, Jérôme & Pinotti, Paolo & Tura, Giulia, 2020. "There's More to Marriage than Love: The Effect of Legal Status and Cultural Distance on Intermarriages and Separations," CEPR Discussion Papers 14432, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo, 2016. "Field Experiments on Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 22014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Pierre-André CHIAPPORI & Sonia OREFFICE & Climent QUINTANA-DOMEQUE, 2016. "Black-White Marital Matching: Race, Anthtopometrics and Socioeconomics," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 399-421, December.
    9. Wang-Sheng Lee & Terra McKinnish, 2018. "The marital satisfaction of differently aged couples," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 337-362, April.
    10. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo, 2016. "Field Experiments on Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 22014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Brecht Neyt & Stijn Baert & Jana Vynckier, 2022. "Job Prestige and Mobile Dating Success: A Field Experiment," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 435-458, November.
    12. Cassar, Alessandra & Zhang, Y. Jane, 2022. "The competitive woman: Evolutionary insights and cross-cultural evidence into finding the Femina Economica," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 447-471.
    13. Soohyung Lee & Muriel Niederle, 2015. "Propose with a rose? Signaling in internet dating markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 731-755, December.
    14. Nie, Guangyu, 2020. "Marriage squeeze, marriage age and the household savings rate in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    15. Bruze, Gustaf, 2010. "New Evidence on the Causes of Educational Homogamy," Working Papers 10-18, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    16. You, Jing & Yi, Xuejie & Chen, Meng, 2021. "Love, life, and “leftover ladies” in urban China: Staying modernly single in patriarchal traditions," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. Afridi, Farzana & Arora, Abhishek & Dhar, Diva & Mahajan, Kanika, 2023. "Women's Work, Social Norms and the Marriage Market," IZA Discussion Papers 15948, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Günter Hitsch & Ali Hortaçsu & Dan Ariely, 2010. "What makes you click?—Mate preferences in online dating," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 393-427, December.
    19. Karbowski, Adam & Deja, Dominik & Zawisza, Mateusz, 2016. "Perceived female intelligence as economic bad in partner choice," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 102, pages 217-222.
    20. David Ong, 2016. "Education and income attraction: an online dating field experiment," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(19), pages 1816-1830, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    affective polarization; relationship formation; assortative mating; field experiment; war in Ukraine;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:118862. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.