A Critical Review of Motivations Driving Tinder Application Use

This report presents a critical review of the article "Using Tinder® to start a fire: Predicting antisocial use of Tinder® with gender and the Dark Tetrad." The study investigates the motivations behind Tinder usage and explores the relationship between personality traits and antisocial behaviors on the app. The research involved a survey of 587 participants, revealing that men are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors compared to women. The study also highlights factors like curiosity, excitement, and entertainment as motivators for using Tinder. The report evaluates the study's strengths, such as its exploration of gender utility, and weaknesses, including the limitations in data collection measures and gender ratio in the sample. The findings suggest that the results could potentially mitigate risks associated with using Tinder, informing policy makers and moderators to predict and prevent antisocial behaviors, ultimately promoting a safer online dating experience.

Motivations for using
Tinder

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................................3
Summary.................................................................................................................................................3
Critical Evaluation...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Tinder has today become one of the popular applications that simplifies the process that
most of the dating websites require. The application shows photos of people based on the
preference of an individual (Botnen and et.al., 2018). They can swipe right if they like the person
or swipe left if they don’t like them. Although the app is poplar, but the reasons behind users
interacting through it are not clear. This critical review will provide an understanding of the
aims, methods as well as results that are used in the article. It will also evaluate the different
strengths as well as weaknesses of the research article.
MAIN BODY
Summary
Zoe Duncan and Evita March, in their article “Using Tinder® to start a fire: Predicting
antisocial use of Tinder® with gender and the Dark Tetrad” have hypothesized that the males as
well as the higher scores on the personality traits would predict perpetration of antisocial
behavior on the respective app, Tinder. A total of 587 people participated in the research study
out of which 79% were females whereas the remaining 21% were males. Apart from this, of the
complete sample, it was identified that 56.2% people were single. All of the participants had
previously used Tinder and 45.7% of them currently had active profiles. The strengths of the
study were that it explored the idea of gender utility for the first time. Also, the main ideas of the
study were that as compared to women, men are more likely to engage in behaviors that are
antisocial when dating online. The method that was used in order to collect information from the
participants was a questionnaire with an information letter for the participants. This was one of
the strengths of the study because the questionnaire helped the researchers in collecting
appropriate as well as reliable information to be included in the study.
Some of the other arguments of the respective study were that in the modern world, the
use of applications as well as websites and online dating that help the users in meeting potential
partners has become common (Kallis, 2020). There are some unique benefits of online dating, as
mentioned in the article, such as opportunities to meet a large number of potential partners as
well as enhanced control and privacy as compared to interacting face-to-face. It was found that
the results of the study supported the hypothesis partially whereas it was also found that for

antisocial self-esteem, the levels of the trait Machiavellianism were higher for women. Lastly,
the different conclusions that were made from the study include that the policy makers as well as
moderators of Tinder to predict the likelihood of an individual of displaying different behaviors
that are anti-social (Using Tinder® to start a fire: Predicting antisocial use of Tinder® with
gender and the Dark Tetrad, 2021). Therefore, it can be said that the results of the study can be
used to mitigate any risks or dangers that may arise while using the app Tinder. This can help the
individuals using the app to have a safe as well as an enjoyable experience.
Critical Evaluation
The respective study is focused on examining the predictors of the various antisocial
behaviors on online dating (Niehuis and et.al., (2020). And it is especially focused on Tinder,
which is a popular dating app. Furthermore, a particular implication of the respective study is the
construction of a scale that is designed to assess these antisocial behaviors on the app. The
researchers of the respective study have paid attention to the motivations of the individuals in
order to use the Tinder app. And from the study, the major motivators among individuals to use
Tinder were found to be passing time, excitement, relaxing, curiosity as well as entertainment.
Besides this Tinder motivations have also been linked to presenting self on the app. It can be said
that till date, there are no studies as such that have explored the antisocial behaviors during
online dating. The results of the study indicate that different variables are responsible for
different types of antisocial behaviors on the app. While undertaking the study, there were also
certain limitations that the researchers encountered. Such as despite the scale yielded effective
internal consistency, the researches that are conducted in the future should take in to account
equal ratio between the two genders.
This will help in obtaining appropriate results for the data that has been collected by the
researcher. As mentioned, the aim of the respective study was to explore the differences between
the two genders in Tinder, an assessment of both active as well as non-active users on the app
was done. Other types of antisocial behavior that was identified among the participants was that
individuals who had a high level of trait Machiavellianism, might be more inclined towards
strategically using Tinder (Ranzini and Lutz, 2017). And the main reasons that were identified
behind this were an effort in order to increase their self-worth as well as ego. Therefore, on
critically reviewing the article, it can be said that the results of this study should be used in order

to identify the risks that can affect the future researches. As a result, the future researches can be
conducted in an effective manner. one of the other limitations that were identified in the
respective study was that there was a limited availability of measures that were adopted for data
collection (Stoian, 2019). The researcher could have adopted other measure for collecting data
from the participants.
CONCLUSION
From the above review, it can be said that the article has contributed to my existing
knowledge in a significant manner. I got an opportunity to understand the different antisocial
behaviors among individuals who currently have an active account on Tinder, a popular dating
app. It can be concluded that as compared to women, males are found to display different
behaviors that are considered to be antisocial. It can also be said that there can be various factors
that contribute towards increasing the motivation of individuals to use Tinder. These included
entertainments, passing time, curiosity, excitement etc.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Botnen, E. O., & et.al., (2018). Individual differences in sociosexuality predict picture-based
mobile dating app use. Personality and Individual Differences, 131, 67-73.
Kallis, R. B. (2020). Understanding the motivations for using Tinder. Qualitative Research
Reports in Communication, 21(1), 66-73.
Niehuis, S. & et.al., (2020). Guilty pleasure? Communicating sexually explicit content on dating
apps and disillusionment with app usage. Human Communication Research, 46(1), 55-85.
Ranzini, G., & Lutz, C. (2017). Love at first swipe? Explaining Tinder self-presentation and
motives. Mobile Media & Communication, 5(1), 80-101.
Stoian, M. S. (2019). ‘Friends, dates and everything in between’: Tinder as a mediating
technology. Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, 10(01),
49-57.
Online
Using Tinder® to start a fire: Predicting antisocial use of Tinder® with gender and the Dark
Tetrad. 2021. [Online]. Available through:<
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331978465_Using_TinderR_to_start_a_fire_Pr
edicting_antisocial_use_of_TinderR_with_gender_and_the_Dark_Tetrad>.