Female Self-presentation through Online Dating Applications

Online self-presentation plays a vital role in online dating applications due to online filtering and contacting the desirable potential partners through presentational clues. Applying qualitative data collected from young female participants and the theoretical Two-Component Model of Leary & Kowalski (1990) on the motivation process and construction process, this paper presents an overview of a study based on the comprehension of participants’ motivation process for dating profiles to explore the construction process of online dating self-presentational approaches. The results indicate that through the self-presentational clues of photography, text, and video display for constructing online dating profiles, young women can selectively and strategically demonstrate the partial and ornamental self with physical and ideological attractiveness. Simultaneously, they struggle with their ideal and real self in the process of online dating self-presentation.