Applying Sexual Strategy Theory to Dating App Usage

In this thesis, I aimed to understand how sociosexuality, sex, and dating app type interact to predict the frequency of dating app usage among college students. This was done by using two cross-sectional samples at two different universities to investigate this. I anticipated the presence of a three-way interaction between sex, sociosexuality, and the type of dating app to predict dating app usage. The results showed that there was no three-way interaction. However, as predicted, men who score low on sociosexuality will use dating apps less than men who score high on sociosexuality. Furthermore, it was shown that women reported relatively low dating app usage regardless of sociosexuality scores. These findings may be especially important to dating app companies, so they can adjust how they market the apps in addition to assuring maximum user satisfaction. Further, non-heterosexual individuals should be studied to expand the current research, as it can be applied to more dating applications.