A new online dating app is pitching DNA analysis as a cure for catfishing, endless left swiping, and the myriad other ailments of 21st-century courtship.
Pheramor, which launches this week in Houston with several thousand singles already signed up, operates like a cross between 23andMe and OkCupid. Users swab their cheeks, mail in their samples for sequencing, and then browse profiles of potential dates with whom they’re assigned a compatibility score between 0 and 100 percent.
About the Author Reprints
How do we know this approach works better than meeting someone at work or at Starbucks and going out? Having met my husband at work some years ago, I’m quite skeptical.
For one thing, I knew that he had a job, and—from our interactions—I knew that he was quite intelligent, he had a good sense of humor, and he was passionate about his work.
We were married at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle years go, and all is well. My husband still has a good sense of humor. We talk, we often stop at our local Starbucks to chat with friends, and we take good care of our rescue cat who has digestive tract issues.
Online Dating sites have very big databases, in the range of 20,000,000 (twenty million) profiles, so the Big Five model or the HEXACO model are not enough for predictive purposes. That is why I suggest the 16PF5 test instead and another method to calculate similarity.
High precision in matching algorithms is precisely the key to open the door and leave the infancy of compatibility testing.
Without offering the NORMATIVE 16PF5 (or similar test measuring exactly the 16 personality factors) for serious dating, it will be impossible to innovate and revolutionize the Online Dating Industry.
At the paper “Perceptions of Ideal and Former Partners’ Personality and Similarity”
The authors had written
“…. mismatches in personality are a frequently mentioned cause for relationship break-up. If former partners indeed have dissimilar personalities, our findings underline how difficult it is for many people to select a mate with a similar personality, or, alternatively, how little value individuals put on finding a similar partner in terms of personality.
The present study’s results, as well as the results found in previous studies (e.g., Eastwick & Finkel, 2008), may be used to educate people, especially singles, about what really matters in long-term relationships, for instance, similarity in personality, instead of complementarity.”