Learn · Marketing claims translated
Pre selection
Invented example
Be seen with other women and she'll assume you're worth wanting.
Ideas it might be pointing at
A short claim can stand for several different ideas. Each is set out here with how well it is supported, and whether that support goes toward the advert's promise.
| Idea | What it is | Evidence | Does this support the advert? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social influence | Judgments shaped by what other people do. | Evidence: Supported with caveats1 | Partly. Other people's behaviour often shapes judgment, but the review covers compliance and conformity studies, not attraction. |
| Mate copying in ratings | Rating a pictured person as more desirable after seeing them with a companion. | Evidence: Supported with caveats2 | Partly. Ratings sometimes rose, depending on the rater's sex and the companion's attractiveness, with high heterogeneity and some publication bias. |
| General social learning | Copying others' judgments of anything, not only of partners. | Evidence: Plausible3 | No. In one experiment, peers' ratings shifted judgments of faces no more than of hands and abstract art. |
| Real choices | Whether company changes who is actually approached or chosen. | Evidence: Plausible4 | Untested. No cited study tested real approaches or choices; all measured ratings of pictures, descriptions or recordings. |
| Perceived interest | Sensing that the other person is interested in you. | Evidence: Supported with caveats5 | No. Perceiving that someone is interested goes with somewhat more interest in them; what goes with interest there is sensing the other person's interest, not the company they keep. |
What would make it testable
As stated, it cannot be tested. It names no setting, no comparison and no measure of choice, and the studies behind the idea rated pictures.
A testable version Among adults at a social event, is a person seen talking with a group approached more often than the same person seen alone, recorded by observers, with the order randomised?
The useful question underneath
Feeling that you have to prove your worth before anyone could be interested.
Lessons that use this
Sources
Each numbered mark above opens the evidence behind that idea: the label, what it does not show and where it comes from.
Evidence: Supported with caveatsPeople's judgments and choices are often shaped by what others around them do or say, and researchers explain this by three motives: wanting to be accurate, wanting to keep social ties, and wanting a favourable self-image.
Why this label
Several studies agree, with stated limits such as student samples or lab settings. Demonstrates: a review of 1997 to 2002 compliance and conformity research organises social influence around those three goals and notes that it often works subtly and outside awareness. Marketing framing: dating marketing commonly turns this into 'social proof' as a lever that makes someone more attractive (common framing, unattributed). The review is not about dating.
What it does not show
- Narrative review of work from 1997 to 2002, not a meta-analysis
- Mostly lab and field studies of compliance, not romantic attraction
- No large registered replication of the social-proof literature as a whole found
- Samples are largely Western and student
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Source
- Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J. (2004). Social Influence: Compliance and Conformity, Annual Review of Psychology.
Evidence: Supported with caveatsIn studies where people rate a man or woman shown with an opposite-sex companion, women rated men as more desirable when a woman was shown with them, but men rated women as no more desirable, except when the companion was made more attractive, when both sexes rated the target higher.
Why this label
Several studies agree, with stated limits such as student samples or lab settings. Demonstrates: a systematic review and meta-analyses found the copying effect for women's ratings but no clear effect for men's ratings, a sex difference that disappeared when the companion's desirability was manipulated. Marketing framing: dating marketing commonly says 'pre-selection' makes a man attractive, summed up as be seen with women and she will want you (common framing, unattributed).
What it does not show
- High heterogeneity in effect sizes and moderate publication bias favouring positive results (per the abstract)
- Mostly ratings of photographs or descriptions by students, not real approaches or choices
- Self-reported desirability, not behaviour
- No large registered replication found
- Cultural range of included samples is limited
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Sources
- Gouda-Vossos, A., Nakagawa, S., Dixson, B. J. W., Brooks, R. C. (2018). Mate Choice Copying in Humans: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology.
- Hill, S. E., Buss, D. M. (2008). The Mere Presence of Opposite-Sex Others on Judgments of Sexual and Romantic Desirability: Opposite Effects for Men and Women, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Evidence: PlausibleIn one experiment, women's ratings of men's faces shifted after seeing real peers' ratings, but no more than their ratings of hands and abstract art, so the shift may reflect general social learning rather than a special mate-choice mechanism.
Why this label
One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. Demonstrates: the authors found social information changed attractiveness ratings of faces, hands and art about equally, and conclude that evidence for a mate-specific mechanism is weaker than previously suggested. Marketing framing: 'pre-selection' is commonly presented as a special attraction trigger that works on desire in particular (common framing, unattributed).
What it does not show
- Single study, women only, rating pictures
- Ratings of unknown faces, not choosing partners
- No large registered replication found
- Does not show mate copying is absent, only that it was not stronger than for other judgments
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Source
- Street, S. E., Morgan, T. J. H., Thornton, A., Brown, G. R., Laland, K. N., Cross, C. P. (2018). Human mate-choice copying is domain-general social learning, Scientific Reports.
Evidence: PlausibleThe mate-copying studies measure how observers rate pictured or filmed people; none of the studies cited here tested whether being seen with other people makes a real person more likely to be approached or chosen.
Why this label
One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. Demonstrates: the studies cited here used pictures, descriptions or speed-date recordings with self-reported interest, so they cannot show that staging company works in real dating. See reciprocal-liking-c1 for evidence that perceiving the other person's own interest goes with more interest in them, and attraction-triggers-c6 for the gap between advertised hidden triggers and the research. Lessons must not teach using people as props or provoking jealousy. Marketing framing: dating marketing commonly says 'pre-selection' makes a man attractive, summed up as be seen with women and she will want you (common framing, unattributed).
What it does not show
- Claim about what the cited studies did not test; it is not a claim that the effect is absent
- Observer ratings, not real-world outcomes
- Student and Western samples
- No large registered replication found
Who it applies to
Depends on the setting and the people involved.
Sources
- Gouda-Vossos, A., Nakagawa, S., Dixson, B. J. W., Brooks, R. C. (2018). Mate Choice Copying in Humans: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology.
- Place, S. S., Todd, P. M., Penke, L., Asendorpf, J. B. (2010). Humans show mate copying after observing real mate choices, Evolution and Human Behavior.
- Waynforth, D. (2007). Mate Choice Copying in Humans, Human Nature.
Evidence: Supported with caveatsPeople who perceive that a particular person likes them tend to report somewhat more interest in that person, although the speed-dating evidence for this is limited and the studies cannot show which comes first.
Why this label
Several studies agree, with stated limits such as student samples or lab settings. In speed-dating, desire that was unique to a pair showed some reciprocity, and in a seven-month study of singles, perceiving that a potential partner was interested was one of the robust positive predictors of one's own interest.
What it does not show
- The speed-dating report is a short report with 156 undergraduates; its full text was read in the S7.1 check, which confirmed the pattern; the reciprocity correlation it reports is small (r = .14). The r = -.41 in the same report belongs to a different finding, that desiring many people predicted being desired less (c3).
- All three sources are correlational: perceived interest and one's own interest are measured by self-report at the same time, so they do not show that being liked causes liking in return.
- Luo and Zhang describe only 'some support' for reciprocity, so the effect is not uniform across samples.
- These are population averages; they do not tell you whether a given person likes you.
- The Luo and Eastwick 2022 abstracts support only 'some' reciprocity and perceived interest as a predictor.
Who it applies to
A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.
Sources
- Eastwick, P. W., Finkel, E. J., Mochon, D., Ariely, D. (2007). Selective Versus Unselective Romantic Desire: Not All Reciprocity Is Created Equal, Psychological Science.
- Luo, S., Zhang, G. (2009). What Leads to Romantic Attraction: Similarity, Reciprocity, Security, or Beauty? Evidence From a Speed‐Dating Study, Journal of Personality.
- Eastwick, P. W., Joel, S., Carswell, K. L., Molden, D. C., Finkel, E. J., Blozis, S. A. (2022). Predicting romantic interest during early relationship development: A preregistered investigation using machine learning, European Journal of Personality.