Creativity, Expectancy Violations, and Impression Formation: Effects of Novelty and Appropriateness in Online Dating Profile Texts

Abstract

This experimental study investigates how novelty and appropriateness – the two criteria of creativity – affect impressions formed of online dating profile owners. More specifically, it examines how both criteria influence perceived romantic attractiveness, and whether expectancy violations and person perceptions (i.e., originality and oddness) mediate these effects. Participants (N = 295) were members of a dating platform who were presented with dating profile texts that met one or both criteria: (a) not novel and appropriate, (b) novel and appropriate, or (c) novel and inappropriate. In line with the expectations, results show that novel texts are less expected, and that their writers are perceived as more original and, in turn, as more romantically attractive. Writers of novel and non-novel texts are evaluated as equally attractive though, suggesting that appropriateness is a stronger determinant of romantic attractiveness. That is, novel texts that are inappropriate violate expectations more negatively than those that are appropriate, increasing oddness and, accordingly, decreasing romantic attractiveness. Findings suggest that novelty and appropriateness are two important creativity dimensions that explain effects of dating profile texts on impression formation. Moreover, we show that the expectancy violations theory is a useful framework to study creativity and impression formation in online dating.

Creativity, Expectancy Violations, and Impression
Formation: Effects of Novelty and Appropriateness in
Online Dating Profile Texts
Tess Van der Zandena,b and Alexander Peter Schoutenb
aDepartment of Languages, Literature and Communication, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands;
bDepartment of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands
ABSTRACT
This experimental study investigates how novelty and appropri-
ateness – the two criteria of creativity – affect impressions
formed of online dating profile owners. More specifically, it
examines how both criteria influence perceived romantic attrac-
tiveness, and whether expectancy violations and person percep-
tions (i.e., originality and oddness) mediate these effects.
Participants (N = 295) were members of a dating platform who
were presented with dating profile texts that met one or both
criteria: (a) not novel and appropriate, (b) novel and appropriate,
or (c) novel and inappropriate. In line with the expectations,
results show that novel texts are less expected, and that their
writers are perceived as more original and, in turn, as more
romantically attractive. Writers of novel and non-novel texts
are evaluated as equally attractive though, suggesting that
appropriateness is a stronger determinant of romantic attrac-
tiveness. That is, novel texts that are inappropriate violate
expectations more negatively than those that are appropriate,
increasing oddness and, accordingly, decreasing romantic
attractiveness. Findings suggest that novelty and appropriate-
ness are two important creativity dimensions that explain
effects of dating profile texts on impression formation.
Moreover, we show that the expectancy violations theory is
a useful framework to study creativity and impression formation
in online dating.
The growing popularity of online dating also means an increasingly competi-
tive environment to get your dating profile noticed and liked (Markowitz et al.,
2018). People spend little time scrutinizing a dating profile and make the
decision to like or dislike a potential partner swiftly (D’Angelo & Toma, 2017).
Although the profile picture is often the first and most important cue to
evaluate a potential partner, research has shown that the profile text also
plays an important role in impression formation and dating profile evaluation
CONTACT Tess Van der Zanden t.vanderzanden@uu.nl Department of Languages, Literature and
Communication, Utrecht University, Trans 10, Utrecht 3512 JK, Netherlands
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY
2024, VOL. 27, NO. 6, 842–868
https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2023.2295526
© 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on
which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their
consent.

(Van der Zanden et al., 2022). Most dating profile texts, however, are fairly
similar in content, listing mostly basic interests, and often fall into clichés (e.g.,
Masden & Edwards, 2015; Tong & Van der Heide, 2022, p. 69; Whitty, 2008).
One possible way to appear attractive is crafting a creative profile text. Van
der Zanden et al. (2022) found that perceived profile text creativity related to
perceived profile owner attractiveness. These results may be explained from an
expectancy violations framework (EVT; Burgoon, 1993). A creative profile text
is usually unexpected in online dating as most profile texts lack novelty and
uniqueness. A creative profile text does not conform to this expected standard
and may thus violate online daters’ expectations, which in turn may affect their
impressions of the profile owner.
Following EVT (Burgoon, 1993), this violation of expectancies could both
positively and negatively influence these interpersonal impressions, dependent
on whether the communicative outcome (here: profile text) is better (positive
expectancy violation) or worse than expected (negative expectancy violation).
Positive and negative expectancy violations can color impressions about the
personality of the person responsible for the violation (e.g., D’Angelo & Van
Der Heide, 2016; DelGreco & Denes, 2020; Ramirez & Wang, 2008). If the
consensus among online daters is a common, generic profile, writers who
deviate from this, and thus go against the expected, may be evaluated as
original. On the other hand, violating expectancies may also result in the
profile owner coming across as odd, particularly if the expectancy is negatively
violated. Both perceptions of profile owner originality and oddness are in turn
likely to influence perceived attractiveness (Van der Zanden et al., 2022).
Whether a profile owner is seen as original or odd thus likely depends on
the creativity of the profile text. Stein (1953) was one of the first who for-
mulated a broad definition of creativity: “the creative work is a novel work that
is accepted as tenable or useful or satisfying by a group at some point in time”
(p. 311). Still, scholars widely agree that novelty and appropriateness are the
two criteria of creativity (Runco & Jaeger, 2012). Novelty (also referred to as
originality, unusualness) is the first and most important criterion and refers to
an idea or product being unusual and different from what is regularly encoun-
tered in that specific context. The second criterion is appropriateness (also
referred to as usefulness, valuable): a novel idea or product should also be
meaningful within the context for which it is produced. To illustrate, a job
application letter that is fully written in rhyme is highly novel as such applica-
tion letters appear infrequently but is at the same time inappropriate.
However, if all applicants start to write rhyming application letters, it only
takes time until recruiters consider it common, while it may still be novel in
the online dating context where users rarely encounter rhyming profile texts.
Thus, creativity in online dating texts may differentially affect perceived
romantic attractiveness through perceived originality and oddness depending
on whether the profile text is both novel and appropriate or novel and
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY 843

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	Not novel, appropriate	Novel, appropriate	Novel, inappropriate
Metaphors	Literal language “I’m always friendly to others”	Metaphor with clear analogy “I’m as friendly as the big friendly giant of Roald Dahl”	Metaphor with unclear analogy “I’m as friendly as a blue Stabilo ballpoint”
Concrete self-disclosure (SD)	Low intimate general SD “If we go on a date, I would like to have fun while doing some nice activity together” Positive general SD “I am adventurous and I regularly seek for unexpected and exciting situations”	Low intimate concrete SD “If we go on a date, I would like to do this while enjoying a Verdejo and nachos from the oven” Positive concrete SD “I am adventurous. In Guatemala I parachuted out of an airplane from 3142 meters.”	High intimate concrete SD “If we go on a date, I would like to do this while enjoying a Verdejo and nachos from the oven, just like I did with my two previous dates” Negative concrete SD I am adventurous. My hobby is skydiving and I’ll not be quitting that to financially support you”

Type of variable	Variable	Not novel, appropriate (n = 98)	Novel, inappropriate (n = 95)	Novel, appropriate (n = 102)
Text perceptions	Novelty	4.39 (1.72)^a	6.01 (1.32)^b	5.27 (1.52)^c
	Appropriateness	5.35 (1.47)^a	3.27 (1.78)^b	5.06 (1.63)^a
	Creativity	3.33 (1.61)^a	3.71 (1.92)^a	4.58 (1.58)^b
Expectancy violations	Violations	3.79 (1.14)^a	5.31 (1.16)^b	4.64 (1.08)^b
Expectancy violations	Valence	3.52 (1.63)^a	2.72 (1.49)^b	3.76 (1.55)^a
Person perceptions	Originality	3.43 (1.27)^a	4.51 (1.23)^b	4.15 (1.36)^c
	Oddness	2.88 (1.09)^a	4.92 (1.36)^b	3.76 (1.40)^c
	Creativity	3.53 (1.50)^a	3.92 (1.46)^a	4.34 (1.53)^b
	Romantic attractiveness	3.48 (1.23)^a	2.91 (1.35)^b	3.43 (1.28)^a

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Text novelty
2. Text appropriateness	−.35**
3. Text creativity	.23**	.22**
4. Expectancy violations	.57**	−.41**	.15**
5. Violation valence	.07	.42**	.65**	−.11
6. Person originality	.44**	−.07	.50**	.43**	.42**
7. Person oddness	.37**	−.61**	−.16**	.53**	−.47**	.17**
8. Romantic attractiveness	−.12*	.41**	.37**	−.18**	.60**	.25**	−.44**

Contrast	Effects	β	SE	Lower	Upper
		Product of coefficients		Bootstrapping 95% BCa Confidence Interval
Not novel (n = 98) vs. novel (n = 197)	Total indirect effects	−0.02	0.08	−0.18	0.15
	Nov. >> EV >> R.	−0.29	0.07	−0.45	−0.16
	Nov. >> Orig. >> R.	0.13	0.05	0.03	0.25
	Nov. >> EV >> Orig. >> R.	0.14	0.04	0.08	0.22
Novel, inappropriate (n = 102) vs. novel, appropriate (n = 95)	Total indirect effects	0.49	0.10	0.31	0.68
	Appr. >> VV >> R.	0.32	0.08	0.18	0.49
	Appr. >> Odd >> R.	0.10	0.05	0.02	0.20
	Appr. >> VV >> Odd >> R.	0.08	0.03	0.02	0.15

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