MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Khalid Khan Women's Health Research Unit Multi-disciplinary Evidence Synthesis Hub The Blizard Institute Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Prof. Khan: My co-author talked me into helping him with his online dating and so we embarked on this project. We were fascinated to see if there was any scientific evidence which could help people in their online pursuit of love - and to our surprise there was lots of attraction and persuasion research. There were 86 published studies on attraction and persuasion which met our criteria, and these covered literature in psychology, sociology, and computer behavioural and neurocognitive sciences. Their design features included randomisation in 28 studies, cohort follow-up in 13 studies, cross-sectional evaluation in 37 studies, qualitative analysis in 5 studies and systematic review in 3 studies​. We found that Success in converting initial online contact to a first date is not a complex formula. It relates to simple factors such as a fluent headline, truthfulness of profile, and reciprocity in communication.  Just like when you meet someone in real life, simple actions such as showing interest in the other person (commenting on something in their profile rather than just talking about yourself) goes a long way. (more…)