Personal Ads Research Project - Social Psychology

Social Psychology: Research Project #3
Analyzing Personal Ads

Due April 17th in class

Social Psychology 210 -- Dordt College -- Dr. Sherri Lantinga

Project Purpose	Writing Your Paper
Research Process	Evaluation Criteria

Purpose

Can a list of adjectives persuade us to feel attracted to someone? Or are we fooled by stereotypes and self-presentation motives? The primary purpose of this project is to analyze attraction strategies used in personal ads. A secondary purpose is to familiarize you with how psychological research on this topic is conducted.

Research Process

Collect about 40 different personal ads, half of which are men seeking women and half of which are women seeking men, from a city newspaper (e.g., Sioux City Journal) or a web site of personal ads.
Make 4 lists: what men want in women, what women want in men, what men are offering, and what women are offering. In the appropriate list, write down every adjective or descriptor that you find in your ads. You can make hash marks next to duplicates (e.g., Handsome, 3; enjoy movies, 6)
Read the Davis (1990) article on library reserve (entitled "Men as success objects and women as sex objects"); do not worry about understanding everything in the article -- the goal is to familiarize you with psychological research and not to test your understanding of the details.

Writing Your Paper

In about 4 double-spaced, typed pages, do each of the following:

Identify the source of your ads and the total number of ads that you used.
Summarize your findings from each list. What patterns did you see? Do the things that women (men) offer corrspond to what men (women) want? What kinds of things were left out of the ads?
In a paragraph or two, compare and contrast your methods and results with those of Davis (1990)
Discuss how the theory of self-presentation plays a role in these ads.
You analyzed personal advertisements. Did the advertisers use more peripheral or central routes to persuasion? What are the implications of using a "business approach" to finding a relationship (e.g., think about if you got a stereo through an ad and it wasn't what you expected)?
What do these ads say about our cultural values regarding what's important in a relationship? In what ways do you think these cultural values are appropriate or not?
Any other thoughts or conclusions about these ads?

Attach your tally sheet to your paper; you don't need to include a copy of the ads themselves.

Evaluation Criteria

Papers are worth 50 points. The best papers will (1) include a thorough summary of the observed patterns; (2) make appropriate comparisons to Davis' (1990) research; (3) draw thoughtful conclusions and show good insights regarding the values conveyed in these ads; and (4) meet the format requirements (paper is double-spaced, few mechanical or grammatical errors, tally sheet is attached).

Social Psychology Home Page

Social Psychology Syllabus

E-mail Dr. Lantinga

This assignment is based on work by Gonzales & Meyers (1993) and by Rickabaugh (1999)
this page last revised 1/8/01