Previous research has documented the social costs of sexualized Facebook profiles (Daniels, 2016, 2020; Daniels & Zurbriggen, 2016), yet little is known whether such effects exist in a critically important venue for relationship formation: online dating. Using the stereotype content model, this online experiment examined whether sexualized dating profiles, versus nonsexualized dating profiles, incur social costs (e.g., being rated low on competence, warmth, humanity, liking, social attractiveness, romantic attractiveness, and likelihood of experiencing sexual cyber dating abuse). A total of 262 heterosexual undergraduates (166 women and 96 men) participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to evaluate 2 sexualized or nonsexualized online dating candidates of the opposite sex. Results indicated that sexualized profile owners were evaluated lower on competence, liking, social attractiveness, were perceived to be at a heightened likelihood of experiencing sexual cyber dating abuse, and were considered less likely to seek long-term relationships than their nonsexualized counterparts. Some interaction effects between target gender and sexualization were also observed and discussed.
