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Motives for engaging in online dating: A meta-synthesis

Jenna L McPherson,Claudia Q. Luu,Jessica Nguyen,Melanie Garcia,Rachael D. Robnett

Published 2025 in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

ABSTRACT

Quantitative research illustrates that people have a range of motives for engaging in online dating. Although this work has yielded important insights, the experiences of participants from marginalized backgrounds are sometimes obscured or omitted in quantitative research. Accordingly, we conducted a meta-synthesis of 21 qualitative studies that focus on people’s motives for engaging in online dating. Some of these studies focused on people who identified as sexual minorities or with other groups that are underrepresented in the quantitative literature. We used thematic analysis to synthesize the qualitative findings reported across the 21 studies. Results illustrated that people’s motives for engaging in online dating can be characterized by eight overarching themes. These motives replicate and broaden the pool of motives that have been documented in the quantitative literature. Findings also revealed sociodemographic variation in the motives participants reported. For example, sexual minority participants were more likely than heterosexual participants to report that they use online dating to access specific populations of prospective partners. We draw from these findings to make several conceptual and methodological recommendations for future research focusing on online dating motives.

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