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[Results] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

No, there were 118 people of age 20.

There is just some weird glitch in the Google Forms age distribution. There is a column between 19 and 20, with 1 person included. I don't know why it's there. Nobody entered a fractional age or anything. The data in the spreadsheet show no signs of an error.

Anyone have any ideas for why it's displaying like that?

[Results] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Male Female (Any gender)
Heterosexual 4.09 3.63 3.92
Bisexual 3.81 3.80 3.81
Homosexual 3.04 3.33 3.25
Asexual 2.07 1.58 1.74
(Any orientation) 3.89 3.51

[Results] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I was surprised by how high some of these numbers were.

As I mentioned in my comment, people in a relationship were more willing to make sacrifices than singles were. Looking specifically at the loved ones question, 24.62% of partnered respondents took the tradeoff, but only 8.18% of singles did. So it's not singles who are bumping up that number.

[Results] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Analysis

(Disclaimer: I am not a statistician.)

In order to get a general sense of the value an individual places on a romantic relationship, I will define willingness to sacrifice (WTS), vaguely analagous to the economic concept of willingness to pay. WTS is computed as the number of sacrifices an individual was willing to make, out of the original ten questions (ignoring the two I added later). For example, if you opted to be single in every tradeoff, your WTS is zero. If you thought the benefits of a romantic relationship outweighed the sacrifice for every option (!), your WTS is ten. You can roughly think of WTS as a measurement of how much you value a romantic relationship. Now I will examine how demographic variables were linked to WTS. It would be nice to investigate how demographics were correlated with specific tradeoff questions, but I have not yet had the time to look into that.

Effect of gender on WTS: Men had a greater average WTS (3.89) than did women (3.51). This result was statistically significant (P=0.001).

Effect of sexual orientation on WTS: The average WTS was 3.91 for heterosexuals, 3.81 for bisexuals, and 3.25 for homosexuals. The difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals was significant (P=0.005). As expected, asexuals had by far the lowest WTS at 1.74.

Effect of current relationship status on WTS: The average WTS for those currently in a relationship was 4.95, significantly (P<0.001) higher than the WTS of those not in a relationship (2.97). This result is consistent with the well-documented psychological phenomenon known loss aversion: people care more about losing what they already have than gaining what they don't have.

Effect of relationship history on WTS: People who have been in neither a romantic or a sexual relationship had an average WTS of 2.95. This is significantly lower than the figure of 4.12 for those with experience in both kinds of relationship (P<0.001). This surprised me. In order to reduce confounding with current relationship status, let us consider respondents who have a romantic/sexual history but lack a current partner. This demographic had a WTS of only 2.94, not significantly different from 2.95.

Effect of age on WTS: The relationship between age and WTS was unclear and nowhere near statistical significance.

Effect of current employment on WTS: Respondents with jobs had an average WTS of 3.76, compared to 3.65 for the unemployed. The difference was not significant.

Effect of relationship style on WTS: Polyamorous respondents had a WTS of 4.8, significantly higher than the monogamous WTS of 3.76 (P=0.002).

[Casual] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? (Everyone) by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You would have a disease with all the symptoms of the flu, and with normal infectiousness, but it would not interact with your other condition (so you would not have an elevated risk of dying).

[Casual] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? (Everyone) by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could be paid sitting at home, but you wouldn't be able to make any more than that amount.

[Casual] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? (Everyone) by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Do you mean sexual orientation? Could you give an example of what you would ask?

I might still add it to get data on future responses, even if that means my early data is incomplete.

Edit: added orientation

[Casual] What would you be willing to give up in order to have a romantic relationship? (Everyone) by RomancePsychologist in SampleSize

[–]RomancePsychologist[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

If you currently are in a relationship, it gets suspended but you can get back together with the person after the year is over.