Although online dating allows us to access a wider pool of romantic partners, choice could induce an ‘assessment mindset’, orienting us toward ‘optimal’ or alternative partners and undermining our willingness to commit or remain committed to someone. Contextual changes in judgements of facial attractiveness can shed light on this issue. We directly test this proposal by activating a context where participants imagine choosing between items in picture slideshows (dates or equally attractive desserts), observing its effects on attraction to i) faces on second viewing and ii) novel versus familiar identities. Single women, relative to single men, were less attracted to the same face on second viewing (Experiments 2 and 4), with this sex difference only observed after imagining not ‘matching’ with any romantic dates in our slideshow (i.e., low choice, Experiment 4). No equivalent sex differences were observed in the absence of experimental choice slideshows (Experiment 3), and these effects (Experiment 2) were not moderated by slideshow content (romantic dates or desserts) or choice set size (five versus fifteen items). Following slideshows, novel faces were more attractive than familiar faces (Experiment 1), with this effect stronger in men than in women (Experiment 2), and stronger across both sexes after imagining ‘matching’ with desired romantic dates (i.e., high choice, Experiment 4). Our findings suggest that familiarity does not necessarily ‘breed liking’ when we have the autonomy to choose, revealing lower-order socio-cognitive mechanisms that could underpin online interactions, such as when browsing profiles and deciding how to allocate effort to different users.

尽管在线约会使我们能够接触到更多的浪漫伴侣，但选择可能会诱发“评估心态”，将我们导向“最佳”或替代性伴侣，并削弱我们对某人做出承诺或保持承诺的意愿。面部吸引力判断的上下文变化可以阐明这个问题。我们通过激活一个上下文来直接测试这个提议，参与者想象在图片幻灯片中的项目（日期或同样有吸引力的甜点）之间进行选择，观察它对 i）第二次观看时的面孔和 ii）新颖与熟悉身份的吸引力的影响。与单身男性相比，单身女性在第二次观看时对同一张脸的吸引力较小（实验 2 和 4），这种性别差异仅在想象与我们幻灯片中的任何浪漫约会不“匹配”（即，低选择，实验 4）。在没有实验选择幻灯片（实验 3）的情况下，没有观察到等效的性别差异，并且这些影响（实验 2）不受幻灯片内容（浪漫约会或甜点）或选择集大小（五个对十五个项目）的调节。在幻灯片放映之后，新面孔比熟悉面孔更具吸引力（实验 1），这种效果在男性中比在女性中更强（实验 2），并且在想象与理想的浪漫约会对象“匹配”（即高选择，实验 4）。我们的研究结果表明，当我们有选择的自主权时，熟悉并不一定会“产生喜欢”，这揭示了可能支持在线交互的低阶社会认知机制，例如浏览个人资料和决定如何为不同用户分配精力时。