Native and non-native readers' evaluations of authors' attractiveness and dating intentions based on non-native dating profiles with and without language errors.

Abstract

Readers form positive or negative attitudinal evaluations of authors based on writing characteristics of texts. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was a difference in how native English readers and non-native English readers evaluate dating profile texts of non-native authors with and without language errors in terms of attractiveness and dating intention. An online experiment was conducted, in which 188 participants took part with 89 Native English readers and 99 German readers. The participants evaluated non-native authors’ attractiveness and their dating intention towards the author’s based on dating profile texts with language errors or without language errors. Findings revealed no significant differences in how native English readers and German readers evaluated non-native authors’ attractiveness and their dating intention towards the author based on text versions with or without errors.