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This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。

Dating apps like Bumble and Tinder can help singles couple up. But online dating is also great for scientists.

像Bumble和Tinder这种约会应用软件能帮助单身男女找到伴侣。但是网上约会对科学家来说很很有益处。

"There's so much folk wisdom about dating and very little hard evidence." Elizabeth Bruch is a computational social scientist at the University of Michigan. She recently used online dating data to answer this question: "What does it mean for someone to be out of your league, and is there a way that we can study that using the techniques of network science?"

“有很多有关约会的民间智慧，但却很少有确凿的证据。”密歇根大学的计算社会科学家伊丽莎白·布如赫说到。她最近用网上约会数据回答了这个问题：“所谓‘配不上的人'是什么样的，有没有方法可以让我们用网络科学技术来研究这个问题？”

Bruch and her colleague Mark Newman studied who swapped¹ messages with whom on a popular online dating platform in the month of January 2014. They categorized users by desirability using PageRank, one of the algorithms behind search technology. Essentially², if you receive a dozen messages from desirable users, you must be more desirable than someone who receives the same number of messages from average users.

布如赫和同事马克·纽曼对一家流行在线约会平台在2014年1月期间的信息来往情况进行了研究。他们利用网页排名按照“合意性”对用户进行了分类，网页排名是搜索技术背后的一种算法。基本上来说，如果你收到了“合意的用户”发来的12条消息，那与从“普通用户”那里收到12条消息的人相比，你肯定更有吸引力。

Then they asked: How far "out of their league" do online daters tend to go when pursuing a partner? "I think people are optimistic realists."

随后他们问到：当追求伴侣时，人们倾向于追求魅力比自已高多少的人呢？“我认为人们都是乐观的现实主义者。”

In other words, they found that both men and women tended to pursue mates just 25 percent more desirable than themselves. "So they're being optimistic, but they're also taking into account their own relative position within this overall desirability hierarchy³."

换句话说，他们发现，男性和女性都倾向于追求魅力值比自已高25%的伴侣。“所以，他们很乐观，但他们也考虑到了自已在整体魅力层级中的相对位置。”

All the graphs and charts are in the journal Science Advances.

这项研究的所有图表都刊登在《科学进展》期刊上。

And the study did have a few more lessons for people on the market: "I think one of the take-home messages from this study is that women could probably afford to be more aspirational⁴ in their mate pursuit."

该研究为婚恋市场上的人提供了一些经验：“我认为这项研究的其中一个关键信息是，在追求伴侣时，女性也许能承担更有抱负的角色。”

They also found that both men and women—but especially women—write longer messages to more desirable partners. So are those wasted words? "What was interesting is it doesn't seem to pay off for women. The only group for whom this pays off is men in Seattle."

他们还发现，男性和女性发给更合意伴侣的信息更长，不过女性尤为如此。那这些信息是无用的吗？“有趣的是，女性发送长信息似乎没什么成效。唯一获得回报的是西雅图的男士。”

And for everyone else, the big picture is this: "We don't have to sort of stab around in the dark, or behave based on some beliefs or norms about what is appropriate. We can actually know if our strategies are working and adjust our behavior accordingly."

而对其他人来说，重点是：“我们不必漫无目的地瞎找，也不必按照某些信念或准则，做出所谓的‘合适的'行为。实际上我们可以知道我们的策略是否奏效，并相应地调整我们的行为。”

In other words, better data could mean better dating.

换句话说，更完善的数据可能会享受到更好的约会。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。