According to research published in CyberPsychology & Behavior, Facebook users that disclose their religious affiliation are more likely to also list themselves as being single.
The study, which was conducted by Sean Young, Debo Dutta, and Gopal Dommety, collected data from 150 Facebook profiles.
As Young and his colleagues note, the results of the study found “that people who reported religious affiliation were significantly more likely to report being single than were those who did not include this information. In fact, users listing religious information were almost 1.5 times as likely to report a single relationship status.”
According to Young and his colleagues, those who disclosed their religious affiliation on Facebook may be more likely to also report being single because of their desire to find a romantic partner with the same religious affiliation. As they explain, “people who identify with a religious background might be particularly interested in being contacted by potential romantic partners who have the same religious background.”
The study also found that women were more likely than men to list themselves as single.
There is an important caveat about the study, though. The information obtained came from Facebook users in the San Francisco, Stanford University, or NASA network – making it difficult to generalize these findings to other populations.
Reference:
Young, S., Dutta, D. & Dommety, G. (2009). Extrapolating psychological insights from facebook profiles: A study of religion and relationship status. CyberPsychology & Behavior, Vol 12, No 3.
