Read the article excerpt and change the words in CAPITALS to fill in the blanks.

(Word formation)

1. ……. [IDEAL], any potential date deserves a fresh look, 2. …….. [AFFECT] by what you thought of the last person you saw. But new research suggests that we may not be giving prospects a fair chance when we switch or swipe from one profile to another on dating apps and Web sites. In a study described in March in Scientific Reports, female subjects saw men’s faces on a screen for 300 milliseconds—about the 3. …… [long] of a very short view on a dating app such as Tinder. After each face, they judged it attractive or not. The researchers found that faces were more likely to be judged attractive when they followed other attractive faces. (…) in the new study, the 4. ………. [EXPOSE] was so brief that an individual face was not fully processed, and thus it took on qualities of the previous face. Jessica Taubert, one of the lead authors of the paper and a researcher at the University of Sydney, advises online daters: “Be 5. …… [MIND] that your brain has limited cortical resources.” In other words, slow down! In another new paper, in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers asked whether contrast effects occur when judging 6. ……. [PERSONAL]. 7. ………. [PARTICIPATE] viewed two dating profiles. When the first person came across as 8. …….. [CARE] (“I get bored talking about feelings and stuff”), the second person, who was nice but unattractive, seemed much more 9. ……… [APPEAL]. In real profiles, people might not appear as 10. …….. [BLATANT] callous as in this study, but other personality traits could be turnoffs that bias 11. ………’ [VIEW] later decisions.

To read the whole article/check your answers, go to: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-follies-of-speed-swiping-in-dating-apps/

Key: 1. Ideally; 2. unaffected; 3. length; 4. exposure; 5. mindful; 6. personality; 7. participants; 8. uncaring; 9. appealing; 10. blatantly; 11. viewers

Glossary

• folly – a foolish action or belief
• (to) bias – relating to the way people interpret and understand what they see or notice; to cause someone or something to have a bias
• perceptual – relating to the way people interpret and understand what they see or notice; prejudice
• callous – unkind, cruel, and without sympathy or feeling for other people
• turnoff – one that causes loss of interest or enthusiasm

Practice makes perfect

Fill in the gaps in the video extract with correct forms of the verbs in bold below using a given tense (prompted in  brackets)

leave     go          *BBM        fuelx2     get        move

wait         look       do         believe               tuck       writex2

I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O. box at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother 1. ……………. (Present Perfect) in email, in Facebook, in texting or cel phones in general. And so while other kids 2. ……………. (Past Continuous) their parents, I 3. …………. literally ….. (Past Continuous) by the mailbox to get a letter from home to see how the weekend 4. …………… (Past Perfect)., which was a little frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I 5. ……… just ..…… (Past Continuous) for some sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother. And so when I 6. ………. (Past Simple) to New York City after college and 7. …….. (Past Simple) completely sucker-punched in the face by depression, I 8. ……….. the only thing I could think of at the time. I 9. ………… (Past Simple) those same kinds of letters that my mother 10. …………… (Past Perfect) me for strangers, and 11. …….. (Past Simple) them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens of them. I 12. ……….. (Past Simple) them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N., everywhere. (…) Well, today I 13. ………….. (Present Simple) a global organization that 14. …………. (Present Passive) by those trips to the mailbox (…)

*BBM – to send a message using BlackBerry Messenger

Now watch the video and check your answers:

Key: 1. has never believed; 2. were BBM-ing; 3. was (literally) waiting; 4. had gone; 5. was (just) looking; 6. moved; 7. got; 8. did; 9. wrote; 10. had written; 11. tucked; 12. left; 13. fuel; 14. is fueled

Discuss

• Have you ever used any dating apps?
• Have you ever met face to face someone you befriended online? How did the relationship develop?
• Would you marry a person you’ve met online?
• Have you heard of sologamy or autogamy? What do you think of it?

Explore more to create your own teaching-learning experience!

4 Steps to Heed the Call to Lead With Love

If not now, when? If not you, whom?

Read:

https://www.inc.com/moshe-engelberg/4-steps-to-heed-call-to-lead-with-love.html

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