Brief Report: Tinder Users Are Risk Takers and Have Low Sexual Disgust Sensitivity

Tinder is the leading online dating application. The users have different motivations to use the application, and casual sex is one of the major ones. Having casual sex has risks for the individuals’ health and safety. Casual sex may also result in suboptimal sexual behaviors. This study aimed to answer three questions: (1) Do Tinder users and non-users differ in their sexual disgust and health/safety risk-taking? (2) Does sexual disgust sensitivity and health/safety risk-taking predict the motivation use Tinder for casual sex? And, (3) does sex influence these differences? Results from 271 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers showed that Tinder users take more health/safety risks and have lower sexual disgust sensitivity than non-users. Also, propensity of health/safety risk-taking and sexual disgust sensitivity predicts the motivation to use Tinder for casual sex. Furthermore, the effects of health/safety risk-taking and sexual disgust on Tinder use operated differently according to sex.