Some Advice for Gold-Diggers

The Los Angeles Times reports that membership at online dating sites has increased substantially this year; eHarmony, for example, was up 20 percent.
In light of the economy, we wonder how many of these online daters joined up to do some gold-digging. They should be careful. As research by Gunter Hitsch, Ali Hortacsu, and Dan Ariely makes clear, income is often vastly overstated on online dating sites.
So potential gold-diggers might do better to meet up with a potential partner face-to-face to see if there’s really any gold there. A new study by Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner, psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that people reveal their socioeconomic status in live interactions. Undergrads with a higher socioeconomic status, for instance, were found to be ruder when interacting with others than students of a lower SES.
According to a report in Live Science:

It comes down to our animalistic tendencies, Kraus explained. Like a peacock’s tail, the seemingly snooty gestures of higher SES [socioeconomic staus] students indicates modern society’s version of “I’m fit,” and “I don’t need you.”