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Is Paying a Random Transient $20 to Introduce Me to Women Socially

Acceptable?
Richik Neogi

Introduction: Living with chronic social anxiety can be a challenge in the social sphere of
satisfaction with life. Moreover, a 2015 study (N = 553) on the relationship between being
single/being partnered and perceived social support indicates that those who are single scored
significantly lower on emotional well-being versus those who were partnered (Adamczyk &
Segrin, 2015). Approximately 12% of the sample categorized as single reported their mental health
to be “languishing”, 22% reported their mental health to be flourishing, and 65% reported their
mental health to be at a moderate level; in comparison, 6% of partnered individuals reported their
mental health to be languishing, 19% reported their mental health to be flourishing, and 75%
reported their mental health to be at a moderate level. Moreover, a 2011 meta-analysis found that
those who were single had a mean hazard ratio (essentially this measures the probability of death,
so only those 40 and above were included in the sample) of 1.638 versus those who were married
(Roelfs et al., 2011).
In my experience (note that this is not technically an objective assertion), my emotional
well-being has been at its greatest when I was in a relationship of some sort. The primary factors
contributing to this were: increased perceived social support, increased confidence, decreased
measures of social anxiety, and increased satisfaction with life. However, chronic social anxiety
has reinforced in me characteristically avoidant behavior that is seemingly immutable despite
therapy and medication. This has led to a greater degree of social isolation, despite a relative lack
of isolation on the Internet. Trials on dating applications such as Bumble, OkCupid, and Tinder
have yielded little to no results. My analysis has been that it is much easier to interact with other
males than females. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of the study and are an entirely
different psychoanalytic study altogether. Despite my chronic social anxiety, for unknown reasons,
I find it much easier to interact with individuals from Portland’s homeless/street population. It is
plausible that this is because the probability of seeing said individuals again is low or that these
interactions are conducted with no subconscious goals or expectations. In my approximation, I feel
comparatively less socially anxious around these individuals because I do not perceive them as
competition in the social realm. They are also more likely to be straightforward and honest about
their intentions, reducing my natural inhibitions.
It was recently suggested that I take advantage of this ability and engage in a conversation
with one of these transient individuals, eventually steering the conversation towards discussion
about relationships or even just experiences with females in general. The plan would go as follows:
after steering the conversation towards interactions with females, I would offer $20 for the
individual to introduce me to a female he or she thought was suited for my personality. It was
unclear from the suggestion whether the mediator was to remain in place for the entirety of the
interaction (effectively acting as a “wingman” or “silent wingman” of sorts) or whether the
mediator would leave the premises and allow conversation to develop naturally. Nevertheless, my
interpretation of the suggestion is the former. Such an action would essentially be no different than
paying for premium services on dating applications, except that the female being introduced would
potentially not benefit from the interaction; it would act to increase my visibility because I have
difficulty increasing my visibility. However, in my mind it seems somewhat desperate and socially
unacceptable to engage in such behavior. In order to examine whether my perceptions match
reality, a study was conducted gauging the social acceptability of this behavior.
Methods: In order to decrease the possibility of sampling bias, two surveys were created. One
survey (Survey A) was posted on my Facebook wall and shared with Facebook friends. It was also
posted on the subreddit “relationship_advice.” The other survey (Survey B) was posted on the
general subreddit devoted to polls/statistics “SampleSize” and shared with a different Facebook
group chat.
The wording of the question was different for the surveys. Survey A was a one-question
survey asking “On a scale of 1-5, how much would an individual paying $20 to a random transient
person on the street for an introduction to a potential partner (long-term or short-term) influence
your perception of them? (1 = not at all; 5 = very much).” The rating scale was selected to go from
1 to 5 for the purpose of simplifying statistical analysis.
Survey B was a two-question survey worded as follows: 1) “On a scale of 1-5 how socially
acceptable would paying $20 to a random homeless/transient individual to introduce you to a
potential partner (short-term, long-term, casual, any of these) be assuming 1 is completely socially
acceptable and 5 is unacceptable?” and 2) “Does this idea seem like it would work?” Sampling for
both surveys ended at 8:00 PM PST. The raw data can be seen in Table 0.
Statistical analysis was conducted as follows: on Microsoft Excel a column for the discrete
numerical variable “rating” was generating. The frequency was placed in the second column. The
frequencies were summed to calculate the total sample size and the probability of an individual
selecting each “level” of social unacceptability. The expected value or mean was calculated by
multiplying the probability by the response level and taking the sum for all levels. The variance
and standard deviation were calculated using the standard method. Minitab was used to generate
the histogram (Figures 1a-1b). Hypothesis testing (one-sample t-test under H o: µo = 4) versus the
null hypothesis of 4 (my perception of the social unacceptability of such behavior) was conducted
by hand using the Student’s t-test. An unpaired two-sample t-test was conducted by hand with the
assumption of equal variances, since the value of sb2 was approximately 1.14 times that of sa2. This
means we can assume approximately equal variances.

𝑥 −4
𝑠
√𝑛
Equation 1: the equation to calculate the t-values with degrees of freedom na-1 and nb-1,
respectively for Survey A and Survey B.
𝑥 −𝑥
1 1
𝑠 +
𝑛 𝑛
Equation 2: The equation for the two-sample t-test assuming equal variances used to calculate
the t-values with df = (n1 + n2 – 2)
Results: In Table 0, the raw data is displayed and histograms were generated (shown for Survey
A and Survey B) are shown in Figure 1a and 1b.

Mean SEM n 95% CI


Survey A 3.111 0.055 27 (2.999, 3.224)
Survey B 3.764 0.074 17 (3.608, 3.921)
Table 0: The raw statistical data obtained from each survey.

Histogram of Survey A
7

5
Frequency

0
1 2 3 4 5
Score

Figure 1a: The distribution of the sample for survey A.


Histogram of Survey B
6

4
Frequency

0
1 2 3 4 5
Score

Figure 1b: The distribution of the sample from survey B.

The means are significantly different from one another (p < 0.01; Table 2 for the exact
data). The one-sample t-tests suggest that we can reject the null hypothesis (that the mean rating
would be equal to 4) for each survey (p < 0.01 for survey A and p < 0.01 for survey B; Table 1 for
the exact results of the t-test).

Df Test statistic p-value


Survey A 26 -16.2567 p < 0.00001
Survey B 16 -3.1962 p = 0.005964
Table 1: The data from one-sample t-tests (two-tailed) with a null hypothesis of 4 on the
subjective rating scale suggest that we can reject the null hypothesis.

df Pooled sp Test Statistic p-value


Survey B – 42 0.08506 24.8178 p < 0.00001
Survey A
Table 2: The data from the two-sample t-test assuming equal variances (the standard deviations
were pooled and are represented by the value sp). The null hypothesis was that the means of
survey A and survey B were equal (two-tailed t-test).
For Survey B, an additional question asking about the likelihood of the proposed behavior
being successful was asked. Approximately 94% of respondents answered “No” while 6%
answered “Maybe.”
Discussion: It is clear from the data (see Table 1) that my preconceived notions of the degree to
which it is social unacceptable to pay $20 to a transient individual in an effort to introduce me to
females are significantly skewed from the means of both samples. In general, the mean rating of
social unacceptability was lower than expected and significantly different from the hypothesized
value (see Table 1). Nevertheless, both surveys suggest that the social unacceptability of the
proposed behavior errs closer to the side of socially unacceptable than to the side of socially
acceptable (see Table 0). Survey A was particularly vulnerable to sampling bias, since Facebook
friends are typically one step above complete strangers in terms of positive valence in perception
(though not necessarily). Future studies should attempt to separate results based on gender, as it is
highly plausible that there are differences in perceived social acceptability of the behavior based
on gender.

References
Adamczyk, K., & Segrin, C. (2015). Perceived Social Support and Mental Health Among Single vs.

Partnered Polish Young Adults. Current Psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.), 34(1), 82–96.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-014-9242-5

Roelfs, D. J., Shor, E., Kalish, R., & Yogev, T. (2011). The rising relative risk of mortality for

singles: meta-analysis and meta-regression. American Journal of Epidemiology, 174(4), 379–

389. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwr111

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