The Aphrodite Project is an annual

matchmaking Matchmaking is the process of pairing two or more people together, usually for the purpose of marriage, in which case the intermediary or matchmaker is also known as a marriage broker. Matchmaking may be done as a profession for a fee or it may ...

event that takes place on university campuses in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. Students fill out a questionnaire built on psychology research to be matched with their most ideal date on campus using classical and machine learning algorithms. The platform incorporates psychology questions including a participant's

Big Five personality traits In personality psychology and psychometrics, the Big 5 or five-factor model (FFM) is a widely-used Scientific theory, scientific model for describing how personality Trait theory, traits differ across people using five distinct Factor analysis, ...

attachment styles Attachment theory is a psychological and evolutionary framework, concerning the relationships between humans, particularly the importance of early bonds between infants and their primary caregivers. Developed by psychiatrist and psychoanalys ...

habit A habit (or wont, as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. A 1903 paper in the '' American Journal of Psychology'' defined a "habit, from the standpoint of psychology, ...

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live ( normative ethics), or to describe the significance of different a ...

lifestyle Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture. The term "style of life" () was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in his 1929 book, ''The Case of Miss R.'', w ...

belief A belief is a subjective Attitude (psychology), attitude that something is truth, true or a State of affairs (philosophy), state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some Life stance, stance, take, or opinion ...

s, relationship preferences, and future goals. The platform further matches for common hobbies using

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

History

Founded in 2019, the platform started out as a psychology and economics experiment at the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

inspired by papers in

relationship science Relationship science is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to the scientific study of interpersonal relationship processes. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, relationship science is made up of researchers of various professional backgrounds wi ...

as well as the 1962 Gale-Shapley stable matching algorithm by

David Gale David Gale (December 13, 1921 – March 7, 2008) was an American mathematician and economist. He was a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, affiliated with the departments of mathematics, economics, and industrial ...

and

Lloyd Shapley Lloyd Stowell Shapley (; June 2, 1923 – March 12, 2016) was an American mathematician and Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist. He contributed to the fields of mathematical economics and especially game theory. Shapley is generally conside ...

to the

stable marriage problem In mathematics, economics, and computer science, the stable matching problem is the problem of finding a stable matching between two equally sized sets of elements given an ordering of preferences for each element. A matching is a bijection from ...

. Within a few days from launch, the platform immediately received over 1,000 student sign-ups. The platform later expanded to the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

for

Valentine's day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a Christian martyrs, martyr named Saint Valentine, Valentine, and ...

in 2020 During the 2020 pandemic, the team conducted with a one-off

blind experiment In a blind or blinded experiment, information which may influence the participants of the experiment is withheld until after the experiment is complete. Good blinding can reduce or eliminate experimental biases that arise from a participants' expe ...

with an expanded psychology questionnaire of over 150 questions on thousands of students with the advice of psychology researchers Professor Geoff McDonald and Julie Cachia, a Ph.D. candidate in

affective science Affective science is the scientific study of emotion or affect. This includes the study of emotion elicitation, emotional experience and the recognition of emotions in others. Of particular relevance are the nature of feeling, mood, emotionall ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

to empirically improve the algorithm and questionnaire. Over the pandemic and through 2022, the platform rapidly expanded to more universities in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States, including

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1981, it is also the second oldest autonomous university in the country. The university is organised across numerous colleges and schools, includi ...

Singapore Management University Singapore Management University (SMU) is a publicly funded private university in Singapore. Founded in 2000, SMU is the third oldest autonomous university in the country, modelling its education after the Wharton School. The university is trip ...

Hong Kong University The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

, and the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

. As of 2024, the platform has connected 85,753 people with at least six marriages since its beginnings.

Reception

In 2021, Harvard economics professor Dr. Scott D. Kominers stated that the Gale-Shapley algorithm is "great" for a one-time matchmaking service like the Aphrodite Project but leaves room for error in how the project ranks each participant's prospective match. "The algorithm requires the assumption that agents have strict preferences over prospective partners," he says. This assumption means that the Aphrodite Project must use participants' responses about their own lives and carefully extrapolate to help rank participants' possible matches.

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper at Harvard University, an Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The newspaper was founded in 1873, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduate students. His ...

published an article highlighting that the project "is very intentional compared to some of the other matching platforms, particularly because of the psychology research that goes into the questionnaire". However, it highlighted concerns with options for dealbreaker exclusions on the basis of race that the project defended as they "do not wish for anyone to feel the pain of outright rejection due to any aspect of their own identity". Carnegie Mellon University's The Tartan highlighted the lower risk of rejection of the platform and the platform's design for people to "come as they are". In 2024, Singapore's

The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' (also known informally by its abbreviation ''ST'') is a Singaporean daily English-language newspaper owned by the SPH Media Trust. Established on 15 July 1845, it is the most-widely circulated newspaper in the country and ...

highlighted positive interview experiences from student participants, the platform's alternative to dating apps on the market that are subject to swipe fatigue, and the at least four marriages that resulted from the platform since 2019. However, the article also noted that some participants still sometimes face being ghosted by their match.

References

{{reflist Online dating services