Why women are better at online dating: Researchers say they are more realistic about their own attractiveness - while men are too aggressive and 'mass mail'

Males tend to be focused on their own interests and email many people

Females sent less messages - but to people of a similar attractiveness

Females were found to receive far more replies than males 

Men are far more aggressive on online dating sites - but often 'mass mail' women that are out of their league in the hope of a response, researchers have found.

They say that by comparison, women tend to be more conscious of their own attractiveness to other users and approach fewer people.

The study found major behavioural differences between male and female users when it comes to contacting potential partners.

Scroll down for video 

HOW THEY DID IT 

Using data collected from Baihe, one of the largest dating websites in China, researchers from Binghamton University, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Northeastern University analysed the messages and how suitable each person actually was.

'We found that males like to send a lot of messages to attractive female users, but they don't get a lot of responses,' said Binghamton University PhD candidate Shuangfei Zhai,co-author of the paper.

'We found that males like to send a lot of messages to attractive female users, but they don't get a lot of responses,' said Zhai.

When looking for potential matches, the research shows that women take their own attractiveness into consideration, whereas men are more oblivious to this.

'For females, they're self-conscious because they tend to evaluate the likelihood of getting a response to the user that they're sending messages to.

'In terms of the data, it shows that women have a much larger chance of getting responses from users that they send messages to,' said Zhai.

They say that in particular, males tend to be focused on their own interests and be oblivious toward their attractiveness to potential dates, while females are more conscious of their own attractiveness.

When it comes to messaging users on dating websites, men tend to be more aggressive and contact users they are interested in, whereas women tend to be more conscious of their own attractiveness to other users, according to new research.

Using data collected from Baihe, one of the largest dating websites in China, researchers from Binghamton University, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Northeastern University developed a reciprocal recommendation system that better matches users who are mutually interested in and likely to communicate with each other.

'Our results also reveal interesting behavioral difference between male and female users when it comes to looking for potential dates,' the researchers wrote in the journal Social Network Analysis and Mining.

'In particular, males tend to be focused on their own interest and oblivious toward their attractiveness to potential dates, while females are more conscientious to their own attractiveness to the other side of the line.'