Tag-team dating can improve success, MIT says

Sometimes the "mating game is a team sport," and romeos looking for love will likely have more success when traveling with a wing man than when operating solo.

So concludes an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management after a study of courtship.

"Friends will try to help you find partners to your liking, weed out undesirables, and support you in other ways," said the professor, Joshua M. Ackerman.

Ackerman's quote is included in a press release issued by MIT Sloan. The release focuses on a recent article published in the "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin," which was written by Ackerman and Douglas T. Kenrick of Arizona State University.

In preparing their study, the researchers "quizzed volunteer subjects on dating attitudes and behavior, presented them with hypothetical scenarios, and even staged an abbreviated television-style dating game," the MIT Sloan release said.

The researchers also turned to the animal world. Male wild turkeys cooperate to court a female, they note. And so too do mammals, "including lions and higher primates."

Higher primates, presumably, also includes college students.

On the human front, one common ploy cataloged by the researchers might be called "Platonic friends."

"Platonic friends sometimes pretend to be romantic partners to help each other in dating," the press release said. '"If you're a woman, saying someone is your boyfriend creates a barrier," says Ackerman. "If you're a guy, saying someone is your girlfriend makes you more desirable to women."'

To read the full press release, which also explores how men and women use their friends in different ways in courtship strategies, please click here. (Globe Staff)