Displaying Taste Information Reduces Educational Homophily on Online Dating Platforms

Online dating has reshaped the process of partner selection; however, concerns remain that it may reinforce social class divisions by promoting educational homogamy. Conversely, shared tastes can foster connections between social classes. This study examines whether displaying taste information on an online dating platform can mitigate educational assortative mating. We analyzed large-scale user decision logs ($N > 100,000$ decision events) on the Japanese dating site ``Tapple'' before and after a user interface (UI) change that altered the prominence of users' taste tags, creating a quasi-experimental design. Our analysis revealed that (i) taste similarity significantly predicted match formation, even after controlling for standard attractiveness metrics, and (ii) prominently displaying taste information reduced female users' preference for educationally similar partners, an effect most notable among highly educated women during the ``accept'' phase of approaches from men. The findings suggest that emphasizing taste information through UI design can be a practical means of reducing educational homogamy and potentially fostering more diverse romantic connections.