I think you have to be very careful with self reporting across the board because by it's nature it's inherently prone to all sorts of bias and false conclusions.
For example, in this particular example, men could be accurate in what they're saying and it still not move numbers of approaching women for dates to a perceptable level for women or by scientists who were observing as a 3rd party naturalist or anthropologist. Right?
Could very well be that being afraid of being g labeled a creep is just the latest justification for not deing with anxiety of asking for a date. Before, it was he didn't have enough money to date. Before that it was because he was still living at home. Before that it was he was unemployed. Next it will be because he's out of shape or just had no energy because he's depressed. Whatever.
The problem with a lot of self reporting surveys is that they are often leading, draw false conclusions because they don't eliminate contributing variables, or just think the one question answers something it didn't really answer. Science writers have a bad habit of stoking outrage or hysteria over these surveys by flat out misreporting or conflating their findings. And then everyone loses their collective shit. The infamous 80/20 hyperamy "study" that has been used to troll, harass, and shame women by the manosphere is a prime example.
The study actually shows that men are hypergamous. Not women. But even then, we can only fairly say it applies to men's behavior on dating apps. We can't assume they're the same or that the same dynamics apply in normal IRL dating or that it's the same across all dating apps. There might be something about okCupid's particular design and format, including the proliferation the amount of fake women's profiles, that is driving the behavior or skewing the results.
I'd guess that that's the case. Dating apps seem to be plagued with nefarious actors, griftors if you will. Young men, in particular, may be acting like bees lured in by orchids because of their tendency toward hypergamy.
