The Role of Race in Online Dating

Do you your dating preferences reflect racial prejudice?

Posted by Chloe

Apr 23, 2009 - 10:31AM

According to a new study by UCI researchers, a lot of online daters single out specific races to date -- and these choices often reflect negative cultural stereotypes about black women and Asian men. The data, which was collected from Yahoo! Personals users in 2004-05, shows that white men tend to look for Asian and Latino dating partners over African-Americans, while white women often exclude Asian males.

Attraction and chemistry play a huge role in whether or not two people are compatible, and it's definitely possible that someone just isn't attracted to a specific characteristic shared by a large population of a certain race. But, at what point does who you're willing to date say something bad about you?

Do our online dating habits mean our society hasn't come as far we thought?

Permalink