We May Not Be as Color Blind as We Think in Dating and

Marriage, Shows Stanford Research

STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In the last 30 years, interracial marriage in the United States
has more than doubled, from 6.7 percent in 1980 to just over 15 percent in 2010, according to a
2012 Pew Research Center report.Yet given that minorities comprise 37 percent of the U.S.
population and will exceed 50 percent by 2043, according to the U.S. Census Bureau mixed-race
marriage remains relatively rare. The vast majority of Americans still settle down with someone who
looks a lot like them. What's more, a recent study shows that apreponderance of the same-race
marriages in America are the result of personal preference and not just environmental factors, like
living in a homogenous neighborhood.
The research, conducted by Neil Malhotra, a political scientist at Stanford Graduate School of
Business,looked at racial preferences expressed at one of the earliest possible stages of a
relationship: when a dating site user scrolling through headshots and brief bios of potential mates
chooses which ones to click on for more information.
Malhotra and his colleagues Ashton Anderson, a Stanford doctoral sex talk online free candidate in
computer science, and Greg Huber, a political scientist at Yale teamed up with scientists at
Microsoft Research to analyze a vast store of anonymous profiles on Yahoos now defunct online
dating site, Yahoo Personals. They sought to examine how strongly a users stated preference for the
race of a potential partner matched up not only with the race of the potential suitors whose photos
he or she clicked on, but also with his or her political ideology.
They found that even when respondents said they couldnt care less about a dates race, their actions
spoke louder: the majority overwhelmingly viewed profiles of same-race prospects. We find not only
that a large proportion of our population states a same-race preference and acts on it, but that even
individuals who state that they do not have a preference act as if they do.
The researchers focused on heterosexuals who identified themselves as either white or black. Their
sampling was socioeconomically and geographically diverse, and unusually large, drawing on data
from the activity logs of more than 250,000 people who had used Yahoos online dating service for

two months in 2009. On their demographic profiles, the subjects had noted whether they considered
a partner of the same race a must-have, a nice-to-have, or unimportant, and rated their political
views on a five-point scale, from very liberal to very conservative. They also controlled for factors
such as income, education level, religion, and drinking habits, among many others. Though the racial
makeup of the data group roughly mirrored online chat with sexy that of the U.S. population, the
gender split skewed heavily male, to 75 percent, reflecting the relatively high proportion of men
typical of online dating sites.
Liberals were less likely than conservatives to both state a preference for a same-race preference
and act on that preference. That does not mean liberals are more colorblind; even liberals who
claimed they had no racial preferences exhibited them through the profiles they opened.
The study showed, however, that ideology has little bearing on a persons willingness to express
same-race preferences relative to acting on them, Malhotra wrote.
Conservatives are more likely than liberals to state a same-race preference, but for any given level of
stated preferences, both conservatives hot chatting website and liberals show a similar propensity to
act, the research paper says.
In other words, liberals were no more likely than sexy chat groups conservatives to exhibit a
discrepancy between their stated and revealed preferences. Going into the study, Malhotra says,
some speculated that liberals might claim to be less concerned about race than they actually were
because they wanted to signal to potential dates and themselves that they were open-minded and
free-thinking people.
What are the implications at a policy level? Even though a more integrated society strengthens
communities and creates opportunities, racial homogamy remains the norm. Same-race marriage
derives partly from personal preference, and it cant be changed merely by creating more
opportunities for individuals of different races to interact, write the researchers.
Racial homogamy persists even among people who say race doesnt matter, and its especially
prevalent among political conservatives. We seem to be on a trend toward more interracial
marriages and therefore more mixed-race children, says Malhotra. But our findings raise concerns
that these patterns are mainly manifesting themselves among liberal enclaves in America, further
heightening the cultural divide between left and right. Policymakers seeking to reduce political
polarization clearly have their work cut out for them.
The complete paper, Political Ideology and Racial Preferences in Online Dating, can be accessed at:
http://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/volume 1/february_/Political Ideological and Racial
Preferences in Online Dating.pdf
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140408005516/en/Color-Blind-Dating-Marriage-Shows-S
tanford-Research