Online dating preferences

In a new study about online dating, Australian researchers looked at how preferences for education levels differed between men and women.
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While we hope to help daters look beyond appearance and connect on a deeper level, there is an evident trend showing that race is a factor for many individuals, and in a consistent way. This might say more about the cultural biases passed down in our society than individuals within it.. All this data is from a dating site. What does that have to do with my life?

While this data is specific to daters, it is in line with trends within our society as a whole. The biases shown in this data tell us about how individuals in our society factor in race when interacting with other individuals.

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This data forces all of us to examine how others view us and how our own internal racial biases cause us to view others. And that goes beyond just dating. Trying to rent an apartment. Sign in Get started. Would I rather be alone, or should I, like, face racism? Jason, a year-old Los Angeles resident, says he received racist messages on different dating apps and websites in his search for love.

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Jason says he faced it and thought about it quite a bit. So he wasn't surprised when he read a blog post from OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder in about race and attraction. Rudder wrote that user data showed that most men on the site rated black women as less attractive than women of other races and ethnicities. Similarly, Asian men fell at the bottom of the preference list for most women.

Sexual racial preference - Wikipedia

While the data focused on straight users, Jason says he could relate. The OkCupid data resonated so much with year-old Ari Curtis that she used it as the basis of her blog, Least Desirable, about dating as a black woman. Curtis works in marketing in New York City and says that although she loves how open-minded most people in the city are, she didn't always find that quality in dates she started meeting online.

After drinks at a Brooklyn bar, one of her more recent OkCupid matches, a white Jewish man, offered this: Curtis describes meeting another white man on Tinder, who brought the weight of damaging racial stereotypes to their date. Other dating experts have pointed to such stereotypes and lack of multiracial representation in the media as part of the likely reason that plenty of online daters have had discouraging experiences based on their race. Melissa Hobley, OkCupid's chief marketing officer, says the site has learned from social scientists about other reasons that people's dating preferences come off as racist, including the fact that they often reflect IRL — in real life — norms.

And in a segregated society, that can be harder in certain areas than in others. Curtis says she relates to that idea because she has had to come to terms with her own biases.

After growing up in the mostly white town of Fort Collins, Colo. If racism weren't so ingrained in our culture, would they have those preferences?

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Hobley says the site made changes over the years to encourage users to focus less on potential mates' demographics and appearance and more on what she calls "psychographics. She also points to a recent study by international researchers that found that a rise in interracial marriages in the U. Curtis says she is still conflicted about her own preferences and whether she'll continue to use dating apps.