Race and Attraction, 2009–2014
What’s changed in five years?
NOTE: In the four years since this was written, we’ve made major product changes to improve the experience for everyone on OkCupid.
We looked at race in one of our very first posts, and today we’d like to revisit the topic with fresh data. This article folds in person-to-person interactions, what one individual human being thinks of another.
In 2009
Five years ago, the basics of race and attraction on OkCupid looked like this:
men
— non-black men were less likely to start conversations with black women
— while black men showed little racial preference either way
women
— all women preferred men of their own race
— but they otherwise were less likely to start conversations with both Asian and black men
Here’s how the exact person-to-person numbers looked:
The values in these tables are “preference vs. the average.” Think of them as how likely people are to want to interact with others when it comes to their dating lives.
Has Anything Changed?
In some ways, no. Unfortunately, daters are not more open-minded than they used to be. Here are the numbers from 2009–2014 — view each graph below to move through time.
These numbers reflect different people year-to-year.
One interesting thing is to compare what you see above with what those same users have told us about their racial attitudes. Answers to match questions have been getting significantly less biased over time:
And yet the underlying behavior has stayed the same as far as who they’re most likely to want to date.
This data sparks a couple questions. Let’s tackle those here.
Q: Are you saying that because I prefer to date [whatever race], I’m a racist?
“Preference” vs. racial bias is a much larger cultural debate, especially in the dating sphere. 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.. See below.
Q: 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. 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. These biases can extend to any situation that’s similar to a first date. A job interview. Trying to rent an apartment. Anytime you’re meeting someone new for the first time. We hope that the next time you’re in one of those situations or are meeting someone new on OkCupid, that you are able to think about this data and how it applies to you.
We know you’re more substance than just selfie. Give OkCupid.com a try to connect with people as individual as you are.
