Online Dating and Racial Stereotypes

A study at the University of California, Irvine, used the online dating site Yahoo Personals to look at the searching habits and match preferences of online daters. Profiles of people ranging in age from 18 to 50 and who lived in either Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York were analyzed for the study. The study used profiles found on Yahoo Personals between the dates September 2004 and May 2005. What researchers concluded from the study was singles using dating sites "tend to observe racial stereotypes".

... white men prefer Asian and Latino women to African American women as dating partners, and white women favor African American and Latino men over Asian men. Asians, African Americans and Latinos were more likely to include white people as possible dates than white people were to include them ...

For the full story and for some insight by experts to why these racial stereotypes persist, read My Desert and for more information on the dating site, read our Yahoo Personals review.