Love is Not Colorblind: An Investigation of the Racial Hierarchy of Mate Preferences

Abstract

Not my type is the usual invocation when rejecting potential lovers who don’t align with the racial hierarchy of mating preferences. The largely unchallenged norm of interracial intimacy aversion, particularly how the desire for some racial groups and rejection of others reinforces existing racial inequities, is inconsistent with the blanket notion of greater interracial acceptance. We contend that this acceptance is unequally divided along the same racial hierarchy that exists in the broader public sphere. Our investigation assessed the openness of monoracial and biracial individuals to form interracial romantic relationships. In addition, we partially replicated an interracial mate preference known as the Multiracial Dividend Effect: a pattern whereby monoracial individuals prefer to date multiracial individuals as these interracial relationships may be less likely to carry the perceived disadvantages of interracially dating someone from another monoracial group. Most monoracial groups equally preferred same-race lovers and interracially dating biracials, and they preferred interracially dating someone biracial over any monoracial group. Lastly, biracials were more open to interracially dating any monoracial group than monoracials were to interracially dating each other.