Positioning Multiraciality in Cyberspace: Treatment of Multiracial Daters in an Online Dating Website |
American Sociological Review
Volume 80, Number 4 (August 2015)
pages 764-788
DOI: 10.1177/0003122415591268
Celeste Vaughan Curington
Department of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Ken-Hou Lin, Assistant Professor of Sociology
The University of Texas, Austin
Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Professor of Sociology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
The U.S. multiracial population has grown substantially in the past decades, yet little is known about how these individuals are positioned in the racial hierarchies of the dating market. Using data from one of the largest dating websites in the United States, we examine how monoracial daters respond to initial messages sent by multiracial daters with various White/non-White racial and ethnic makeups. We test four different theories: hypodescent, multiracial in-betweenness, White equivalence, and what we call a multiracial dividend effect. We find no evidence for the operation of hypodescent. Asian-White daters, in particular, are afforded a heightened status, and Black-White multiracials are treated as an in-between group. For a few specific multiracial gender groups, we find evidence for a dividend effect, where multiracial men and women are preferred above all other groups, including Whites.
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Tags: American Sociological Review, Celeste Curington, Celeste V. Curington, Celeste Vaughan Curington, Jennifer H. Lundquist, Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Jennifer Lundquist, Ken-Hou Lin