An alternative source of data, specifically on racial differences in ethnocentrism, is that which has been mined from the dating website OkCupid in the year 2016 by the Danish researcher Emil Kirkegaard. OkCupid is a US-based dating website in which people take various member-created quizzes, answer direct questions posed by other members, and rank each other's attractiveness, which a view to being able to get in contact with other members and go on dates with them. Kirkegaard provides us with a sample of roughly 68,000 people who have answered specific questions on their 'profile', with a view to persuading another user to go on a date with them (Kirkegaard, 5th May 206).The findings here are very different not only - as we will see - from my own, presented in Dutton et al. (2016a) and in this broader study, but also from many other studies which hint in the same direction. The Ok Cupid data finds that women are more ethnocentric than men no matter what their race, (though the sex difference is very small, with a 0.12 correlation between being female and being ethnocentric), and that white people are more ethnocentric than black people.
However, there are a number of reasons why these data are more dubious than the World Values Survey, despite the very large sample. Most obviously, the people's views are being read by potential dates and so there would be a much stronger incentive to lie in order to make yourself look good. This could potentially explain why men come out as less ethnocentric than women. They are lower in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness than women (Nettle, 2007) and so are more inclined to lie. And they may also understand that women sexually select, to a greater extent than do males, on personality traits (see Buss, 1989). It has been argued that racism (and in general being illiberal) is, in part, negatively correlated with intelligence because more intelligent people better understand the benefits of not being seen as 'racist' in a society in which Multiculturalism is the dominant ideology (Woodley of Menie & Dunkel, 2015). This would be congruous with the OkCupid finding that more intelligent members are lower in ethnocentrism, in the context of the other results. The more intelligent people, because they are being monitored, are more inclined to give the 'correct' answer - that which will best enhance their reputation.
It is very strange that 'white people' are reported to be the most ethnocentric. One possibility is that this site - in essence - appeals to people that want a one-night stand or similar superficial relationship. Being 'white' is found attractive by non-whites because 'whiteness' is dominant in the media and simply in the history of human achievement (Murray, 2006). This makes non-whites want to have sex with whites, as it means that whites have value. Indeed, it has been shown that females (who tend to select for status more than men) who are in multicultural marriages tend to have husbands from countries wealthier and more influential than their own. By contrast, males have wives from countries that are poorer and less influential then their own is. Thus, race and nationality are clearly dimensions of status in sexual relationships (Dutton & Madison, 2016). But this does not, of course, mean that black people would necessarily be more inclined to lay down their lives for white people, show preference for white interests over those of their own race, vote for whites over members of their own race or any other behavior of that kind that might be regarded as low in ethnocentrism.
Further examinations of OkCupid have looked not just at people's stated preferences but at how they actually 'rate' other users, in terms of their attractiveness (Rudder, 14th Sept 2014). Under the OkCupid system, users were asked to rate members of the opposite sex on attractiveness, so these are actual person-to-person interactions. White and East Asian men will penalize black women, while black men do not seem to care about race in terms of judging attractiveness to any significant degree. Women prefer men of their own race - they judge men of their own race to be the most attractive. But, when looking at other races, they also penalize East Asian and black men, whom they see as much less attractive than average. How can we interpret these findings? One possible interpretation relates to race differences in r/K strategy that we have already discussed. We can divide, approximately between two dimensions to a potential mate: finding them highly sexually attractive based on appearance, and the psychological and social qualities which make them a good mate. We would expect K-strategists to be more interested in the latter dimension and, therefore, even if they were more sexually attracted to their own race it would not follow at all that they would be more ethnocentric more generally, because we would expect them to be somewhat less motivated purely by sexual attractiveness. For this reason, rating the sexual attractiveness of people in photographs cannot be regarded as a very good measure of race differences in ethnocentrism as we have defined it. It is certainly interesting that black men, according to these data do not racially discriminate, whereas white and East Asian men do discriminate against black women. In the latter case, it is likely that black women are considered unattractive because they are high in testosterone, and therefore muscular and relatively unfeminine (see Rushton, 1995). In the former case, it may be that black men are attracted to white and Asian women due to their femininity and to black women due to genetic similarity and that they also have slightly different standards of beauty. For example, Freedman et al. (2004) found differences in the evaluation of attractiveness of female figures when comparing white and African American male evaluators. Both racial groups were the most attracted to women with average weight and a Waist to Hip Ratio (WHR) of about 0.7. However, a higher proportion of African Americans favoured an extremely low WHR. In addition, both groups were the least attracted to overweight women, preferring underweight to overweight. However, African American men were less repelled by overweight women than white men were. In that being overweight is associated with low intelligence and low impulse control, it implies that black men care less about these issues as long as the female is highly fertile. It is possible that women, as they are more K-oriented, are slightly more prepared to trade physical attractiveness for genetic similarity (within certain boundaries) - hence their greater preference for men of their own race - but they are also more interested in status than are men, hence their greater attraction to whites, whom they do not penalise.
However, it should be stressed that the extent to which these data allow us to discern race differences in ethnocentrism is unclear. There is a difference between the kind of person with whom you will strongly bond and create a relationship and the kind of person whom you will simply find sexually attractive and, often, people will be prepared to make trade-offs between these two dimensions. Indeed, we would expect those who were K-strategy to make the trade-off against pure physical attraction. If it is so, the fact that black men do not care about race in rating attractiveness tells us nothing about how likely they are to bond with, befriend or lay down their life for a white person or black person differentially. Similarly, the fact that white men seem to find black women sexually unattractive doesn't tell us what their thoughts are about black people, or the likelihood that they would assist a black stranger over a white one. To give another example, a white man might find black women extremely sexually attractive but still regard black people as inferior to white people and be horrified by the idea of having a black family as neighbours or of marrying a black woman, where other considerations will come into play. As such, the OkCupid data, though fascinating, is not especially helpful in understanding ethnocentrism... (Race Differences in Ethnocentrism)
THE GOD DAM WHITE MAN!
Further Reading:
An African-American man would have to earn $154,000 more than a white man in order for a white woman to prefer him.
An African-American man would have to earn $154,000 more than a white man in order for a white woman to prefer him.
A man who is 5 feet 6 inches tall needs to earn an additional $175,000 per year to be as desirable as a man who is about 6 feet tall
A 6'2" man can earn $30,000 less than a 6' man and will be viewed as equally desirable http://home.uchicago.edu/~hortacsu/onlinedating.pdf And an additional several hundred thousand if the African American is short. So, if you a pimp and a short, ugly nigga fiending for Whitey mark up your axing price an additional several hundred thousand dollas!
The Advantage I Possess!
“Asian husband-Asian wife couples are 86% less likely to divorce than a white couple…Marriage works best when Asians are involved…An Asian woman’s chances of divorce are much, much higher with a White husband than a fellow Asian one.”
"Two of the strongest predictors of long-term romantic stability are intelligence and conscientiousness. Those are also the strongest predictors of educational success. So when colleges screen for those traits, they are also screening for good spouses."
Not only are more educated people less likely to divorce, but the ones who do are also less likely to divorce in their second marriages!
This isn’t explained by age of marriage. Although men and women who get married later are less likely to divorce too, the average age of marriage is very similar by educational level in the NLSY79.
So why are more educated people less likely to divorce? Well, a lot that is associated with educational level is also associated with divorce:
1. Higher IQ*.
2. Higher conscientiousness.
3. Higher incomes.
4. More stable family backgrounds.
5. Fewer antisocial traits and behaviors.
6. Lower rates of infidelity compared with the lower classes on average.
7. Slow life history strategy.
8. High assortative mating for educational level means that people with these “good traits” protective or marriage select others with similar “good traits.”
*
https://x.com/DegenRolf/status/1843183221581763049