The researchers also found that White women paired with a Black partner were more likely to be viewed as rebellious, stubborn, controlling, cynical, promiscuous, and/or arrogant, which partially explained why they were perceived as being lower in status.
“It’s important to note that our study focused on the perspectives of White participants, who in penalizing White women are reacting to women of their
own group dating outside that group,” Stillwell said.
“We focused here on Whites because, being at the top of the American racial hierarchy, Whites hold and benefit from norms against interracial relationships more so than other racial groups, and have used their powerful position to enforce these norms throughout American history. Non-White racial groups do not share these means and motives; thus, we should not assume that these results generalize to all racial groups.”
Gendered double-standards for interracial relationships are present in other racial and cultural groups, but they appear to be driven by their own unique social factors and motives, Stillwell said.
“For example,
a recent paper suggests that perceived mate competition motivates negative attitudes towards interracial relationships among Asian men and Black women. This nuance is lost if we overgeneralize these results to non-White individuals,” she explained.
