Why is mixed race attractive

These sentiments are historically rooted and build on a long history of racial stratification and color segmentation facilitated by the media , social organizations and other cultural forces. It all culminates in a preference for whiteness that privileges black people who appear more like white people.

I wondered: What if people who identified as black simply said they were multiracial? Would people, in turn, tend to rate them as more attractive by virtue of how they self-identified? Research already conducted by sociologist Siohban Brooks and cultural anthropologist Katherine Frank hinted this would be the case. In separate studies of American strip club patrons and workers, they found that female exotic dancers would tell customers they were multiracial as a way to make more money.

For my investigation, I relied on regression analysis and a nationally representative survey, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health , which was originally conducted to track the social outcomes of adolescents through young adulthood.

A diverse team of trained interviewers collected data on 3, black people. The interviewers recorded, among much other information, the skin tone of the respondent on a scale of one to five, hair color, eye color, race and how attractive they perceived the person on a scale from one to five.

I tested whether multiracial black people were rated more attractive than monoracial black people even when accounting for racialized physical features: skin tone, hair color and eye color.

They were. Multiracial identification positively predicted attractiveness regardless of other physical features. Perception , 01 Jan , 39 1 : DOI: Read article at publisher's site DOI : J Dairy Sci, 2 Duvick DN. Nat Rev Genet, 1 Hume DK , Montgomerie R.

Evol Hum Behav, 2 Nat Genet, 11 Suppl :S Evolution, 10 Lippman ZB , Zamir D. Trends Genet, 2 Perception, 3 J Gen Psychol , 1 , 28 Nov Cited by: 0 articles PMID: Eur J Orthod , 39 2 , 01 Apr Cited by: 7 articles PMID: Lewis MB.

Perception , 45 5 , 01 May Cited by: 1 article PMID: Mol Ecol , 26 2 , 05 Dec Cited by: 34 articles PMID: PLoS One , 10 5 :e, 13 May To arrive at the top five similar articles we use a word-weighted algorithm to compare words from the Title and Abstract of each citation. Peery D , Bodenhausen GV.

Psychol Sci , 19 10 , 01 Oct Cited by: 27 articles PMID: Psychon Bull Rev , 15 6 , 01 Dec Cited by: 15 articles PMID: PLoS One , 8 12 :e, 02 Dec PLoS One , 9 7 :e, 02 Jul Law Hum Behav , 36 6 , 19 Dec This comes from the observation that, although mixed-race people make up a small proportion of the population, they are over-represented at the top level of a number of meritocratic professions like acting with Halle Berry, Formula 1 racing with Lewis Hamilton; and, of course, politics with Barack Obama.

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Journal Reference : Michael B Lewis. Why are mixed-race people perceived as more attractive? Perception , ; 39 1 : DOI: ScienceDaily, 14 April