Subscribewell, at first I thought these were some pretty awful conclusions to make without discussing other factors that may be involved -- shmegeggeOther factors like what? This wasn't raw data; it was data that had been controlled for their 'personality compatibility' system, which as you can see when not discussing race matches pretty well with response rate (I'm guessing the compatibility figure is included in the profile or whatever, which would probably make people more likely to respond in and of itself, look at the huge spike at 100%)
That's very odd. Are you suggesting that racial preference is hard-wired into us as sexual preference is? Perhaps so, but I have never heard any studies to indicate that. --Astro ZombieEspecially since Asian women prefer white men over Asian men, according to the reply matrix. Or why Black men are less interested in black women. In fact, for the women Asians, Hispanics, Indian (south Asian) and Middle eastern women on OkCupid show a preference away from their own race. I think on those terms there may be something of a selection bias going on in terms of the User base, though. You would find more traditional minded people on a site like eHarmony.
If, as popular wisdom says, white males rule the world (at least the "world" of the United States, or of Western Civ, or the "First World," whatever,) their seeming attractiveness to all groups might stem from the notion they have more money to spend on a date -- Forrest GreeneSo what you're saying is, this is based on the stereotype of black people and other minorities being poor, and white people being rich, not racism? I think you need to think that through a little more. It's interesting how people will try to find absolutely any excuse they can think of in order to discount any possible example of racism in society, even when all other reasonable variables are controlled for.
And yes, you do have to date senior citizens and little people now. It was in the Stimulus Bill. -- klangklangston
other factors like the fact that I've never responded to anything sent me ever on the site because I got a girlfriend shortly after joining. other factors like anything I can't think of and everything I can.Are you saying that getting a girlfriend right away after signing up is related to race? Because that's the only way that random events like that would skew towards one race and away from another. Otherwise, they would even out and not have much of an effect on the data (compare the results with the zodiac, which had no effect. If there was a lot of background noise, they would show up in those graphs as well)
I think this is it. The user base of OkCupid is not necessarily a representative sample of people in general - quite possibly the opposite. Perhaps OkCupid attracts non-white women who are specifically looking to date white guys.Right, but I don't think that OkCupid users would tend to be more racially discriminating the overall, since this is a site that presents itself as a "liberal", "hip" type of site. I think more traditional minded people on sites like eharmony would be even more likely to show in-group preferences, particularly Hispanics, Asian, etc women who are less interested in dating their own group then white men.
The association of sound and representation is the outcome of a collective training (for instance the learning of the French tongue); this association–which is the signification–is by no means arbitrary (for no French person is free to modify it), indeed it is, on the contrary, necessary.... We shall therefore say in general terms that in the language the link between the signifier and signified is contractual in its principle, but that this contract is collective, inscribed in a long temporality (Saussure says that 'a language is always a legacy'), and that consequently it is, as it were, naturalized; in the same way, Levi-Strauss specified that the linguistic sign is arbitrary a priori but non-arbitrary a posteriori.Social constructs are among the most unequivocal objects that shape human existence and perception. Race won't go away when you stick your fingers in your ears, because to the majority of humanity race exists and shapes the way they think and behave. Its nominal arbitrariness is irrelevant, and its weight as a concept needs to be acknowledged and dealt with.
even if you disagree, they may be a better way to respond than to act as though it was beneath seriousness.This should be beside the note that says don't attack other members of the site.
But it's not unreasonable to think that someone of a different race from you is likely to have had a strongly different upbringing than you had, strongly different life experiences, a notably different worldview, perhaps different customs and so on.I don't know how you could really find that stuff out based on a single letter, and decide not to reply, which is what this survey was measuring. The superficial personality stuff was corrected for, and I kind of doubt the backgrounds of these people are really all that different. I think there is more cultural variation overall in the U.S. then there is between your average, educated, young, English speaking Americans of different races. Obviously there are going to be bigger differences between recent immigrants, but not their kids.
I must be racist. I don't like dark skin. I don't even date white women with tans -- it's a turn-off. I also don't like fat chicks, really big or really small boobs, blond hair, big feet, or girls over about 5'5". Interesting that only one of my preferences makes me a bad person -- coolguymichaelUm, yeah I'm going to go ahead and call you a person. But I certainly don't think that's there is only thing in the list that does it. (I'm also going to call you pretty neurotic)
no, but consider the possibility that certain behaviors might trend one way or another along racial lines because of something like, say, the privilege (or lack thereof) associated with being one race or another, and that these trends might not be indicative of racism on the part of a given race, but rather the inherent racism of our culture. -- shmegeggeI think you're spinning up some epicycles here. Even if white people are more likely to get a girlfriend right after joining the site, how would that effect their response rate to other ethnicities? Obviously there will be some noise in the results, but if you're saying that they're simply a confluence of second order results related to race -- rather then the obvious explanation of racial preference -- then I disagree, lets apply occams razor here.
and finally, I'd like to once again remind you that this is NOT me saying "this isn't racism!" this is me saying that I was surprised by their initial conclusions, UNTIL I saw the survey chart at the bottom, at which point double yoo tee eff, etc... if you're trying to paint me into some corner of defending or denying racism, please reconsider. -- shmegeggeI'm not saying you are, I was just saying the specific example you brought up, statistically, shouldn't have made a difference in the aggregate data. If they were surveying just a handful of people, it could have had a bigger impact (and looking at the data, I think there may be some noise in the "native American" and "other" categories due to low sample size. It would be nice if they included the total number of sent and responded to messages for each element)
Welcome back, dorks. We’ve processed the messaging habits of almost a million people and are about to basically prove that, despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well.
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