Summary: The Influence Of Interracial Relationships

Introduction America’s first biracial child was born in 1620 before anti miscegenation laws were created to prevent African Americans from getting romantically involved with Whites. Negative attitudes towards interracial relationships were fueled by racial discrimination and the devotion to keep each race pure. In today's evolving society interracial relationships are still discouraged, especially between Whites and Blacks (Childs, 2005) due to parental approval and racism. Interracial unions are believed to be evidence of a cultural development resulting from America’s practices of racial boundaries in social interaction (King & Bratter, 2007). In today’s society it is influential to increase contact amongst different races and cultures
Back (2008) wanted to test the correlation between interpersonal relationships, proximity and whether gender differences would occur. Researcher confirmed that proximity promotes liking and attachment. The study acquired freshman students from the University of Leipzig and randomly assigned seats in a classroom. In addition, researchers instructed participants to conduct a brief introduction about themselves. Researchers then evaluated the quality and the significance of the relationship by distributing an online survey to measure the relationship acquired throughout the year. Participants reported greater friendships with the students next to or near them in the classroom after a year from being randomly assigned seats. This suggests proximity is an indication of whether an individual will develop an interpersonal relationship with another
Yancy and Yancy (1998) sought out to expand the literature on interracial relationships by studying individuals attempting to form premarital relationships. Researchers hypothesized that White individuals are likely to trade their immense racial status for relational assets offered from African Americans or other racial minority groups. In addition, researchers hypothesized Blacks or racial minorities, trade assets like physical attractiveness or wealth for a higher racial status. Researchers examined personal advertisements obtained from samples from magazines. Personal advertisements were coded according to sex, race, age, whether the advertiser desired a physically attractive mate, whether the advertiser desired financial stability, offer financial stability, or seek physical attractiveness. Findings indicated that African Americans are likely to seek financial security despite their low racial status in society. Also, Whites who interracially date are significantly more likely to desire physical attraction but, are less likely to offer financial stability and more likely to offer physical attraction than White individuals who intraracially date. Due to the similarities in Black and White individuals who chose to interracially date