A new study looked at racial boundaries in online dating.
In online dating people are still more likely to hook up with someone of their own race, but they proved to be more willing to accept overtures from a different race more often than past research would predict, a University of California, San Diego, news release reported.
The study also found once an individual had replied to a request from another race they were more likely to pursue potential lovers who were of different races in the future.
The study only took heterosexual endeavors into account, and only looked at people who identified with the "top five most populous of OkCupid's racial categories": "White, Asian (East Asian), Hispanic/Latino and Indian (South Asian)."
The study looked at 126,134 OKCupid users over a period of two and a half months.
UC San Diego sociologist Kevin Lewis found the groups most likely to stay confined to their own race were of Asian and Indian descent. Whites were most likely to venture outside of their own race.
The largest "reversals" often took place when someone was contacted by a member of a different race for the first time.
"Based on a lifetime of experiences in a racist and racially segregated society, people anticipate discrimination on the part of a potential recipient and are largely unwilling to reach out in the first place. But if a person of another race expresses interest in them first, their assumptions are falsified-and they are more willing to take a chance on people of that race in the future," Lewis said.
The study found the "reversal" was often not permanent, and most people went back to their previous habits after a week.
"The new-found optimism is quickly overwhelmed by the status quo, by the normal state of affairs," Lewis said. "Racial bias in assortative mating is a robust and ubiquitous social phenomenon, and one that is difficult to surmount even with small steps in the right direction. We still have a long way to go."
Similar studies usually rely on marriage records, but using OkCupid allowed the researcher to study early relationship stages.
"Racial boundaries are more fragile than we think," Lewis concluded.
