College Students’ Views on Interracial versus Intraracial Couples

Abstract

The number of interracial couples has increased significantly since the legalization of interracial marriage through Loving v. Virginia just 50 years ago. While this shows societal progression, only a fraction of interracial couples are White and Black couples. Due to this subgroup of interracial couples being statistically small in proportion to America's marriages, White and Black interracial marriages tend to receive the least amount of acceptance. This paper aimed to assess the outlook of college students on interracial versus intraracial couple pairings, through a simple task and response method. Through the pairings and responses made by the students, instincts were assessed in relation to the type of pairings that were made. Literature suggests that many college students have a “tolerable†response to such pairings, which suggests that they are not particularly in favor of pairing interracial couples, but simply apathetic towards those that do exist (Bonilla-Silva, 2000). Furthermore, the ideas of implicit bias, effects of media, and consequences of historical legislature are discussed.
implicit Bias, interracial, intraracial, couples, perceptions.