New study indicates that potential partners experience a large penalty for being Black on dating apps People’s initial decision to choose or reject a potential partner on a dating app is based primarily on their attractiveness and race, according to a new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality. The findings suggest that people of color face barriers to dating on mobile apps such as Tinder. “Dating on mobile apps has turned traditional dating on its head. A lot of the current research we have on how people meet romantic partners comes from relatively controlled settings – meeting through friends, at work, out in public, or online,” said lead author William J. Chopik, an associate professor and director of the Close Relationships Lab at Michigan State University. “However, mobile dating apps are completely different. It often involves selecting the eligible range of people we could potentially talk to. In some ways, many of the same things that guide partner selection in other contexts hold true in mobile dating apps. However, there are plenty of new things too. We wanted to find out the factors that went into people swiping and choosing who to talk to on a mobile […]