Article Interracial attraction among college men: The influence of ideologies, familiarity, and similarity James E. Brooks 1 and Helen A. Neville 2 Abstract The current study integrated constructs from the fields of relationship science (i.e., similarity and familiarity) and intergroup research (i.e., racial ideologies, particularly color-blind racial ideology and multiculturalism) to explore interracial romantic attrac- tion. Using a person-perception design, 124 Black (n ¼ 62) and White (n ¼62) het- erosexual college men indicated their romantic attraction to the dating profiles of three Black and three White women. Results from analyses consistent with a linear mixed- model approach supported most of the hypotheses, including participants in general were more attracted to women of the same race and that greater endorsement of multicultural ideological beliefs was associated with increased interracial attraction. For White men, greater endorsement of color-blind racial ideology was predictive of a decrease in interracial romantic attraction as hypothesized. Contrary to the hypotheses, increased interracial contact for Black men was associated with an increase in same race attraction. Results are discussed in the context of existing literature, and important next steps are also discussed. Keywords Attraction, color-blind, familiarity, interracial, multiculturalism, race, similarity 1 Tennessee State University, USA 2 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Corresponding author: James E. Brooks, Department of Psychology, Tennessee State University, 3500 John A. Merritt Blvd, Nashville, TN 37209, USA. Email: jbrook42@tnstate.edu Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 1–18 ª The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0265407515627508 spr.sagepub.com J S P R at TENNESSEE STATE UNIV on January 26, 2016 spr.sagepub.com Downloaded from