559 SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION AND IDEOLOGICAL ASYMMETRY IN RELATION TO INTERRACIAL DATING AND TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION IN CANADA RICHARD N. LALONDE BENJAMIN GIGUÈRE MARSHA FONTAINE ANDREA SMITH York University, Toronto, Canada This study examines the relation between social dominance orientation (SDO) and three hierarchy-attenuating beliefs (attitude toward and openness to personally engaging in interracial dating and attitude toward transra- cial adoption) and two hierarchy-enhancing beliefs (stereotyping of interracial relationships and racial iden- tity concerns in transracial adoption). Participants were 77 Black and 142 White Canadians from the Toronto area. SDO was significantly negatively related to the three hierarchy-attenuating beliefs and positively to the two hierarchy-enhancing beliefs for Whites, whereas no significant relationships were found for Blacks. The relation between SDO and the outcome variables for Blacks and Whites differed significantly with the excep- tion of openness to interracial dating. Interracial dating experience moderated the relation between race, SDO, and openness to become personally involved in interracial dating. Results support and extend previous research by Fang, Sidanius, and Pratto. Their social implications are discussed. Keywords: social dominance; interracial dating; transracial adoption; interracial relationships Traditionally, intergroup theories have focused on conflicts across cultural groups (see Hogg & Abrams, 2001). Recently, however, researchers have expanded the scope of these theories by exploring interpersonal contexts of intergroup relations such as friendship (Levin, van Laar, & Sidanius, 2003) and intimate relationships (e.g., Fang, Sidanius, & Pratto, 1998) that cut across cultural groups. The social boundaries between cultural groups defined by race, especially between Blacks and Whites, can hamper the establish- ment and maintenance of close relationships across these cultural groups. Previous research by Fang et al. (1998) explored opposition to interracial romantic rela- tionships and suggested that social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) could offer a valuable framework for the study of these types of relationships. The current study expands on the work of Fang et al. (1998) and Pratto (1996). We explored cross-cultural differences in the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and the atti- tude toward and openness to personally engaging in interracial dating. In addition, a mea- sure of the stereotypes of interracial relationships was developed to look at its relationship with SDO. The scope of relationship types also was expanded by examining attitudes toward transracial adoption and concerns for racial identity development within these adoptions. Transracial adoption has largely been ignored by cross-cultural and social AUTHORS’ NOTE: This research was supported in part by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first author. We would like to thank Janelle Jones for her input on the stereotype measure, Rob Outten and Ilil Naveh- Benjamin for their input regarding our revisions, and the reviewers for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of this article. JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY,Vol. 38 No. 5, September 2007 559-572 DOI: 10.1177/0022022107305238 © 2007 Sage Publications