Despite the increasing body of literature surrounding online dating preferences, there remains a paucity of research that analyzes whether skin color influences the dating selection process. To fill this empirical gap, the present study uses data collected from 2,024 Asian dating profiles, including the skin tone of the daters, to assess the impact that skin color variation may have on the inter- and intraracial dating preferences of heterosexual males and females as well as gay males and lesbians. This research also examines whether skin tone has a pronounced effect on the relationship between sexual orientation and the willingness to date Asians, African Americans, and Latino/Latinas. The current findings suggest that darker skinned Asians are more likely to state a preference to date African Americans and Latino/Latinas compared to their lighter skinned counterparts; however, they are less willing to date another Asian. The results also document significant interaction effects between sexual orientation and skin color differences. Our findings are discussed in relation to the racial hierarchy of preference and privilege that are inherently linked to the longstanding concept of colorism.

An increasing number of colleges and universities now require graduate student and faculty applicants to submit personal diversity statements for evaluation. Despite their rising use, little is known about how the personal diversity statement writing process is experienced by applicants. For White individuals in particular, their sources of egalitarian motivation may influence affective responses to writing a diversity statement given the content that is typical of these application components and the unease demonstrated in response to diversity-related contexts that is characteristic of White people with a strong external motivation to respond without prejudice. In the present study, White students at an American university participated in a personal diversity statement writing task and self-reported their motivation to respond without prejudice (in advance of the session) and affect (following the writing task). Despite prior research suggesting that they would feel otherwise, participants reported more positive affect compared to negative affect in relation to writing the diversity statement. When considering their sources of motivation, however, White individuals who were more externally motivated to respond without prejudice reported slightly more negative affect in reaction to the diversity statement writing task when compared to those low in external motivation. These findings have implications for the inclusion of personal diversity statements in candidate application materials at various levels of higher education.

White men remain overrepresented in the American judiciary (i.e., the bench) despite increasing demographic diversity among law students and lawyers. Augmenting efforts to tackle systemic barriers, a social cognitive process model integrating Goal Congruity and Cultural Mismatch Theories to partially explain why women, first-generation, and underrepresented racial minority (URM) lawyers are less likely to pursue and thrive in judicial roles was proposed. The unexplored misalignment between the goals and values typically endorsed by eligible underrepresented judicial candidates and their perceptions of judgeship was addressed. Specifically, women, first-generation, and URMs tend to endorse primarily communal/interdependent goals and values, while judgeship is viewed as a stereotypically agentic/independent profession. Thus, judicial diversity could be enhanced by (1) highlighting role attributes that are aligned with communal/interdependent values and (2) increasing appreciation for existing judicial communality/interdependence. It was concluded by providing hypothesized interventions to target key psychological mechanisms along the "leaky pipeline" to the judiciary.

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