Friendships between members of different ethnoracial groups can help to reduce prejudice and ease tensions across ethnoracial groups. A large body of literature has explored possible determinants for the formation of these friendships. One unexplored factor is the role of an individual’s skin color in influencing their opportunities to befriend members of other ethnoracial groups. This study seeks to answer two questions: For ethnoracial minorities, how is an individual’s skin color associated with the likelihood that they will engage in a cross-ethnoracial friendship? Does the role of skin color depend on the ethnoracial combination of the two groups that befriend one another? Using waves 1, 2, and 3 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen and a series of multinomial logit models, the results suggest that the role of skin color is a function of the relative levels of social status of the two ethnoracial groups that befriend one another. I argue that lighter-skinned members of lower status ethnoracial groups have a greater likelihood of having close friendships with members of higher status ethnoracial groups. There is also limited evidence that darker-skinned members of a higher status group, specifically Asians, have a greater likelihood of having close friends from a lower status group.

不同种族群体成员之间的友谊有助于减少偏见并缓解种族群体之间的紧张关系。大量文献探讨了形成这些友谊的可能决定因素。一个未探索的因素是个人的肤色在影响他们与其他种族群体成员交朋友的机会方面的作用。本研究试图回答两个问题：对于少数民族，个人的肤色与他们建立跨种族友谊的可能性有何关联？肤色的作用是否取决于彼此交朋友的两个群体的种族组合？使用全国新生纵向调查的第 1、2 和 3 波和一系列多项 logit 模型，结果表明，肤色的作用是相互交朋友的两个种族群体的社会地位相对水平的函数。我认为，地位较低的种族群体的肤色较浅的成员更有可能与地位较高的种族群体的成员建立亲密的友谊。也有有限的证据表明，较高地位群体中肤色较深的成员，特别是亚洲人，更有可能拥有来自较低地位群体的亲密朋友。