INTERRACIAL PDA
A referenced study in Private and Public Displays of Affection Among Interracial and Intra-Racial Adolescent Couples (2005) suggests that, "a family's reaction to the relationship can have a very stressful impact on the person romantically involved with someone of a different race." (P. 487) They made the point that, as a result of this worry, interracial couples tend to refrain from engaging in public.
According to the journal, they found that, unsurprisingly, interracial couples share less cultural characteristics compared to couples within the same race. As a result, interracial couples may need more time to familiarize with each other. With time being considered one of their established key factors to increase a couple's social and physical contact, researchers found that interracial couples need more time compared to their intra-racial counterparts in order to display a similar level of affection.
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This clash of cultures provides unique experiences for those involved in a cross-racial relationship. Take for example these interracial couples who discuss their "awkward moments" and strange habits in this VH1 clip (shown below).
INTERRACIAL PDA (CONT.)
The data collected in this journal came from heterosexual adolescents (as homosexual couples were expected to likely present different results regarding PDAs) in a series of questionnaires. Among the 20,745 respondents, a trend among those in an interracial relationship (IR) is that they are less likely to show affection publicly, albeit oftentimes by small percentages. For instance, when holding hands, 88.33% of IR couples reported doing so. Whereas 89.9% of intra-racial (ITR) relationships said to publicly hold hands. (P. 495). Overall, when discussing adolescent, interracial couples' habits, the authors ultimately found they show lower levels of affection when in both public and private settings.