Abstract
Associating a life-threatening crisis with a geographic locality can stigmatize people from that area. However, such a strategy may reduce the public blame attributed to the government because the perceived foreign threat establishes a scapegoat, which transfers that blame. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated whether the “Chinese Virus” label placed on COVID-19 has elicited opposition to Chinese immigrants and reduced public blame attributed to the federal government. We used a survey experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a list experiment to measure perceived threat. The descriptive analysis suggested a negative attitude toward Chinese immigrants overall, in which conservatives expressed stronger negative attitudes than did liberals and moderates. While labelling COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus” did not make a difference overall, our exploratory results shows that it led to a significant increase in liberals’ perception that Chinese immigrants are a threat. However, the “Chinese Virus” label showed no effect overall in reducing the extent to which either liberals or conservatives’ attributed blame to the federal government.
Highlights
As of April 21 2021, the COVID-19 virus has infected more than 142 million people worldwide (World Health Organization, 2021), and more than 31 million in the U.S, and led to over 565,000 deaths (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021a)
We argue that the “Chinese Virus” label can be understood as a strategy to elicit the perception that the Chinese are a threat, and create a scapegoat which transfers blame away from the federal government
We propose that the “Chinese Virus” label may stigmatize Chinese immigrants and elicit the perception that Chinese communities pose a threat, while reducing the blame people attribute to the federal government because the label enhances a shared national identity by emphasizing a foreign threat
Summary
As of April 21 2021, the COVID-19 virus has infected more than 142 million people worldwide (World Health Organization, 2021), and more than 31 million in the U.S, and led to over 565,000 deaths (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021a). We propose that the “Chinese Virus” label may stigmatize Chinese immigrants and elicit the perception that Chinese communities pose a threat, while reducing the blame people attribute to the federal government because the label enhances a shared national identity by emphasizing a foreign threat. Such stigma are accentuated, in turn, through the perception of differences that amplifies group differences and forms by sharing and conformity on the part of members within the group Following this logic, Chinese communities in the U.S may be vulnerable to cues that lead to stigmatization because of a combination of both tangible and symbolic threats. Our first hypothesis on the “Chinese Virus” effect is as follows: H1: The “Chinese Virus” label enhances people’s perception that Chinese immigrants in the U.S constitute a threat
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