From model minority to yellow peril: How threat perceptions and disgust predict anti‐Asian prejudice during COVID‐19

Abstract

AbstractDuring the COVID‐19 pandemic, hate crimes against Asians sharply increased in the United States. We investigated whether the threat of contracting COVID‐19 and specific negative emotions (disgust, anxiety, fear, and anger) regarding COVID‐19 predicted anti‐Asian prejudice in a 3‐wave longitudinal study of non‐Asian American adults (N = 486) in the early days of the pandemic in 2020. In all 3 timepoints, participants who believed that they may have already contracted COVID and those who expressed greater disgust reported more anti‐Asian attitudes, evaluated Asians as less than human, tolerated anti‐Asian prejudice, and blamed Asians for spreading COVID‐19. In a well‐fitting longitudinal path model, we found longitudinal evidence for these associations, such that the belief that one had already contracted COVID‐19 in March 2020 predicted greater disgust one month later, in April 2020, which in turn predicted greater anti‐Asian prejudice in May 2020.