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

During 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.     

“I'm Moderna,what are you?” Evidence that people favor those who received their same brand COVID-19 vaccine

In two studies, we investigated the extent to which people are biased toward people with the same COVID-19 vaccine brand using a monetary allocation task. Informed by theoretical approaches to intergroup bias and the minimal-groups paradigm, we expected that, when deciding how to allocate financial resources among three different people—each with an equal need for assistance but a different COVID-19 vaccine brand—people would allocate more money, on average, to those who received the same versus different vaccine brand than participants personally received. We found in Study 1 (N = 94) that people given a hypothetical $10.00 experimental endowment allocated an average of $2.00 more when a person was a member of their vaccine ingroup than to those from their vaccine brand outgroup. We replicated this effect in Study 2 (N = 219), finding that people continued to allocate more money ($1.42) to a person from their vaccine brand ingroup versus those from their vaccine brand outgroup. Taken together, this work suggests that, among vaccinated people, the brand of another person's vaccine meaningfully influences the allocation of monetary resources and that people are biased toward people with the same COVID-19 vaccine brand. Implications for social identity theories are discussed.     

Counterfactual thinking may attenuate polarization of COVID-19 prevention behavior

Data from two U.S. online samples (N = 613) indicated that conservatives consistently perceived face mask use as less important than did liberals. This difference was attenuated with high counterfactual engagement. Both studies provide correlational evidence of this robust moderation. Study 2 provides further insight into differences between liberals' and conservatives' emotional responses to COVID-19 information, and suggests that during on-going negative events, downward counterfactuals may not provide relief. Overall, these studies document the politicization of public health behavior, and find that emphasizing the causal links between behavior and COVID-19 prevention may improve conservatives' attitudes toward CDC guidelines.     

Contagious or prosocial? Perceptions of mask-wearers toward Whites and Asians: A cross-cultural comparison during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a worldwide increase in the use of face masks to prevent viral transmission. However, as mask-wearing was a new behavior in many countries, there was a limited understanding of how mask-wearers are perceived and how such perceptions impact one's own mask-wearing behavior. Mask-wearers may be seen as contagious or prosocial, and these perceptions may vary based on the race of the mask-wearer and the country of the observer, particularly given the rise in pandemic-related anti-Asian rhetoric in the U.S. In three experiments (N = 579), we investigated these questions, conducting two studies in the United States (May and July 2020), where mask-wearing was new and anti-Asian rhetoric has been prevalent, and one study in South Korea (November 2020), where mask-wearing was relatively common. Results indicate that masked individuals are perceived as less contagious and more prosocial, regardless of target race or participant nation. These perceptions were more pronounced among American political liberals, Americans who are more sensitive to infection transmission (Study 2), and Koreans who self-perceived a greater vulnerability to infection (Study 3). Especially in the U.S., perceiving the masked target as more prosocial predicted more self-reported mask-wearing, while perceiving the masked target as more contagious and less prosocial predicted less mask-wearing (Study 2). These findings provide insights into social perceptions of masks and race during the pandemic.     

How does exposure to masked individuals affect White Americans' attitudes toward Asian American and Pacific Islanders?

Across three studies, conducted between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021, we tested whether exposure to an Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) target person wearing a face mask would increase or decrease White Americans' perceived threat from and positivity toward AAPI individuals. Although results varied by study, a single-paper meta-analysis revealed that the masked (compared to unmasked) AAPI target resulted in greater positivity toward AAPIs, due to reduced perceptions of both symbolic threat to group values and realistic threat to group health. Positivity toward AAPIs did not reliably differ after exposure to a masked versus unmasked White target. Implications for interventions that encourage COVID-safe behaviors and combat anti-AAPI attitudes are discussed.     

The psychological benefit of future vividness in goal persistence: An illustrative case of the class of 2020 before & during COVID-19

Graduating during COVID-19, the Class of 2020 had difficulty pursuing their future goals. This research examined the likelihood of academic and career goal change early in the pandemic, disparities in persistence by socioeconomic status (SES), and how psychological resources mitigated goal change during the early stages of the pandemic. This 4-year study surveyed students in the Class of 2020 eight times from their first week in college (Fall 2016) to their last semester before graduation (Spring 2020; N = 115; 20% below middle SES, 80% middle SES or above). Even in the first weeks of COVID-19, a quarter of students changed goals. Lower SES students were less likely to persist in their post-graduation plans. Nevertheless, students who entered college with a vivid image of their future were more likely to have secured a graduate school or job prospect prior to COVID-19, and, in turn, were less likely to change goals.     

Won't you be my neighbor? Local community identification predicted decreased stress over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

Social identities are an important resource, especially during times of crisis. They provide shared meaning, as well as access to social and instrumental support. The COVID-19 pandemic, although global in nature, was experienced very locally; many people stopped traveling and were often confined to their homes and neighborhoods. We reasoned this would make American residents' local community identities especially important. We collected data at five time points between April 2020 and March 2021 and measured American adults' social identification with their local community, identification with a self-nominated important group, and stress. We found that stress decreased over the first few months of the pandemic, then leveled out. Importantly, this decrease was more pronounced among people who strongly identified with their local communities. Furthermore, community identities were stronger predictors of stress decreases than social groups that respondents themselves nominated as highly important to them (e.g., family, friends). These results held controlling for age, gender, political conservatism, and other variables. This research provides important insights into the importance of social identities, and specifically local communities, during times of crisis.     

Obedience to authorities is not unconditional: Differential effects of COVID-19 threat on three facets of RWA in Poland and Germany

Collective authoritarian responses to threat might differ depending on whether people trust collective authorities in reducing threat. Thus, we tested the differential effects of epidemic threat on three facets of right-wing authoritarianism, in Germany (a country with high authorities' efficacy in responses to COVID-19) and Poland (low authorities' efficacy context). Two representative sample longitudinal studies performed in Poland (N = 892) and Germany (N = 883) showed that in Germany feelings of COVID-19 threat explained increases in authoritarian submission and (to a lesser extent) authoritarian aggression, whereas in Poland such feelings of threat explained changes in authoritarian aggression and conventionalism after the pandemic, but did not alter authoritarian submission. These findings suggest that specific authoritarian reactions to threat (submissive vs. conventionalist) might depend on the general trust in authorities' ability to respond to crises.     

Does disseminating (mis)information restore social connection during a global pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic impeded social interaction, negatively affecting well-being worldwide. To slow virus spread, practices were enacted to minimize face-to-face contact, leading to increased social disconnection. As people turned increasingly to online environments (e.g., social media) to fulfill needs for inclusion and belonging, misinformation regarding COVID-19 simultaneously ran rampant. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether impeded social inclusion may have contributed to the spread of misinformation. We recruited a sample of adult social media users in the United States (N = 431) and randomly assigned them to be either included, ostracized (i.e., ignored), or rejected (i.e., to receive explicitly negative attention). Participants subsequently rated their willingness to share COVID-19 claims via social media (in fact, all claims were false). Participants learned that sharing some claims would likely lead to high expected engagement from others on social media (e.g., “likes”), whereas some claims would likely lead to little expected engagement. While information sharing was low in our sample, participants were more willing to share claims that they believed would lead to higher levels of engagement—consistent with the idea that sharing information is motivated not only by the desire to educate others but also to elicit social connection. However, this behavioral intention was no more common among participants who had been momentarily ostracized or rejected online than among participants who had been included. Future research should continue to explore the link between social exclusion and the motivation to disseminate (mis)information beyond a pandemic-related context.     

Libertarian independent ideologies predict lower support for and participation in COVID-19 safety precautions among Americans

In the US, higher conservatism has consistently been linked to lower receptiveness toward COVID-19 safety precautions. The present studies extended these findings by examining how specific dimensions of conservatism contributed to this relationship. Three studies (total N = 1123) found that conservatives with higher Libertarian Independent attitudes reported less support for and participation in COVID-19 safety precautions. These effects remained robust after controlling for demographics, general political orientation, COVID-19 threat perception, and personality. These findings offer nuanced insight into how those with different conservative ideologies responded to COVID-19 safety precautions.