Priming COVID-19 salience increases prejudice and discriminatory intent against Asians and Hispanics

Abstract

Significance This study investigates whether the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated prejudice and discrimination against racial/ethnic minority groups. Results from a nationally representative survey experiment about roommate selection suggest that incidents of anti-Asian hostility reported in the media are not isolated acts but signal-amplified racism against East Asians. While popular rhetoric has blamed East Asians for the pandemic, we find that COVID-19–associated discrimination has spilled over to South Asians and Hispanics, suggesting a generalized phenomenon of xenophobia. Prejudice fueled by COVID-19 against Asians has been particularly widespread, but for Hispanics, such negative sentiments are mitigated by respondents’ prior social contact with them. These findings highlight the need to develop a multitargeted approach to address racism and xenophobia associated with COVID-19. Mounting reports in the media suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified prejudice and discrimination against racial/ethnic minorities, especially Asians. Existing research has focused on discrimination against Asians and is primarily based on self-reported incidents or nonrepresentative samples. We investigate the extent to which COVID-19 has fueled prejudice and discrimination against multiple racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States by examining nationally representative survey data with an embedded vignette experiment about roommate selection (collected in August 2020; n = 5,000). We find that priming COVID-19 salience has an immediate, statistically significant impact: compared to the control group, respondents in the treatment group exhibited increased prejudice and discriminatory intent against East Asian, South Asian, and Hispanic hypothetical room-seekers. The treatment effect is more pronounced in increasing extreme negative attitudes toward the three minority groups than decreasing extreme positive attitudes toward them. This is partly due to the treatment increasing the proportion of respondents who perceive these minority groups as extremely culturally incompatible (Asians and Hispanics) and extremely irresponsible (Asians). Sociopolitical factors did not moderate the treatment effects on attitudes toward Asians, but prior social contact with Hispanics mitigated prejudices against them. These findings suggest that COVID-19–fueled prejudice and discrimination have not been limited to East Asians but are part of a broader phenomenon that has affected Asians generally and Hispanics as well.