Pandemic and prejudice: Results from a national survey experiment

Abstract

Do health and economic shocks exacerbate prejudice towards racial/ethnic minority groups? We investigate this question in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by collecting nationally representative survey data with an embedded experiment. Results show that priming COVID-19 salience has an immediate impact: compared to the control group, respondents in the treatment group reported increased prejudice towards East Asian and Hispanic colleagues. East Asians in the treatment group faced higher prejudicial responses from Americans living in counties with higher COVID-19 infections and those who lost jobs due to COVID-19, and fewer prejudicial responses in counties with a higher concentration of Asians. These results point to the salience of COVID-19 fueled health and economic insecurities in shaping prejudicial attitudes, specifically towards East Asians. County-level socioeconomic factors did not moderate the increased prejudicial attitudes toward Hispanics in the workplace. These findings highlight a dimension of prejudice, intensified during the pandemic, which has been largely underreported and therefore missing from the current discourse on this important topic.

Unmasking racial avoidance: Experimental evidence on parental school choice and public health policies during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Liberal White people are less likely than conservatives to espouse overt racist beliefs and more likely to attend schools with more non-White students ( Posey-Maddox et al, 2014 ; Sidanius et al, 1996 ), yet both groups maintain racial prejudices and, when threatened, solidify racial boundaries toward non-White students ( Bonilla-Silva, 2013 ; Evans, 2021 ; Turner, 2015 ). Further supporting our proposition, Democrats and Republicans similarly expressed heightened racial avoidance when primed to the think about COVID's threat ( Kaushal, Lu, and Huang, 2022a , b ; Lu et al, 2021 ; see Daniels et al, 2021 for nuance).…”

“…Many also blamed Black and Latinx people, as reports of their higher rates of COVID cases circulated ( Laster Pirtle, 2020 ; Skinner-Dorkenoo et al, 2022 ). Individuals desiring stronger social boundaries from Asian, Latinx, and Black people was particularly salient during COVID ( Kaushal et al, 2022a ; Lu et al, 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2022 ), especially for White Americans who perceived COVID to be intense ( Mandalaywala et al, 2021 ).…”

Initial risk factors, self-compassion trajectories, and well-being outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: A person-centered approach

“…Finally, consideration of other risk factors, trajectories, or outcomes is warranted. For example, risk factors such as experiences with ethnoracial discrimination ( Kaushal et al, 2022 ), stress related to parenting a child during school closures ( Hiraoka and Tomoda, 2020 ; Adams et al, 2021 ), and loss of social support and social connection increased dramatically during the pandemic ( Lee et al, 2020 ), suggesting these life characteristics may also play important roles in how individuals coped with the pandemic and its impacts.…”

Social bonds are related to health behaviors and positive well-being globally

“…Akin to observed social outcomes of other social crises or disasters (1)(2)(3), the pandemic initially created feelings of community (e.g., clapping for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom or communal singing on balconies in Italy) and opportunities to unite more strongly with close social circles of family and friends, as well as with extended groups such as one's country. Still, repeated, lengthy lockdowns during the pandemic led to increased social isolation and distress for many people (4)(5)(6), and reports of growing prejudice, hostility toward outside groups, and sociopolitical polarization abounded in the first year of the pandemic (7,8).…”