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

Abstract

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.