"Kung Flu" Fighting: Understanding Anti-Asian Sentiment in the Wake of COVID-19

• In Event: Discrimination and Prejudice

Abstract

Given media reports of racist behaviors against Asians since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, we examine whether explicit attitudes toward Asians in the United States have changed following the start of the pandemic. We compare two national samples of Americans before and after the onset of Covid-19 using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. We find that regardless of political ideology, Americans’ feelings toward people of Asian descent — but not toward other racial minority groups — have become more negative since the onset of Covid-19. In a second study, we examine the relationship between racial attitudes, pandemic-related experience and attitudes, and political preferences following the onset of Covid-19. Anti-Asian attitudes are associated with the degree of experience with Covid-19, as well as with endorsement of a racialized label of the virus, suggesting that the circumstances of the pandemic are related to increased expressions of anti-Asian attitudes. Finally, across model specifications, anti-Asian attitudes robustly increase the probability of voting for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. At high levels of anti-Asian attitudes, Democrats are nearly as likely as Republicans to vote for Trump, weakening the effect of partisanship on vote choice. This research suggests that the pandemic is exacerbating social inequalities in the U.S. in part through shifting racial attitudes — and with political consequences.

Authors

• Hannah Nam, Stony Brook University

• Katherine M. Sawyer, Stony Brook University

• Hillary Style, Stony Brook University