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Scatter Plots of Perceived Threat of Immigrants According to Different Levels of Lockdown Duration and Lockdown Severity.
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Xenophobia and anti-immigrant attacks rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet this may not be solely due to the disease threat. According to theories of frustration and scapegoating, situational obstructions and deprivation can motivate prejudice against outgroups. Using a global natural quasi-experimental design, this study tests whether the restri...
Contexts in source publication
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... scatter plots showed that the average score of perceived threat of immigrants was positively correlated with both lockdown duration ( Figure 1A) and lockdown severity ( Figure 1B). ...
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... scatter plots showed that the average score of perceived threat of immigrants was positively correlated with both lockdown duration ( Figure 1A) and lockdown severity ( Figure 1B). ...
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... they were largely interchangeable: as illustrated in Figure 3, participants who had been in a relatively mild lockdown for a longer duration reported similar levels of perceived immigrant threat as those in a severe lockdown of any duration, and perceptions of immigrant threat were lowest among participants who completed our survey after only a brief duration in mild lockdowns. Note: Figure 1A shows the mean threat perception score by lockdown duration; each point represents the average score of perceived threat of immigrants across the subset of participants who had the same lockdown duration corresponding to the x-axis value. Figure 1B shows the mean immigrant threat perception score by lockdown severity; each point represents the average score of perceived threat of immigrants across the subset of participants who had the same level of lockdown severity corresponding to the x-axis value. ...
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... Figure 1A shows the mean threat perception score by lockdown duration; each point represents the average score of perceived threat of immigrants across the subset of participants who had the same lockdown duration corresponding to the x-axis value. Figure 1B shows the mean immigrant threat perception score by lockdown severity; each point represents the average score of perceived threat of immigrants across the subset of participants who had the same level of lockdown severity corresponding to the x-axis value. In these two scatter plots, the perceived threat of immigrants ranges from 1 to 10, with a higher score for a higher level of perceived threat. ...
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... full patterns of results of indirect effect analysis are in Supplementary Figures 1 and 2. Lockdown duration had a significant indirect effect on perceived threat of immigrants, through both thwarted life goals and routines and disempowerment (overall indirect effect combining the two mediators = 0.024, p = .002; ...
Citations
This article addresses two questions: (a) why do Americans believe that they need guns to defend themselves and their families and (b) why has the number of Americans who share this belief increased dramatically in recent decades? To address the first question, we describe a model of defensive gun ownership that assumes that Americans’ perceived need of a gun for self-defense is not only determined by their perceived lifetime risk of being assaulted (PLRA), but also by some diffuse belief in a dangerous world (BDW). In attempting to identify the dangerous world feared by high BDW gun owners, we review evidence that gun ownership is often associated with racial prejudice and concerns about groups that are stereotypically associated with safety threats (e.g., Black Americans, illegal immigrants). We identified three environmental changes that might exacerbate social threat perceptions: the proliferation of intergroup threat narratives such as the great replacement theory (that White Americans will be replaced by non-White minorities), the COVID-19 pandemic, and a change in the way the American gun industry advertises their products (praising the quality of their guns to emphasize the usefulness of guns for self-defense).
This study investigated the minority-blaming phenomenon in South Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic amplified fear, discrimination, and structural inequalities among minoritized groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study identified who was blamed for the spread of COVID-19 and the sociodemographic characteristics associated with this blame. Additionally, it examines the roles of individual and interpersonal fear and social empathy in minority blaming. We measured the fear of COVID-19 at both individual and interpersonal levels. Individual fear was assessed through personal health concerns, while the fear of transmitting the virus to others was measured as interpersonal fear. Social empathy was defined by macro perspective-taking, cognitive empathy, self-other awareness, and affective responses. The study was conducted through an online survey involving a quota sample of 1,500 South Korean participants aged 19–69 years, based on age, gender, and residential area. The response was collected in December 2020, when mass infections in specific communities received attention from mass and social media before the national spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analytical strategies, including OLS and hierarchical regression models, were employed to examine the roles of socioeconomic factors, individual and interpersonal fear, and social empathy in minority blaming. This study found varying correlations between sociodemographic factors and attitudes toward ethnic, religious, sexual, economic, and age-minority groups. Individual fear of contracting COVID-19 was associated with increased blame across all minority groups. In contrast, interpersonal fear was associated with increased blame only for ethnic and religious minority groups. Similarly, social empathy presented mixed associations, as it displayed a buffering role on blaming ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities when considered alongside interpersonal fear, yet mildly intensified blame for economic and age minorities. These findings provide an understanding on fear-induced minority blaming during the pandemic and the potential role of social empathy in mitigating blame.
Government policies can be productive tools for protecting citizens while simultaneously forging more egalitarian societies. At the same time, history has shown that well-intentioned governmental actions, such as those meant to quell pandemics (e.g., blood-donation restrictions), can single out members of marginalized groups (e.g., men who have sex with men). How did government actions shape intergroup outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic? Here, we draw from emerging research to provide informed conjectures regarding whether and how government actions affected stereotypes (e.g., beliefs about gender), prejudice (e.g., anti-Asian bias), and intergroup violence (e.g., hate crimes against Asian individuals) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss research examining the impact of policies intended to curb the spread of the disease, and we consider possible effects of the strategies used to communicate about the virus. Furthermore, we highlight open questions regarding how and why pandemic policies and communication shape intergroup outcomes, propose key directions for future research, and note possible implications for future development of policy and communication strategies.