Racializing disease: Anti-Chinese attitudes and behaviors in the wake of COVID-19

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, anti-Asian sentiment has surged in the United States. Narratives framing China as a source of contagion may have intensified perceptions of Chinese as disease carriers, reinforcing racialized associations with health threat. Guided by intergroup threat theory, this research examined whether these associations appeared in attitudinal domains and whether they translated into discriminatory behaviors.

In Study 1, we analyzed secondary data from Project Implicit collected immediately after the pandemic, in which White American participants (N = 351) completed explicit ratings and a COVID-19 Implicit Association Test. In Study 2, conducted postpandemic, we introduced a behavioral paradigm to assess how these associations manifest in everyday interactions. White participants (N = 192) interacted with either a Chinese or White experimenter-who wore a face mask or not to manipulate disease salience. Participants were then offered cleaning wipes after handling a product and hand sanitizer after the session.

In Study 1, participants reported no significant differences in explicit associations of health threat between Chinese and American individuals but implicitly associated Chinese individuals more strongly with health threat. Similarly, in Study 2, although participants explicitly rated experimenters similarly on hygiene and health, they were significantly more likely to use hand sanitizer when offered by a Chinese than a White experimenter, regardless of mask condition. No significant experimenter racial difference emerged in the use of cleaning wipes.

These findings highlight how implicit biases linking Chinese people and health threat manifest in the postpandemic context and shape subtle discriminatory behavior, even without explicit bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).