Reductions in perceived COVID-19 threat amid UK's mass public vaccination programme coincide with reductions in outgroup avoidance (but not prejudice).

ABSTRACT: It has long been proposed that perceptions of threat contribute to greater outgroup negativity. Much of the existing evidence on the threat-prejudice association in the real world, however, is cross-sectional in nature. Such designs do not adequately capture individual-level changes in constructs, and how changes in constructs relate to changes in other theoretically relevant constructs. The current research exploited the unique opportunity afforded by the mass COVID-19 vaccination programme in the United Kingdom to explore whether reductions in pathogen threat coincide with reductions in outgroup prejudice and avoidance. A two-wave longitudinal study (N₁  = 912, N₂  = 738) measured British adult's perceptions of COVID-19 threat and anti-immigrant bias before and duri

SUBMITTER: Meleady R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9111608 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature