The effects of COVID-19 on perceived intergroup competition and negative intergroup outcomes

ABSTRACT

This research examined the effects of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived Black-White intergroup competition and negative intergroup psychological outcomes. Two datasets (collected before [2018] and after the onset of [April, 2020] COVID-19) were combined (N = 2,131) for this research. The data provided support for the hypothesis that perceptions of Black-White intergroup competition, and subsequently perceptions of discrimination, behavioral avoidance, intergroup anxiety, and interracial mistrust would be higher after the onset of COVID-19. Three additional predictors, a perceived interracial competition manipulation, political orientation, and population density at the ZIP-code level were examined to test for main effects and moderation of COVID-19 effects. All three predictors exhibited main effects on focal outcomes, and political orientation moderated COVID-19 onset effects: effects were stronger for conservatives. Lastly, perceived intergroup competition mediated the effect of COVID-19 onset on the four focal outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• intergroup competition
• Black-White relations
• discrimination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/mgqj7/ and https://osf.io/5cuy4/.

Open scholarship

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This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/mgqj7/ and https://osf.io/5cuy4/.

Notes

1. The experimental manipulation was included as part of a separate line of research.

2. A subset of the pre-COVID-19 dataset was used in a published manuscript that examined the effects of perceived interracial competition on the four focal outcomes. COVID-19 effects, political orientation, and population density were not examined.

3. All findings remain the same if no cutoffs or filtering procedures for the time spent on survey variable are applied.

4. Participants did not overlap across datasets. That is, participants in each dataset were unique to the dataset. All analyses involving COVID-19 onset were between-subjects.

5. Participants were compensated $0.25, which was less than optimal. Based on fair-wage practices and past work acknowledging the potential downsides to underpaying Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (Casey et al., 2017), we encourage researchers to engage in more equitable wage practices.

6. Following a Holm-Bonferroni p-value correction, the COVID pre/post main effect on race, household income, and population density do not survive the correction. While population density was a focal variable, race and household income were retained as covariates as well, due to their relevance to the research and our commitment to maintain a conservative approach to our analyses.

7. Single – rather than two-level regression analysis was used, because the design effect indicated that the incidence of ZIP-code clustering was negligible (DEFF = 1.02 – 1.09; Kish, 1965).

8. Main effects of interest (COVID-19 onset and secondary variable main effects) exhibit similar results when omitting covariates.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Gordils

Jonathan Gordils is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hartford. Currently, he is working on how inequality (including racial income inequality) and intergroup competition affect downstream psychological and physiological processes.

Andrew J. Elliot

Andrew J. Elliot is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester. He studies approach and avoidance motivation, particularly in achievement settings.

Selin Toprakkiran

Selin Toprakkiran is a senior undergraduate student at the University of Rochester. Her research interests are intergroup processes and prejudice, particularly in the context of international and domestic student relations.

Jeremy P. Jamieson

Jeremy P. Jamieson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester. Dr. Jamieson’s work seeks to understand how stress impacts emotions, decisions, and performance.