From emotion to action among Asian Americans: assessing the roles of threat and identity in the age of Trump

ABSTRACT

The prevalence of anti-Asian and anti-immigrant rhetoric throughout the 2016 election season provides an opportunity to examine the factors shaping Asian Americans’ emotional responses to a threatening political environment. Comparing interracial trends in emotional expressions and political behavior in the 2016 Collaborative Multi-racial Post-election Survey (CMPS), we find Asian Americans expressing fear on par with other minority groups, while expressing less anger. In a significant departure from scholarly expectations, we uncover a strong positive association between expressed fear and participation among Asian Americans. This mobilizing effect of fear distinguishes Asian Americans from other racial groups, providing better insight into the political behavior of this group in contexts of threat. We discuss how and why fear may shape Asian American participation, while mediating the effects of racial identity on action.

KEYWORDS:

• Threat
• anger
• fear
• political behavior
• mobilization
• racial identity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Claire Jean Kim and Michael Tesler for their insightful feedback in the creation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Fifty-three percent of the 3000+ Asian respondents in our data set report feeling targeted by Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

2 Survey data are weighted within each racial group to match the population of the 2015 Census ACS one-year data file for age, gender, education, nativity, ancestry, and voter registration status. Question wording available at: http://cmpsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2016_questionairre.pdf.

3 Waves 15 and 16 of the 2016 PEW Research Center American Trends Panel.

4 Figure A2 online displays odds ratios comparing the reported emotions from AAPI, Black and Latina/o respondents to White respondents, represented by the baseline of one. AAPI respondents report fear at rates comparable to other racial minority groups. But they report the least anger among all groups.

5 Only coefficient effects of racial identity measures displayed. See Table A1 online for full model results.

6 In these and subsequent predicted probabilities, all control variables are set at mean values.

7 Figure A3 online depicts predicted probability plots displaying the marginal effects of attitudes toward Trump on reported anger and fear, across linked fate and personal experiences with discrimination.

8 Effects of control variables not included for ease of comprehension. Full tables including control variables available from authors upon request.

9 Figure A4 (online appendix) displays the contrasting effects of reported fear and anger on Asian American participation in the activities in which at least one emotion is significantly correlated with action.

10 Online appendix Table A2 displays coefficients and standard errors for the interaction terms.

11 Respective path diagrams for anger and fear displayed in Figures A5 and A6 in online appendix.