A new study suggests COVID-19 is exacerbating prejudice towards Asian people worldwide, but less so in New Zealand.
While there is still COVID-19 based prejudice in New Zealand, research by Massey University shows it is lower than the United States, Spain and Italy.
The data was gathered through an online questionnaire that asked about social media use, sentiments about Chinese people, intergroup anxiety, negative stereotypes and realistic and symbolic threats. It used a scale between one to five to measure the level of prejudice.
New Zealanders scored 3.54 on symbolic and 3.32 on realistic threat, while the scores for the United States, Italy and Spain ranged from 3.71 to 3.82 for symbolic threat and 3.67 to 3.79 for realistic threat.
New Zealanders scored 2.48 for the level of contact with Asians, while Americans scored 1.93, Spaniards scored 2.31, and Italians scored 1.92.
"We measured how threatened people from the dominant culture felt by Asians during the COVID-19 pandemic - and New Zealand scored significantly lower on measures of both symbolic and realistic threat," lead researcher professor Stephen Croucher said on Wednesday.
"Symbolic threats are beliefs that a minority will change a dominant culture's way of life, while realistic threats relate to welfare, political and economic power, essentially to what extent a minority group challenges the resources of the dominant cultural group."
People were also asked, "Who is to blame for the spread of COVID-19?"
For Americans, the most common response was "the Chinese", followed by "Trump". But for New Zealanders, the top three answers were "tourists", "not closing borders early enough" and "the Chinese".
"These differences clearly mirror the media coverage and political rhetoric in each nation. In the US, political rhetoric has been focused on the 'Wuhan virus' and blaming China."
"In New Zealand, the blame for the spread of the virus has largely been attributed, by both politicians and the media, to tourism, borders, and China," he said.
Croucher said the study reflects the fear surrounding higher infection and death rates in the US, Italy and Spain which have all been hit hard by COVID-19.
Italy has had at least 230,000 confirmed cases and 34,000 deaths. Spain has similar cases numbers with more than 240,000 confirmed cases and 28,000 deaths. But the US has been the worst hit with more than 2.3 million confirmed cases and 120,000 deaths.
In comparison New Zealand only has 1165 confirmed cases and 22 deaths.
Croucher said the New Zealand Government's positive messaging has also helped mitigate COVID-19 based prejudice.
"The New Zealand Government's communication has been very focused with messages like 'we're all in this together' and 'be kind', while messaging in other countries has been less centralised, more chaotic and, in some cases, lacking in leadership," he said.
