Prejudice toward Asians and migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia and Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT

As of July 2021, more than 153 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 globally. Russia has 5.5 million cases with more than 135,000 deaths; while Kyrgyzstan has nearly 132,000 cases and 2000 deaths. While the virus hit the two nations at different times and with different severities, the two nations, as with so many others, both experienced cases of prejudice toward minority groups blamed for the spread of COVID-19. Using integrated threat theory (ITT), this study cross-culturally examines the link between prejudice toward minorities blamed for the spread of COVID-19 in Russia (Asians) and Kyrgyzstan (migrants) and intergroup contact. Results revealed intergroup contact had a positive effect on realistic and symbolic threat. Additionally, results show Kyrgyz respondents had lower levels of symbolic threat than Russian respondents.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrated threat theory
• prejudice
• intergroup communication
• Kyrgyzstan
• Russia

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Michael Croucher

Stephen Croucher is a Professor and Head of School, School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, Massey University, New Zealand. He is also a Leading Research Fellow at National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia.

Tatiana Permyakova

Tatiana Permyakova is a Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia.

Elira Turdubaeva

Elira Turdubaeva is a Professor at the University of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan.