Study: More anti-Asian bias likely in Republican-dominated states

It sounds so simple, familiarity tends to breed tolerance. There's new evidence to suggest that people are less likely to harbor anti-Asian bias once they get to know Asian Americans, according to a new study 

Racial biases against Asian Americans vary significantly across US states, influenced by such factors as the number of people of Asian descent and political leanings, say researchers at New York University.

Republican-majority and swing states showed indications of greater stereotyping of Asian-born and Asian Americans, with White Americans more likely to see them as foreign, said the study. Such states with high implicit bias included West Virginia, Iowa, South Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

At the same time, states with older median ages and greater percentages of Asians were associated with the less explicit bias against Asians and Asian Americans. These included Hawaii, the District of Columbia, California, Nevada, and Texas, according to the study.

“Our study shows that experiences of Asians and Asian Americans are likely to significantly differ depending on their state of residence, with residents of some states expressing more biased views that Asian Americans are not as ‘American’ as whites,” says Nari Yoo, a PhD candidate in the NYU Silver School of Social Work, who led the data-driven research, newly published by the American Sociological Assocition (ASA) journal Socius. 

The study is titled "Mapping Anti-Asian Xenophobia: State-level Variation in Implicit and Explicit Bias against Asian Americans across the United States." Coauthors include Professor Harvey Nicholson Jr. of the University of Toronto-St. George Campus, Professor Doris Chang of NYU Silver, and Professor Sumi Okazaki of NYU Steinhardt.

Violent assaults and verbal abuse against Asian Americans climbed during the peak of the COVID pandemic, bringing heightened attention as well as research to the problem. In order to improve understanding of Asian Americans’ diverse experiences of racism, Yoo and her coauthors in this study looked at state-level variations in implicit and explicit bias, as well as macro-level factors, such as racial density, political climate, and socioeconomic conditions that have been shown to influence racial attitudes.

A study finds that Republican-majority and swing states showed indications of greater stereotyping of Asian-born and Asian Americans, with White Americans more likely to see them as foreign. Click here for more details.

The specific factors that can contribute to high levels of bias at the state level are not fully known. “In some cases, under certain conditions” the study read, “growing diversity may increase bias due to perceptions of threat and competition, which may be amplified through anti-immigrant sentiment.”

That finding is consistent with a previously documented link between higher bias levels and the percentage of foreign-born Asian adults within a given state. 

In terms of the higher implicit bias in Republican and swing states, Yoo explains, “While our study is exploratory, one possible explanation is that anti-Asian bias is connected to xenophobic racial attitudes held more strongly among the political right.

 

"In some states, due to residential patterns, people may have fewer opportunities to have meaningful intergroup interactions to learn about the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities,” Yoo continued.

“Mapping Anti-Asian Xenpphobia” was conducted as part of the NYU ABRA (Asian and Black Americans, Racism, and Allyship) project whose primary investigators are Professors Chang and Okazaki. The project is funded by NYU Silver’s Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity, where Nari is a predoctoral fellow.

 “These insights should guide future research and interventions to address biases effectively at the state level,” says Yoo.

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