It has long been proposed that perceptions of threat contribute to greater outgroup negativity. Much of the existing evidence on the threat–prejudice association in the real world, however, is cross-sectional in nature. Such designs do not adequately capture individual-level changes in constructs, and how changes in constructs relate to changes in other theoretically relevant constructs. The current research exploited the unique opportunity afforded by the mass COVID-19 vaccination programme in the United Kingdom to explore whether reductions in pathogen threat coincide with reductions in outgroup prejudice and avoidance. A two-wave longitudinal study (N₁ = 912, N₂ = 738) measured British adult's perceptions of COVID-19 threat and anti-immigrant bias before and during mass vaccine rollout in the United Kingdom. Tests of latent change models demonstrated that perceived COVID-19 threat significantly declined as the vaccine programme progressed, as did measures of outgroup avoidance tendencies, but not prejudiced attitudes. Critically, change in threat was systematically correlated with change in outgroup avoidance: those with greater reductions in perceived COVID-19 threat were, on average, those with greater reductions in outgroup avoidance. Findings provide important and novel insights into the implications of disease protection strategies for intergroup relations during an actual pandemic context, as it unfolds over time.

中文翻译：

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在英国的大规模公共疫苗接种计划中，感知到的 COVID-19 威胁的减少与外群体回避的减少同时发生（但不是偏见）

长期以来，人们一直认为，对威胁的看法会导致更大的外群体消极情绪。然而，关于现实世界中威胁-偏见关联的许多现有证据本质上是横断面的。这样的设计并不能充分捕捉个体层面的构念变化，以及构念变化与其他理论上相关构念的变化之间的关系。目前的研究利用英国大规模 COVID-19 疫苗接种计划所提供的独特机会来探索病原体威胁的减少是否与外群体偏见和回避的减少一致。两波纵向研究 ( N ₁  = 912, N ₂ = 738) 测量了英国成年人在英国大规模疫苗推出之前和期间对 COVID-19 威胁和反移民偏见的看法。对潜在变化模型的测试表明，随着疫苗计划的进展，感知到的 COVID-19 威胁显着下降，外群回避倾向的测量也显着下降，但偏见态度没有。至关重要的是，威胁的变化与外群体回避的变化系统地相关：平均而言，那些感知到的 COVID-19 威胁减少更多的人是那些减少外群体回避的人。随着时间的推移，研究结果为在实际大流行背景下疾病保护策略对群体间关系的影响提供了重要而新颖的见解。