COVID-19, economic threat and identity status: Stability and change in prejudice against Chinese people within the Canadian population.

Objectives: Previous studies found a general increase in prejudice against Chinese people during the first months of the pandemic. The present study aims to consider inter-individual heterogeneity in stability and change regarding prejudice involving Chinese people during the pandemic. The first objective is to identify and describe different trajectories of prejudice over a seven-month period during the pandemic. The second and third objectives are to test the association between trajectory group membership and antecedent variables such as: socio-demographic factors (i.e., age, gender, political affiliation) and two psychological mechanisms, namely economic threat and global citizenship identification. Methods: A representative Canadian sample ( Results: Four trajectories were identified. The first three trajectories have a low (71.4% of the sample), high (18.5%) or very high (5.3%) level of prejudice Conclusion: The present study shows that Canadians differ in terms of both their level and change in prejudice against Chinese people throughout the pandemic with some socio-demographic groups being more likely than others to be associated with prejudice. The results also suggest that a promising way to tackle the major social issue of prejudice is to highlight a vision of the world where individuals are all "global citizens" facing the same challenge.