Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. has experienced a large increase in anti-Asian hate crimes due to the mistaken and pervasive belief that COVID-19 was a Chinese virus. While the rise in hate crimes is well-documented, not much research has been conducted into the characteristics that predict an individual’s intention to harm Asian Americans. Therefore, we examined individuals’ intention to harm Asian Americans related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (N = 94) were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were given 10 real-world scenarios of acts of aggression toward Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants responded to three questions for each real-world scenario, and right-wing authoritarianism and four types of aggression (i.e., physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, hostility) were examined as predictors of individuals’ intention to harm Asian Americans. We found that right-wing authoritarianism, physical aggression, and anger were significant predictors of one’s intention to harm Asian Americans. However, verbal aggression and hostility were not significant predictors of one’s intention to harm Asian Americans. Implications of these findings are discussed since these findings can assist researchers’ understanding of issues pertaining to prejudice and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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