The purpose of this study was to investigate which social groups are perceived as a threat target and which are perceived as a threat source during the COVID-19 outbreak. In a German sample (N = 1454) we examined perceptions of social groups ranging from those that are psychologically close and smaller (family, friends, neighbors) to those that are more distal and larger (people living in Germany, humankind). We hypothesized that psychologically closer groups would be perceived as less affected by COVID-19 as well as less threatening than more psychologically distal groups. Based on social identity theorizing, we also hypothesized that stronger identification with humankind would change these patterns. Furthermore, we explored how these threat perceptions relate to adherence to COVID-19 health guidelines. In line with our hypotheses, latent random-slope modelling revealed that psychologically distal and larger groups were perceived as more affected by COVID-19 and as more threatening than psychologically closer and smaller groups. Including identification with humankind as a predictor into the threat target model resulted in a steeper increase in threat target perception patterns, whereas identification with humankind did not predict differences in threat source perceptions. Additionally, an increase in threat source perceptions across social groups was associated with more adherence to health guidelines, whereas an increase in threat target perceptions was not. We fully replicated these findings in a subgroup from the original sample (N = 989) four weeks later. We argue that societal recovery from this and other crises will be supported by an inclusive approach informed by a sense of our common identity as human beings.

中文翻译：

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对 COVID-19 威胁的目标和来源的认知是由群体成员构成的，而反应则受到与人类认同的影响。

本研究的目的是调查在 COVID-19 爆发期间哪些社会群体被视为威胁目标，哪些社会群体被视为威胁源。在一个德国样本 (N = 1454) 中，我们检查了对社会群体的看法，范围从心理上接近且较小的群体（家人、朋友、邻居）到距离较远且较大的群体（生活在德国的人、人类）。我们假设，与心理上较远的群体相比，心理上较近的群体受 COVID-19 的影响较小，并且威胁较小。基于社会认同理论，我们还假设对人类的更强认同会改变这些模式。此外，我们探讨了这些威胁感知与遵守 COVID-19 健康指南之间的关系。根据我们的假设，潜在随机斜率模型显示，心理上较远的群体和较大的群体被认为受 COVID-19 的影响更大，并且比心理上较近的群体和较小的群体更具威胁性。将人类认同作为预测因素纳入威胁目标模型会导致威胁目标感知模式的急剧增加，而人类认同并不能预测威胁源感知的差异。此外，社会群体对威胁源感知的增加与对健康指南的更多遵守有关，而对威胁目标感知的增加则不然。四周后，我们在原始样本 (N = 989) 的一个亚组中完全复制了这些发现。