The Effects of Observer Expectations on Judgments of Anti-Asian Hate Tweets and Online Activism Response

The rise of racial hate speech on social media has raised critical questions for scholars to explore. It is necessary understand how outside observers passively evaluate (a) online posts and (b) whether those evaluations are related observers’ subsequent behavior. This study explored acts majority-on-minority minority-on-minority anti-Asian tweets Twitter. In an experiment ( n = 196) informed by expectancy violations theory, we tested White evaluated ostensibly posted either a or Black source. Analysis revealed moderated-mediation pathway in which political partisanship (Democrat/Republican) affected they judged the ethnic prototypicality sources speech; these source judgments were turn associated with tweet offensiveness self-reported intentions engage activism (i.e., signing petition). These results contribute our understanding differential expectancies regarding speech, can affect perceptions reactions racism.