Xiong Kewei, from the science popularization team with the Faculty of Psychology at Beijing Normal University, said our genes prompt humans to automatically generate prejudice when we encounter negative feelings, danger and anxiety.

"Prejudice helps to save brain energy during periods of anxiety and promotes quicker coping, which is a positive effect of prejudice. We can't stop this process," he said.

David Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope College, Michigan, explained the "scapegoat theory" in his book Social Psychology.

He said one of the motivations of prejudice is frustration. Pain and frustration often evoke hostility, so when the cause of our frustration is intimidating or unknown, people often redirect their hostility.

According to the publication Psychology Today, negative feelings such as anger, frustration and insecurity are displaced or deflected onto other people by those who make scapegoats of others to discharge and distract their own feelings as they are overtaken by a sense of self-righteous indignation and affirmation.

Moreover, the "just world" phenomenon tricks people into thinking that we live in a fair world and people get what they deserve.

Based on the fallacy that good is rewarded and evil is punished, people tend to believe that those who become infected with the novel coronavirus may have done something wrong, the magazine said.

That belief may comfort us and suggest that if we do everything right, there is only a small chance we will become infected. Blaming the victim comes from a presumption that we live in a just world, so those who flourish must be good and those who suffer must deserve their fate, the article said.

It stressed that we don't live in a just world. People may do nothing wrong and take protective measures, but still get the coronavirus.

Mental prejudice turns into discrimination and unfair treatment of certain parts of the population that can cause negative impacts, it added.

On social media, internet users made jokes about people linked to Wuhan, Hubei province, one of the places worst hit by the outbreak, or added crass hashtags when referring to infected people, the magazine said.