Prosociality predicts individual behavior and collective outcomes in the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic induces a social dilemma: engaging in preventive health behaviors is costly for individuals but generates benefits that also accrue to society at large. The extent to which individuals internalize the social impact of their actions may depend on their prosociality, i.e. the wil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) 2022-09, Vol.308, p.115192-115192, Article 115192
Main Authors: Fang, Ximeng, Freyer, Timo, Ho, Chui-Yee, Chen, Zihua, Goette, Lorenz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collective action
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Economic preferences
Health Behavior
Humans
Online survey
Pandemics - prevention & control
Physical Distancing
Prosociality
SARS-CoV-2
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Summary:The COVID-19 pandemic induces a social dilemma: engaging in preventive health behaviors is costly for individuals but generates benefits that also accrue to society at large. The extent to which individuals internalize the social impact of their actions may depend on their prosociality, i.e. the willingness to behave in a way that mostly benefits other people. We conduct a nationally representative online survey in Germany (n = 5843) to investigate the role of prosociality in reducing the spread of COVID-19 during the second coronavirus wave. At the individual level, higher prosociality is strongly positively related to compliance with public health behaviors such as mask wearing and social distancing. A one standard deviation (SD) increase in prosociality is associated with a 0.3 SD increase in compliance (p 
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115192