Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Socially responsible behavior is crucial for slowing the spread of infectious diseases. However, economic and epidemiological models of disease transmission abstract from prosocial motivations as a driver of behaviors that impact the health of others. In an incentivized study, we show that a large majority of people are very reluctant to put others at risk for their personal benefit. Moreover, this experimental measure of prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic, measured in a separate and ostensibly unrelated study with the same people. Prosocial individuals are more likely to follow physical distancing guidelines, stay home when sick, and buy face masks. We also find that prosociality measured two years before the pandemic predicts health behaviors during the pandemic. Our findings indicate that prosociality is a stable, long-term predictor of policy-relevant behaviors, suggesting that the impact of policies on a population may depend on the degree of prosociality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 104367 |
| Journal | Journal of Public Economics |
| Volume | 195 |
| ISSN | 0047-2727 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
We thank seminar participants at the University of Chicago, University of Copenhagen, University of Zurich, Helsinki GSE, NHH, BoL, and the University of Basel as well as Håkan Holm, Michel Maréchal, Marco Piovesan, Julien Senn, Mirco Tonin, Vanessa Valero, Roel van Veldhuizen, and Roberto Weber for helpful comments. We acknowledge funding from the Torsten Söderberg foundation. Campos-Mercade acknowledges funding from the Danish National Research Foundation grant DNRF134 (CEBI). Meier acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation grant P2BSP1_181847. Schneider acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation grant 100018_185176. Ethical approval was obtained from the Human Subjects Committee of the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration, and Information Technology at University of Zurich. The preregistration plan can be found on https://osf.io/vp5c6/.
Funding Information:
We thank seminar participants at the University of Chicago, University of Copenhagen, University of Zurich, Helsinki GSE, NHH, BoL, and the University of Basel as well as Håkan Holm, Michel Maréchal, Marco Piovesan, Julien Senn, Mirco Tonin, Vanessa Valero, Roel van Veldhuizen, and Roberto Weber for helpful comments. We acknowledge funding from the Torsten Söderberg foundation. Campos-Mercade acknowledges funding from the Danish National Research Foundation grant DNRF134 (CEBI). Meier acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation grant P2BSP1_181847. Schneider acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation grant 100018_185176. Ethical approval was obtained from the Human Subjects Committee of the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration, and Information Technology at University of Zurich. The preregistration plan can be found on https://osf.io/vp5c6/ .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)
- COVID-19, Externalities, Health behavior, Prosociality, Social preferences
Research areas
ID: 374862708