Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

Pol Campos-Mercade, Armando Meier (armando.meier@gmail.com), Florian Schneider and Erik Wengström

No 346, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Social preferences; health behavior; externalities; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D91 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-hea and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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Journal Article: Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021)
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