COVID-19 pandemic and prosociality: an experiment with healthcare professionals

Joan Costa-Font, Nicolò Gatti, Gilberto Turati and Daniel Wiesen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We study the extent to which exposure to COVID-19 relates to healthcare professionals’ prosociality. Drawing on empirical evidence from an incentivized experiment and a companion survey of healthcare professionals (HCPs) at a large Italian hospital (N = 194), we find that different forms of exposure to COVID-19 predict their altruistic motivation in heterogeneous ways. HCPs who worked in COVID-19 wards or had a close relative or friend severely affected by the virus are more than 5 percentage points more likely to prioritize patient welfare over personal gain, with the association for professional exposure being mostly driven by female HCPs, especially nurses. Conversely, personally contracting COVID-19 is associated with a 6 percentage point decline in prosociality. Our results highlight that different experiences of need shape prosocial behavior in hospital settings.

Keywords: Covid-19; provider altruism; healthcare professionals; medical decision-making; prosocial behavior; experiment; coronavirus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D64 D81 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2026-09-30
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Economics and Human Biology, 30, September, 2026, 62. ISSN: 1570-677X

Downloads: (external link)
https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/140229/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:140229

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().