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

Highlights

• Preventive health measures are a key public good to contain the spread of COVID-19.

• Prosocial individuals may factor in externalities of their behavior on others.

• We conduct a representative online survey in Germany (N = 5843) in Nov/Dec 2021.

• Individual prosociality predicts adherence to public health recommendations.

• Across regions, higher average prosociality predicts lower COVID-19 incidence.

Abstract

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 < 0.01). At the regional (NUTS-2) level, a one SD higher average prosociality is associated with an 11% lower weekly incidence rate (p < 0.01), and a 2%p lower weekly growth rate (p < 0.01) of COVID-19 cases, controlling for a host of demographic and socio-economic factors. This association is driven by higher compliance with public health behaviors in regions with higher prosociality. Our correlational results thus support the common notion that voluntary behavioral change plays a vital role in fighting the pandemic and, more generally, that social preferences may determine collective action outcomes of a society.