Acute anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with higher levels of everyday altruism

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/n3t5c
• Publication Date: 2020-07-24T12:54:24Z
• Authors: Joana Vieira; Stephen Pierzchajlo; Simon Jangard; Abigail Marsh; Andreas Olsson
• Keywords: Altruism; Prosocial Behavior; Everyday Life; Association (psychology); Pandemic

Threatening situations have been shown to influence prosocial and altruistic behaviour in laboratory studies. However, it is unknown whether those effects would transfer a real-life crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined impact of changing threat on everyday altruism. Specifically, investigated association between defensive emotions associated with varying levels perceived imminence, reported frequency behaviours. A sample 600 United States residents was recruited online via Prolific at 4 different timepoints March April (n=150 each week). We collected self-report measures altruism, Perceived threat, imminence (anticipatory versus acute anxiety). Linear mixed models were used predict variation altruism as function emotions. Our results revealed clear consistent anxiety response pandemic, No significant found less responses. These suggest higher may promote action during crisis.