Economic preferences and compliance in the social stress test of the COVID-19 crisis

Autonomous and policy-induced behavior change during the COVID-19 pandemic: Towards understanding and modeling the interplay of behavioral adaptation

Changes in human behaviors, such as reductions of physical contacts and the adoption of preventive measures, impact the transmission of infectious diseases considerably. Behavioral adaptations may be the result of individuals aiming to protect themselves or mere responses to public containment measures, or a combination of both. What drives autonomous and policy-induced adaptation, how they are related and change over time is insufficiently understood. Here, we develop a framework for more precise analysis of behavioral adaptation, focusing on confluence, interactions and time variance of autonomous and policy-induced adaptation. We carry out an empirical analysis of Germany during the fall of 2020 and beyond. Subsequently, we discuss how behavioral adaptation processes can be better represented in behavioral-epidemiological models. We find that our framework is useful to understand the interplay of autonomous and policy-induced adaptation as a "moving target". Our empirical analysis suggests that mobility patterns in Germany changed significantly due to both autonomous and policy-induced adaption, with potentially weaker effects over time due to decreasing risk signals, diminishing risk perceptions and an erosion of trust in the government. We find that while a number of simulation and prediction models have made great efforts to represent behavioral adaptation, the interplay of autonomous and policy-induced adaption needs to be better understood to construct convincing counterfactual scenarios for policy analysis. The insights presented here are of interest to modelers and policy makers aiming to understand and account for behaviors during a pandemic response more accurately.

Compliance in the public versus the private realm: Economic preferences, institutional trust and COVID-19 health behaviors

To what extent do economic preferences and institutional trust predict compliance with physical distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic? We reexamine this question by introducing the theoretical and empirical distinction between individual health behaviors in the public and in the private domain (e.g., keeping a distance from strangers vs. abstaining from private gatherings with friends). Using structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from Germany's second wave of the pandemic (N = 3350), we reveal the following major differences between compliance in both domains: Social preferences, especially (positive) reciprocity, play an essential role in predicting compliance in the public domain but are barely relevant in the private domain. Conversely, individuals' degree of trust in the national government matters predominantly for increasing compliance in the private domain. The clearly strongest predictor in this domain is the perception pandemic-related threats. Our findings encourage tailoring communication strategies to either domain-specific circumstances or factors common across domains. Tailored communication may also help promote compliance with other health-related regulatory policies beyond COVID-19.

Vaccination as personal public good provision

Vaccination against infectious diseases has both private and public benefits. We study whether social preferences-concerns for the well-being of other people-are associated with one's decision regarding vaccination. We measure these social preferences for 549 online subjects with a public-good game and an altruism game. To the extent that one gets vaccinated out of concern for the health of others, contribution in the public-good game is analogous to an individual's decision to obtain vaccination, while our altruism game provides a different measure of altruism, equity, and efficiency concerns. We proxy vaccine demand with how quickly a representative individual voluntarily took the initial vaccination for COVID-19 (after the vaccine was widely available). We collect COVID-19 vaccination history separately from the games to avoid experimenter-demand effects. We find a strong result: Contribution in the public-good game is associated with greater demand to voluntarily receive a first dose, and thus also to vaccinate earlier. Compared to a subject who contributes nothing, one who contributes the maximum ($4) is 58% more likely to obtain a first dose voluntarily in the four-month period that we study (April through August 2021). In short, people who are more pro-social are more likely to take a voluntary COVID-19 vaccination. Behavior in our altruism game does not predict vaccination. We recommend further research on the use of pro-social preferences to help motivate individuals to vaccinate for other transmissible diseases, such as the flu and HPV.

Risk, time preferences, trustworthiness and COVID-19 preventive behavior: evidence from France

We analyze how far-sightedness and risk aversion as well as the perceived trustworthiness of others correlate with COVID-19-related protective behaviors in France. We leverage individual-level data from the corona survey of the Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe linked with a paper questionnaire survey about preferences conducted in France just before the coronavirus outbreak. Our results suggest that far-sightedness and risk aversion are strong predictors of individuals' protective behavior. More far-sighted individuals are more likely to not visit their family members anymore, wear a mask, and keep their distance from others when outside, wash their hands more regularly and cover their cough. Risk aversion increases the likelihood of not meeting more than 5 other people and not meeting with family members anymore. Concerning the perceived trustworthiness, we find that a higher level of trust in others reduces compliance with the recommendations about meeting with 5 or more people and family gatherings. We interpret this result as a sign that individuals with trust in others perceive a lower risk of being infected by friends and family members. Hence, they are more willing to take risks when they engage in social interactions when they perceive their relatives as trustworthy. The government should therefore consider individuals' heterogeneity in preferences and beliefs when implementing a strategy to encourage people to comply with its COVID-19 protective recommendations.

Investigating the relationship of COVID-19 preventive and mitigation measures with mosque attendance in Pakistan

Social distancing served as a principal strategy to curtail the spread of COVID-19. However, congregational activities in mosques made it challenging to practice social distancing and led to a rapid surge in virus infections in several Muslim countries. This study uses nationally representative cross-sectional data from Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country, to examine the relationship of practicing preventive measures (such as social distancing, wearing mask and hand washing) and mitigation measures (like avoid going to the market, social gatherings, healthcare seeking, use of public transport, and long-distance travel) with mosque visits by utilizing logistic regressions. The results show that individuals adhering to preventive and mitigation measures also avoid visiting mosques and other religious gatherings. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that the government of Pakistan can avoid direct religious confrontation when it needs to minimize mosque visits to curtail the spread of the virus by implementing preventive and mitigation measures.

Does the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown affect risk attitudes?-Evidence from rural Thailand

Empirical research provides evidence on changes in individuals' risk attitudes after experiencing exogenous shocks. The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had various adverse impacts on economies and households. This study utilizes the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying lockdown to explore its impact on risk attitudes in rural Thailand using a difference-in-difference (DiD) approach. Overall, we do not find evidence on considerable changes in the willingness to take risks of rural household members after experiencing a lockdown during the pandemic. However, a significant heterogenous effect is found between individuals working inside and outside the agricultural sector. Individuals working outside the agricultural sector have a statistically significant reduction in their willingness to take risks after experiencing a lockdown. Our study provides additional empirical evidence to understand the impact of shocks on rural households' risk attitudes. This sheds light on how policy designs can better help mitigate downward economic trends following exogenous shocks.

Risk preferences, preventive behaviour, and the probability of a loss: Empirical evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic

RATIONALE

A theoretical model of optimal choice under risk, in which an individual chooses the level of prevention to avoid a loss, has the ambiguous prediction that a higher risk-taking preference increases the probability of a loss.

OBJECTIVE

To empirically investigate the prediction in the case of COVID-19 with individual-level survey data.

DATA

Survey data from the Understanding America Study (UAS). The UAS Coronavirus Tracking Survey followed 8628 respondents from March 2020 until July 2021 (29 survey waves) and data was gathered on having contracted COVID-19, vaccination, and preventive behaviour. Separate UAS modules gathered data on individuals' risk preferences; twice before and once during the COVID-19 pandemic. UAS also gathered data on pre-pandemic health and socio-economic status. Combining these data, and dropping missing observations, provided longitudinal data for 4335 respondents (96,370 observations) of whom 530 contracted COVID-19.

RESULTS

In support of the theoretical prediction, the empirical findings show that a one-standard deviation higher risk-taking preference is associated with about a one-third higher probability of contracting COVID-19 within two weeks. Furthermore, the findings show that individuals' risk-taking preference is negatively associated with the preventive behaviour of social distancing and not associated with getting vaccinated. There is, however, no support for preventive behaviour being associated with the probability of contracting COVID-19. The exception is for being vaccinated, which is negatively associated with the probability of contracting COVID-19. The findings, therefore, do not support that the positive association of the risk-taking preference with the probability of contracting COVID-19 is mediated through observed preventive behaviour.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings support the importance of individuals' risk-taking behaviour for contracting COVID-19 and, more generally, the importance of loss prevention as a risk management tool for individuals.

Lessons to Build an Educational Model for Higher Education Institutions Defined as Anchor Institutions to Tackle Public Health Crises: A Pilot Study on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Faculty and Students in Hebert L. College in the Bronx, NY

Coronavirus disease 2019 exacerbated health inequities in Bronx Communities. This study explored vaccine hesitancy among a random sample of faculty and students from Hebert Lehman College. Findings suggest faculty are largely vaccinated (87%), while 59% of students are unvaccinated. Significant gaps in information were found related to safety and complications. This suggests universities need to adopt an educational model with a multipronged social support strategy to gain students' trust and a greater sense of belonging.

The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19

In a representative sample of the U.S. population during the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigate how prosociality and ideology interact in their relationship with health-protecting behavior and trust in the government to handle the crisis. We find that an experimental measure of prosociality based on standard economic games positively relates to protective behavior. Conservatives are less compliant with COVID-19-related behavioral restrictions than liberals and evaluate the government's handling of the crisis significantly more positively. We show that prosociality does not mediate the impact of political ideology. This finding means that conservatives are less compliant with protective health guidelines - independent of differences in prosociality between both ideological camps. Behavioral differences between liberals and conservatives are roughly only one-fourth of the size of their differences in judging the government's crisis management. This result suggests that Americans were more polarized in their political views than in their acceptance of public health advice.

How does the vaccine approval procedure affect COVID-19 vaccination intentions?

People's willingness to vaccinate is critical to combating the COVID-19 pandemic. We devise a representative experiment to study how the design of the vaccine approval procedure affects trust in newly developed vaccines and consequently public attitudes towards vaccination. Compared to an Emergency Use Authorization, choosing the more thorough Conditional Marketing Authorization approval procedure increases vaccination intentions by 13 percentage points. The effects of the increased duration of the approval procedure are positive and significant only for Emergency Use Authorization. Treatment effects do not differ between relevant subgroups, such as respondents who had (did not have) COVID-19, or between vaccinated and unvaccinated respondents. Increased trust in the vaccine is the key mediator of treatment effects on vaccination intentions.

Socioeconomic and risk-related drivers of compliance with measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection: evidence from the Munich-based KoCo19 study

OBJECTIVES

Although a growing share of the population in many countries has been vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus to different degrees, social distancing and hygienic non-pharmaceutical interventions still play a substantial role in containing the pandemic. The goal of this study was to investigate which factors are correlated with a higher compliance with these regulations in the context of a cohort study in the city of Munich, southern Germany, during the summer of 2020, i.e. after the first lockdown phase.

METHODS

Using self-reported compliance with six regulations and personal hygiene rules (washing hands, avoiding touching face, wearing a mask, keeping distance, avoiding social gatherings, avoiding public spaces) we extracted two compliance factor scores, namely compliance with personal hygiene measures and compliance with social distancing regulations. Using linear and logistic regressions, we estimated the correlation of several socio-demographic and risk perception variables with both compliance scores.

RESULTS

Risk aversion proved to be a consistent and significant driver of compliance across all compliance behaviors. Furthermore, being female, being retired and having a migration background were positively associated with compliance with personal hygiene regulations, whereas older age was related with a higher compliance with social distancing regulations. Generally, socioeconomic characteristics were not related with compliance, except for education, which was negatively related with compliance with personal hygiene measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that for a targeted approach to improve compliance with measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection, special attention should be given to younger, male and risk-prone individuals.

Determinants of people's motivations to approach COVID-19 vaccination centers

This paper presents the results of a survey exploring the determinants of vacinees' confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and their motivations to become vaccinated. At the threatening rise of the highly infectious Omicron variant, in December 2021, we interviewed people in waiting lines of vaccination centers. Our results identify risk-averse and social-distancing-compliant people as showing high confidence in the vaccine, which motivates them to receive it for reasons of protecting themselves and others. By contrast, policy incentives, such as "3G/2G" restrictions, motivate risk-tolerant people who opted for vaccination to get access to public areas. Trusting people who regularly vote are little afraid of vaccines' side effects. Our findings offer insights for policymakers in societies and firms that help to tailor policies promoting vaccination based on people's economic preferences.

The association between the proportion of Brexiters and COVID-19 death rates in England

RATIONALE

A cultural divide may exist between a set of people who accept and a set of people who reject the advice of experts. This cultural divide may have important consequences and policy implications, especially in times of severe crisis.

OBJECTIVE

Ecological study of whether there exists a significant conditional correlation between two variables that appear unrelated except for attitude towards experts: (1) Proportion of people voting in favour of remaining in the European Union in 2016 and (2) COVID-19 outcomes measured by death rates and vaccination rates. A significant conditional correlation would indicate that polarized beliefs have important consequences across a broad spectrum of societal challenges.

METHODS

This study uses simple descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression, considering confounders suggested in the related literature, with data at the District level in England.

RESULTS

Districts where people voted most heavily in favour of remaining in the EU (top quintile) had nearly half the death rate of districts in the bottom quintile. This relationship was stronger after the first wave, which was a time when protective measures were communicated to the public by experts. A similar relationship was observed with the decision to get vaccinated, and results were strongest for the booster dose, which was the dose that was not mandatory, but highly advised by experts. The Brexit vote is the variable most correlated with COVID-19 outcomes among many variables including common proxies for trust and civic capital or differences in industry composition across Districts.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest a need for designing incentive schemes that take into consideration different belief systems. Scientific prowess - such as finding effective vaccines - may not be sufficient to solve crises.

COVID-19 vaccination intentions and subsequent uptake: An analysis of the role of marginalisation in society using British longitudinal data

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has previously been modelled using data on intentions - expressed prior to vaccine availability. Once vaccines became widely available, it became possible to model hesitancy using actual vaccination uptake data. This paper estimates the determinants of the joint distribution of COVID-19 vaccination intentions (declared before the release of any vaccine) and actual vaccination take-up (when it was widely available across the age distribution). We use high quality longitudinal data (UK Household Longitudinal Study) collected during the pandemic in the UK, merged to a wide variety of individual characteristics collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our estimation draws on pre-Covid values of variables for a sample that includes 10,073 observations from the September 2021 wave. The contribution of this paper is to model hesitancy and uptake jointly. The work shows that people who might be regarded as marginalised in society (measured, before the pandemic began) are less likely to say that they intend to be vaccinated and they go on to also be more likely to actually remain unvaccinated. It also shows that there is a large positive correlation between the unobservable determinants of intention and of uptake. This high positive correlation has an important implication - that information campaigns can be reasonably well profiled to target specific groups on the basis of intention data alone. We also show that changing one's mind is not correlated with observable data. This is consistent with two explanations. Firstly, the new information available on the arrival of vaccines, that they are safe and effective, may be more optimistic than was originally assumed. Secondly, individuals may have been more pessimistic about the effects associated with infection before vaccines became available.

Anti-social behaviour and economic decision-making: Panel experimental evidence in the wake of COVID-19

We systematically examine the acute impact of exposure to a public health crisis on anti-social behaviour and economic decision-making using unique experimental panel data from China, collected just before the outbreak of COVID-19 and immediately after the first wave was overcome. Exploiting plausibly exogenous geographical variation in virus exposure coupled with a dataset of longitudinal experiments, we show that participants who were more intensely exposed to the virus outbreak became more anti-social than those with lower exposure, while other aspects of economic and social preferences remain largely stable. The finding is robust to multiple hypothesis testing and a similar, yet less pronounced pattern emerges when using alternative measures of virus exposure, reflecting societal concern and sentiment, constructed using social media data. The anti-social response is particularly pronounced for individuals who experienced an increase in depression or negative affect, which highlights the important role of psychological health as a potential mechanism through which the virus outbreak affected behaviour.

Satisfaction with pandemic management and compliance with public health measures: Evidence from a German household survey on the COVID-19 crisis

We study how satisfaction with government efforts to respond to the COVID-19 crisis affects compliance with pandemic mitigation measures. Using a novel longitudinal household survey for Germany, we overcome the identification and endogeneity challenges involved in estimating individual compliance by using an instrumental variable approach that exploits exogenous variation in two indicators measured before the crisis: political party preferences and the mode of information measured by the frequency of using social media and reading newspapers. We find that a one unit increase in subjective satisfaction (on the 0-10 scale) improves protective behavior by 2-4 percentage points. Satisfaction with the government's COVID-19 management is lower among individuals with right-wing partisan preferences and among individuals who use only social media as an information source. Overall, our results indicate that the effectiveness of uniform policy measures in various domains, such as the health system, social security or taxation, especially during pandemic crises, cannot be fully evaluated without taking individual preferences for collective action into account.

Population preferences for non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: trade-offs among public health, individual rights, and economics

PROBLEM

Policymakers must decide on interventions to control the pandemic. These decisions are driven by weighing the risks and benefits of various non-pharmaceutical intervention alternatives. Due to the nature of the pandemic, these decisions are not based on sufficient evidence regarding the effects, nor are decision-makers informed about the willingness of populations to accept the economic and health risks associated with different policy options. This empirical study seeks to reduce uncertainty by measuring population preferences for non-pharmaceutical interventions.

METHODS

An online-based discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted to elicit population preferences. Respondents were asked to choose between three pandemic scenarios with different interventions and impacts of the Corona pandemic. In addition, Best-worst scaling (BWS) was used to analyze the impact of the duration of individual interventions on people's acceptance. The marginal rate of substitution was applied to estimate willingness-to-accept (WTA) for each intervention and effect by risk of infection.

RESULTS

Data from 3006 respondents were included in the analysis. The DCE showed, economic effect of non-pharmaceutical measures had a large impact on choice decisions for or against specific lockdown scenarios. Individual income decreases had the most impact. Excess mortality and individual risk of infection were also important factors influencing choice decisions. Curfews, contact restrictions, facility closures, personal data transmissions, and mandatory masking in public had a lesser impact. However, significant standard deviations in the random parameter logit model (RPL) indicated heterogeneities in the study population. The BWS results showed that short-term restrictions were more likely to be accepted than long-term restrictions. According to WTA estimates, people would be willing to accept a greater risk of infection to avoid loss of income.

DISCUSSION

The results can be used to determine which consequences of pandemic measures would be more severe for the population. For example, the results show that citizens want to limit the decline in individual income during pandemic measures. Participation in preference studies can also inform citizens about potential tradeoffs that decision-makers face in current and future decisions during a pandemic. Knowledge of the population's preferences will help inform decisions that consider people's perspectives and expectations for the future. Survey results can inform decision-makers about the extent to which the population is willing to accept certain lockdown measures, such as curfews, contact restrictions, lockdowns, or mandatory masks.

Follow or not? Descriptive norms and public health compliance: Mediating role of risk perception and moderating effect of behavioral visibility

In a pandemic context, public health events are receiving unprecedented attention, and identifying ways to enhance individual public health compliance behaviors has become an urgent practical problem. Considering that individual decisions are susceptible to group members' behaviors and that descriptive norms provide social information about the typical behaviors of others, we focused on the effects of the properties and reference groups of descriptive norms on public health compliance behaviors. We also investigated the mechanism with risk perception as a mediator and the applicable condition with behavioral visibility as a moderator. Through a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject survey experiment with 529 subjects, we demonstrated that (1) compared with the negative norm, the positive norm was more effective in promoting public health compliance behaviors; (2) compared with the distal group norm, the proximal group norm more significantly promoted public health compliance behaviors; (3) the effect of the property of descriptive norms on public health compliance behaviors was weakened in the treatment of the proximal group norm; (4) risk perception partially mediated the association between the property of descriptive norms and public health compliance behaviors and fully mediated the effect of the interaction of the property and the reference group of descriptive norms on public health compliance behaviors; in the treatment of the negative-proximal group norm, individuals perceived more risk, thus effectively nudging their public health compliance behaviors; (5) compared with low-visibility behaviors, public health compliance behaviors were significantly stronger for high-visibility behaviors; (6) the property of descriptive norms had a weaker effect on public health compliance behaviors for low-visibility behaviors. In terms of theoretical significance, we refined the study of descriptive norms to promote the application of behavioral public policy. Moreover, the new model of public health compliance behaviors constructed in this study explains the mechanism and applicable conditions of public health compliance behaviors. In practical terms, this study has implications for designing intervention programs to nudge public health compliance behaviors.

What drives the acceptability of restrictive health policies: An experimental assessment of individual preferences for anti-COVID 19 strategies

The public acceptability of a policy is an important issue in democracies, in particular for anti-COVID-19 policies, which require the adherence of the population to be applicable and efficient. Discrete choice experiment (DCE) can help elicit preference ranking among various policies for the whole population and subgroups. Using a representative sample of the French population, we apply DCE methods to assess the acceptability of various anti-COVID-19 measures, separately and as a package. Owing to the methods, we determine the extent to which acceptability depends on personal characteristics: political orientation, health vulnerability, or age. The young population differs in terms of policy preferences and their claim for monetary compensation, suggesting a tailored policy for them. The paper provides key methodological tools based on microeconomic evaluation of individuals' preferences for improving the design of public health policies.

No-vaxxers are different in public good games

In September 2021 we conducted a survey to 1482 people in Italy, when the vaccination campaign against Covid19 was going on. In the first part of the survey we run three simple tests on players' behavior in standard tasks with monetary incentives to measure their risk attitudes, willingness to contribute to a public good in an experimental game, and their beliefs about others' behavior. In the second part, we asked respondents if they were vaccinated and, if not, for what reason. We classified as no-vaxxers those (around [Formula: see text] of the sample) who did not yet start the vaccination process and declared that they intended not to do it in the future. We find that no-vaxxers contribute less to the public good in the experimental game because they trust others less to do so. from the three tests we extrapolated a classification based on the benchmark of rationality and other-regarding preferences for each respondent, and we found that in this respect no-vaxxers do not differ from the rest of the population.

The Impact of Long-Term Orientation Traits on Pandemic Fatigue Behavior: Evidence from the Columbian Exchange

Leveraging exogenous variation in time preferences, we measure the causal effects of culturally embodied long-term orientation traits on voluntary social distancing behavior, COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and mortality outcomes in 2020 in the United States. We establish that long-term orientation traits with bio-geographical origins causally reduce measures of COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalization, inpatient bed utilization, and age-specific excess deaths. Mobility indicators measuring voluntary decisions to socially distance, comprising measures of visitors/visits to recreational locations, and mobility proxy measuring duration of hours away from home show that a lower prevalence of long-term orientation traits explains persistent resistance to social distancing.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10887-022-09218-0.

An Intelligent Algorithm to Predict GDP Rate and Find a Relationship Between COVID-19 Outbreak and Economic Downturn

With the spread of COVID-19, economic damages are challenging for governments and people's livelihood besides its dangerous and negative impact on humanity's health, which can be led to death. Various health guidelines have been proposed to tackle the virus outbreak including quarantine, restriction rules to imports, exports, migrations, and tourist arrival that were affected by economic depression. Providing an approach to predict the economic situation has a highlighted role in managing crisis when a country faces a problem such as a disease epidemic. We propose an intelligent algorithm to predict the economic situation that utilizes neural networks (NNs) to satisfy the aim. Our work estimates correlation coefficient based on the spearman method between gross domestic product rate (GDPR) and other economic statistics to find effective parameters on growing up and falling GDPR and also determined the NNs' inputs. We study the reported economic and disease statistics in Germany, India, Australia, and Thailand countries to evaluate the algorithm's efficiency in predicting economic situation. The experimental results demonstrate the prediction accuracy of approximately 96% and 89% for one and more months ahead, respectively. Our method can help governments to present efficient policies for preventing economic damages.

Can relief measures nudge compliance in a public health crisis? Evidence from a kinked fiscal policy rule

We show that compensation measures aimed at improving the fairness of a crisis policy response can unintendedly nudge compliance with emergency rules. We combine information on the distribution of relief funds across Italian municipalities during the novel coronavirus pandemic with data tracking citizens' movements through mobile devices and navigation systems. To assess the impact of transfers on compliance, we exploit a sharp kink schedule in the allocation of funds. The empirical analysis provides evidence that compliance increased with transfers, suggesting that the observance of emergency rules also depends on the fairness of the pandemic policy response.

Does pro-sociality or trust better predict staying home behavior during the Covid-19?

Voluntary compliance of preventive and mitigation measures due to social concerns can play a crucial role in slowing down the spread of the Covid-19. The existing economic models for disease spread however do not direct a lot of focus on the possible role of pro-social behavior and general trust in predicting preventive behaviors amid the Covid-19. Therefore, this study analyzes whether pro-sociality and general trust measured in the short run (2020 and 2019) and in the long run (2015 and 2010) predict attitudes towards the stay home behavior and the intended stay home behavior in case the government mandates it due to the Covid-19 in the Netherlands. The results suggest that these preferences positively influence attitudes towards staying home behavior. However, trust in comparison to pro-sociality is a stable and robust predictor of stay home attitudes both in the short as well as long run. On the other hand, neither trust nor pro-sociality influences the intended stay home behavior in case the government mandates the lockdown, and it is most likely due to the timing of the survey coinciding with a significant drop in the Covid-19 infections and easing out of the lockdown restrictions by the Dutch government.

Lockdown support, trust and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs: Insights from the second national lockdown in France

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictive sanitary measures such as lockdowns have been implemented all around the world. Based on a representative sample of the population collected through an online cross-sectional survey, the goal of the study was to investigate the factors associated with lockdown agreement in France during the second general lockdown of fall 2020. More specifically, we aimed to investigate how trust in the government and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs influenced lockdown agreement. Trust in the authorities and low adherence to conspiracy beliefs appeared as strong predictors of lockdown acceptance among our sample. Using a mediation analysis, we highlighted a significant indirect effect of trust in the authorities on lockdown agreement through the adherence to conspiracy beliefs: low level of trust translated into higher odds to believe in COVID-19 misinformation which in turn decreased lockdown support. The double effect of trust on lockdown agreement, both directly and indirectly, underlines the importance of careful communication from the government around decisions related to COVID-19 mitigation measures in order not to deteriorate even more the low level of trust in the health action of the government. The fight against false information also appears of the utmost importance to increase the population adherence to public authorities’ recommendations.

Community Health Resources, Globalization, Trust in Science, and Voting as Predictors of COVID-19 Vaccination Rates: A Global Study with Implications for Vaccine Adherence

The COVID-19 global pandemic requires, not only an adequate supply of, but public adherence to safe and effective vaccinations. This study analyzes the human and economic resources and political and public attitudinal factors that influence widely varying country-level coronavirus vaccination rates. Using data on up to 95 countries, we found that countries’ strength of community health training and research (CHTR), education index, globalization, and vaccine supply are associated with a greater COVID-19 vaccination rate. In a separate analysis, certain political factors, and public attitudes (perceived government effectiveness, government fiscal decentralization, trust in science, and parliamentary voter turnout) predicted vaccination rates. Perceived corruption and actual freedoms (political rights and civil liberties) related to vaccination rates in prior studies were not significantly predictive when controlling for the above factors. The results confirm our prior findings on the importance of CHTR resources for increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates. They also suggest that to motivate vaccine adherence countries need, not only an adequate vaccine supply (which depends on a country having either its own resources or effective global political, social, and economic connections) and community health workforce training and research, but also a population that trusts in science, and is actively engaged in the political process.

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

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.

Nudging for Lockdown

Abstract. We test the effectiveness of a social comparison nudge (SCN) to enhance lockdown compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic using a French representative sample ( N = 1,154). Respondents were randomly assigned to a favorable/unfavorable informational feedback (daily road traffic mobility patterns, in Normandy – a region of France) on peer lockdown compliance. Our dependent variable was the intention to comply with a possible future lockdown. We controlled for risk, time, and social preferences and tested the effectiveness of the nudge. We found no evidence of the effectiveness of the SCN among the whole French population, but the nudge was effective when its recipient and the reference population shared the same geographical location (Normandy). Exploratory results on this subsample ( N = 52) suggest that this effectiveness could be driven by noncooperative individuals.

Eliciting risk preferences that predict risky health behavior: A comparison of two approaches

Information on attitudes to risk could increase understanding of and explain risky health behaviors. We investigate two approaches to eliciting risk preferences in the health domain, a novel "indirect" lottery elicitation approach with health states as outcomes and a "direct" approach where respondents are asked directly about their willingness to take risks. We compare the ability of the two approaches to predict health-related risky behaviors in a general adult population. We also investigate a potential framing effect in the indirect lottery elicitation approach. We find that risk preferences elicited using the direct approach can better predict health-related risky behavior than those elicited using the indirect approach. Moreover, a seemingly innocuous change to the framing of the lottery question results in significantly different risk preference estimates, and conflicting conclusions about the ability of the indicators to predict risky health behaviors.

COVID-19 and pro-sociality: How do donors respond to local pandemic severity, increased salience, and media coverage?

Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected pro-sociality among individuals? After the onset of the pandemic, many charitable appeals were updated to include a reference to COVID-19. Did donors increase their giving in response to such changes? In order to answer these questions, we conducted a real-donation online experiment with more than 4200 participants from 149 local areas in England and over 21 weeks. First, we varied the fundraising appeal to either include or exclude a reference to COVID-19. We found that including the reference to COVID-19 in the appeal increased donations. Second, in a natural experiment-like approach, we studied how the relative local severity of the pandemic and media coverage about local COVID-19 severity affected giving in our experiment. We found that both higher local severity and more related articles increased giving of participants in the respective areas. This holds for different specifications, including specifications with location fixed effects, time fixed effects, a broad set of individual characteristics to account for a potentially changing composition of the sample over time and to account for health- and work-related experiences with and expectations regarding the pandemic. While negative experiences with COVID-19 correlate negatively with giving, both approaches led us to conclude that the pure effect of increased salience of the pandemic on pro-sociality is positive. Despite the shift in public attention toward the domestic fight against the pandemic and away from developing countries' challenges, we found that preferences did not shift toward giving more to a national project and less to developing countries.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10683-022-09753-y.

The role of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism on mask wearing and vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic

In a large nationally representative study in the United States, we explored the role of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism on adhering to protective measures against COVID-19. Controlling for one's politics, perception of risk, state policies, and important demographics, we find higher grandiose narcissism predicts less vaccination and less mask-wearing, but more telling other people to wear a mask, if one wears a mask. The individual facets of higher entitlement/exploitativeness predicted less mask-wearing and less vaccination while higher authority/leadership-seeking predicted telling others to wear a mask, but not getting vaccinated. Regarding vulnerable narcissism, higher self-centered/egocentrism predicted less mask-wearing or vaccination, while higher oversensitivity-to-judgement predicted more mask-wearing and vaccination. Our results are consistent with expectations that reflect narcissism's multidimensionality, and present a nuanced picture of narcissism's role in adhering to protective policies.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03080-4.

A dual-process approach to prosocial behavior under COVID-19 uncertainty

Uncertainty has been shown to reduce the willingness to cooperate in various social dilemmas and negatively affect prosocial behavior. However, some studies showed that uncertainty does not always decrease prosocial behavior, depending on the type of uncertainty. More specifically, recent research has shown that prosocial behavior tends to increase under impact uncertainty—uncertainty about the consequences for others if they become infected. In addition, researchers have argued that intuition favors prosocial behavior while deliberation leads to selfish behavior. Our study explored how intuitive (time pressure) or deliberate mental processing, under outcome, or impact uncertainty affect prosocial behavior in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our sample consists of 496 participants, and we used a 4 (COVID-19 scenario: Control vs. Impact Uncertainty vs. Worst-Case vs. Indirect Transmission) by 2 (decision time: time delay vs. time pressure) between-subjects design. Results suggest that participants are more inclined to stay at home (prosocial intention) when forced to make their decisions intuitively rather than deliberately. Additionally, we found that uncertainty does not always decrease prosocial behavior. It seems that uncertainty does not affect the prosocial intention in a scenario with a real infectious disease. These findings suggest that the distinction between outcome and impact uncertainty may be due to the realism of experimental stimuli interventions.

Associations between anxiety and the willingness to be exposed to COVID-19 risk among French young adults during the first pandemic wave

The COVID-19 outbreak has generated significant uncertainty about the future, especially for young adults. Health and economic threats, as well as more diffuse concerns about the consequences of COVID-19, can trigger feelings of anxiety, leading individuals to adopt uncertainty-reducing behaviours. We tested whether anxiety was associated with an increase in willingness to be exposed to the risk of COVID-19 infection (WiRE) using an online survey administered to 3,110 French individuals aged between 18 and 35 years old during the first pandemic wave and lockdown period (April 2020). Overall, 56.5% of the sample declared a positive WiRE. A one standard deviation increase in psychological state anxiety raised the WiRE by +3.9 pp (95% CI [+1.6, 6.2]). Unemployment was associated with a higher WiRE (+8.2 percentage points (pp); 95% CI [+0.9, 15.4]). One standard deviation increases in perceived hospitalisation risk and in income (+1160€) were associated with a -4.1 pp (95% CI [-6.2, 2.1]) decrease in the WiRE and +2.7 pp increase (95% CI [+1.1, 4.4]), respectively. Overall, our results suggest that both psychological anxiety and the prospect of economic losses can undermine young adults' adherence to physical distancing recommendations. Public policies targeting young adults must consider both their economic situation and their mental health, and they must use uncertainty-reducing communication strategies.

COVID-19 compliance behaviors of older people: The role of cognitive and non-cognitive skills

This paper examines the empirical relationship between individuals' cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and COVID-19 compliance behaviors using cross-country data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We find that both cognitive and non-cognitive skills predict responsible health behaviors during the COVID-19 crisis. Episodic memory is the most important cognitive skill, while conscientiousness and neuroticism are the most significant personality traits. There is also some evidence of a role for an internal locus of control in compliance.

Crowding in the time of COVID: Effects on rapport and shopping satisfaction

Decades of research in marketing has established that crowding (human and spatial) in retail contexts significantly affects shopping satisfaction. Prompted by the profound changes in retail supply and demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this study expands knowledge in two ways: uncovering new relationships and replicating some of the critical findings previously demonstrated in the pre-pandemic context. Two studies (Study 1 scenario and Study 2 actual shopping trip) show that higher levels of human crowding results in lower levels of shopping satisfaction, and this effect is mediated by a new construct introduced into the crowding literature, namely, customer rapport with employees, emerging as a significant factor in the pandemic era. Importantly, the results show that these relationships differ according to customers’: a) perceptions about the appropriateness of retailer precautions, b) beliefs about the severity of threat that the pandemic presents, and c) perceived vulnerability to Covid-19, all of them new to crowding dynamics during the time of Covid. Finally, with Study 2, we replicate and extend selected findings from prior research on crowding. Overall, the results expand our understanding of crowding effects and provide novel insights in the “new normal” retail context.

Altruism and the Link to Pro-social Pandemic Behavior

In the Corona pandemic, especially in the phase before vaccines were available, people's risk of infection with COVID-19 was dependent on the adherence to pandemic behaviors (e. g., wearing masks) of others around them. To explore whether altruistic individuals are more likely to engage in pro-social behaviors to protect others during the pandemic, we use data from the European COVID Survey (ECOS). The data was collected in September 2020 and consisted of a representative sample from seven European countries (N = 7,025). Altruism was measured as a deviation from purely self-interested behavior by asking respondents how much they would be willing to donate from an unexpected gain to the equivalent of 1000€. Respondents who were willing to donate more than 0 Euros (68.7%) were treated as altruistic; on average, respondents were willing to donate 11.7% (SD 17.9) of the gain. Controlling for country, sociodemographics, general risk aversion and COVID-specific risk aversion, we find that individuals classified as altruistic were more likely to behave pro-socially. More specifically, we find that altruistic respondents were more likely to wait at home for test results and wear a mask where it is recommended. They would also stay about 1 day longer under quarantine without symptoms after visiting a high-risk country and were less likely to go to a supermarket with COVID symptoms. We find no significant effect for wearing a mask in places where it is mandatory and for inviting more than six people into the house. Furthermore, we find that the subjective risk assessment of COVID-19 also plays a role in these behaviors. Our results support evidence from the literature that suggests that adherence to pro-social pandemic behaviors may be increased if public health officials emphasize the altruistic nature of these behaviors.

How Covid-19 changed economic and health-related worries in Italy

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a huge challenge for governments all over the world, as well as for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the pharmaceutical companies in charge of creating the vaccines against the coronavirus. The success of all the efforts and the measures put in place to contain the spread of the contagion and to immunize people, however, also depends on people social compliance. In this study, we thus investigate how demographic and socio-economic variables affected individuals' economic and health-related worries due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using questions created by the WHO, we surveyed about 3000 Italians between May and June 2020. Our results show that individuals' socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics are engaged with distinct types of worries due to Covid-19, such as health-related worries, economic-related worries and worries connected to restrictions on movements. Our findings have implications for decision makers and policy makers in showing how important is to consider demographic and socio-economic differences between individuals, to better understand how people are differently affected by different worries and which actions and policies may be more effective in protecting and supporting people especially the most vulnerable ones.

Anticipation of COVID-19 vaccines reduces willingness to socially distance

We investigate how the anticipation of COVID-19 vaccines affects voluntary social distancing. In a large-scale preregistered survey experiment with a representative sample, we study whether providing information about the safety, effectiveness, and availability of COVID-19 vaccines affects the willingness to comply with public health guidelines. We find that vaccine information reduces peoples' voluntary social distancing, adherence to hygiene guidelines, and their willingness to stay at home. Getting positive information on COVID-19 vaccines induces people to believe in a swifter return to normal life. The results indicate an important behavioral drawback of successful vaccine development: An increased focus on vaccines can lower compliance with public health guidelines and accelerate the spread of infectious disease. The results imply that, as vaccinations roll out and the end of a pandemic feels closer, policies aimed at increasing social distancing will be less effective, and stricter policies might be required.

Economic insecurity and compliance to the COVID‐19 restrictions

The present research investigates economic insecurity as one potential determinant of citizens' compliance with restrictive policies implemented to combat the spread of the COVID‐19 virus. Two pre‐registered studies (N_{Study 1} = 305; N_{Study 2} = 175) were conducted in France during the second and the third wave of the pandemic to test correlational (Study 1) and causal (Study 2) links between economic insecurity, perceived constraints, and transgressions (self‐reported, Study 1; intended, Study 2). We hypothesized that the effect of economic insecurity is particularly strong for restrictions involving social affiliations (e.g., not meeting with friends and families). Results indicated that economic insecurity indeed increases perceived constraints and the tendency to transgress but for all types of restrictions (involving social affiliation or not). We propose that economic insecurity poses a threat to individuals' self‐agency, which triggers psychological reactance to any form of restrictions on individual freedom.

Regional Characteristics of the Second Wave of SARS-CoV-2 Infections and COVID-19 Deaths in Germany

(1) Background: In the absence of individual level information, the aim of this study was to identify the regional key features explaining SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 deaths during the upswing of the second wave in Germany. (2) Methods: We used COVID-19 diagnoses and deaths from 1 October to 15 December 2020, on the county-level, differentiating five two-week time periods. For each period, we calculated the age-standardized COVID-19 incidence and death rates on the county level. We trained gradient boosting models to predict the incidence and death rates by 155 indicators and identified the top 20 associations using Shap values. (3) Results: Counties with low socioeconomic status (SES) had higher infection and death rates, as had those with high international migration, a high proportion of foreigners, and a large nursing home population. The importance of these characteristics changed over time. During the period of intense exponential increase in infections, the proportion of the population that voted for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the last federal election was among the top characteristics correlated with high incidence and death rates. (4) Machine learning approaches can reveal regional characteristics that are associated with high rates of infection and mortality.

How the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic impacted pro-social behaviour and individual preferences: Experimental evidence from China

We present experimental evidence on how pro-sociality, trust and attitudes towards risk and ambiguity evolved over the six weeks following the imposition of stringent Covid-19 related lockdown measures in the Hubei province of China. We compare incentivized economic decision-making in a baseline sample, collected pre-epidemic, with a series of repeated cross-sectional samples drawn from the same population between January and March, 2020. We find high rates of altruism, cooperation and aversion to risk taking under ambiguity in the immediate aftermath of the lockdown, while trust is significantly below its baseline level. Risk attitudes also differ in the post-lockdown sample, with decreased risk tolerance in the loss domain and lesser risk aversion in the gain domain. We further uncover significant transitory effects for trust and risk aversion around the date of a high-profile whistleblower's death from Covid-19. Our findings suggest that the onset of a public health crisis may have unintended consequences for economic preferences that determine population compliance with interventions designed to reduce the spread of a novel coronavirus.

Replicating the Disease framing problem during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: A study of stress, worry, trust, and choice under risk

In the risky-choice framing effect, different wording of the same options leads to predictably different choices. In a large-scale survey conducted from March to May 2020 and including 88,181 participants from 47 countries, we investigated how stress, concerns, and trust moderated the effect in the Disease problem, a prominent framing problem highly evocative of the COVID-19 pandemic. As predicted by the appraisal-tendency framework, risk aversion and the framing effect in our study were larger than under typical circumstances. Furthermore, perceived stress and concerns over coronavirus were positively associated with the framing effect. Contrary to predictions, however, they were not related to risk aversion. Trust in the government's efforts to handle the coronavirus was associated with neither risk aversion nor the framing effect. The proportion of risky choices and the framing effect varied substantially across nations. Additional exploratory analyses showed that the framing effect was unrelated to reported compliance with safety measures, suggesting, along with similar findings during the pandemic and beyond, that the effectiveness of framing manipulations in public messages might be limited. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, along with directions for further investigations.

Gender Differences in Fear and Risk Perception During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many people to suffer from emotional distress. Previous studies suggest that women process and express affective experiences, such as fear, with a greater intensity compared to men. We administered an online survey to a sample of participants in the United States that measures fear of COVID-19, perceptions about health and financial risks, and preventative measures taken. Despite the empirical fact that men are more likely to experience adverse health consequences from COVID-19, women report greater fear and more negative expectations about health-related consequences of COVID-19 than men. However, women are more optimistic than men regarding the financial consequences of the pandemic. Women also report more negative emotional experiences generally during the pandemic, particularly in situations where other people or the government take actions that make matters worse. Though women report taking more preventative measures than men in response to the pandemic, gender differences in behavior are reduced after controlling for fear. These results shed light on how differences in emotional experiences of the pandemic may inform policy interventions.

Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

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.

Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

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.

The distributional consequences of social distancing on poverty and labour income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper estimates the potential distributional consequences of the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdowns on poverty and labour income inequality in 20 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. We estimate the share of individuals that are potentially able to remain active under the lockdown by taking into account individuals' teleworking capacity but also whether their occupation is affected by legal workplace closures or mobility restrictions. Furthermore, we compare the shares under the formal (de jure) lockdown policies assuming perfect compliance with the shares under de facto lockdowns where there is some degree of non-compliance. We then estimate individuals' potential labour income losses and examine changes in poverty and labour income inequality. We find an increase in poverty and labour income inequality in most of the LAC countries due to social distancing; however, the observed changes are lower under de facto lockdowns, revealing the potential role of non-compliance as a coping strategy during the lockdowns. Social distancing measures have led to an increase in inequality both between and within countries. Lastly, we show that most of the dispersion in the labour income loss across countries is explained by the sectoral/occupational employment structure of the economies.

Effective but fragile? Responses to repeated nudge-based messages for preventing the spread of COVID-19 infection

Nudge-based messages have been employed in various countries to encourage voluntary contact-avoidance and infection-prevention behaviors to control the spread of COVID-19. People have been repeatedly exposed to such messages; however, whether the messages keep exerting a significant impact over time remains unclear. From April to August 2020, we conducted a four-wave online survey experiment to examine how five types of nudge-based messages influence Japanese people's self-reported preventive behaviors. In particular, we investigate how their behaviors are affected by repeated displays over time. The analysis with 4241 participants finds that only a gain-framed altruistic message, emphasizing their behavioral adherence would protect the lives of people close to them, reduces their frequency of going out and contacting others. We do not find similar behavioral changes in messages that contain an altruistic element but emphasize it in a loss-frame or describe their behavioral adherence as protecting both one's own and others' lives. Furthermore, the behavioral change effect of the gain-framed altruistic message disappears in the third and fourth waves, although its impact of reinforcing intentions remains. This message has even an adverse effect of worsening the compliance level of infection-prevention behaviors for the subgroup who went out less frequently before the experiment. The study's results imply that when using nudge-based messages as a countermeasure for COVID-19, policymakers and practitioners need to carefully scrutinize the message elements and wording and examine to whom and how the messages should be delivered while considering their potential adverse and side effects.