To Help or Not to Help? Prosocial Behavior, Its Association With Well-Being, and Predictors of Prosocial Behavior During the Coronavirus Disease Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and sought to understand whether region-specific differences exist. Participants (N = 9,496) from eight regions clustering multiple countries around the world responded to a cross-sectional online-survey investigating the psychological consequences of the first upsurge of lockdowns in spring 2020. Prosocial behavior was reported to occur frequently. Multiple regression analyses showed that prosocial behavior was associated with better well-being consistently across regions. With regard to predictors of prosocial behavior, high levels of perceived social support were most strongly associated with prosocial behavior, followed by high levels of perceived stress, positive affect and psychological flexibility. Sociodemographic and psychosocial predictors of prosocial behavior were similar across regions.

Prosocial behavior in emergencies: Evidence from blood donors recruitment and retention during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…However, one could have reasonably expected that the implementation of social distancing measures could have led to diminished prosocial behaviors that require individual physical presence and potential health risk (Rochira et al, 2022). Indeed, Haller et al (2022) describe the frequency of self-reported prosocial activities during the first COVID-19 wave and observe that those that were less common are related to volunteering. Our analysis provides evidence based on administrative data showing that blood donation, a paradigmatic prosocial activity used in the economic literature as a leading proxy of social capital, has been fostered by the COVID-19 emergency in terms of quantity (i.e., number of new donors) and quality (i.e., their retention rate).…”

Stronger association of perceived health with socio-economic inequality during COVID-19 pandemic than pre-pandemic era

“…Increased impact of older age on the level of perceived health during the COVID-19 pandemic could be mediated by changed patterns of social connectedness between the pre-pandemic versus during-pandemic era. Prosocial behavior, which is predicted by higher levels of perceived social support, is also related to the better well-being [51,53]. Conversely, reduced mean number of social contacts compared to the pre-pandemic era has been maintained during the pandemic era from March 2020 to March 2021 [54].…”

Prosocial behavior in emergencies: Evidence from blood donors recruitment and retention during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…However, one could have reasonably expected that the implementation of social distancing measures could have led to diminished prosocial behaviors that require individual physical presence and potential health risks (Rochira et al, 2022). Indeed, Haller et al (2022) describe the frequency of self-reported prosocial activities during the first COVID-19 wave and observe that those less common are related to volunteering. Our analysis provides evidence based on administrative data showing that blood donation, a paradigmatic prosocial activity used in the economic literature as a leading proxy of social capital, has been fostered by the COVID-19 emergency in terms of quantity (i.e., number of new donors) and quality (i.e., their retention rate).…”