Prosocial behavior in the time of COVID-19: The effect of private and public role models

In public good provision and other collective action problems, people are uncertain about how to balance self-interest and prosociality. Actions of others may inform this decision. We conduct an experiment to test the effect of watching private citizens and public officials acting in ways that either increase or decrease the spread of the coronavirus. For private role models, positive examples lead to a 34% increase in donations to the CDC Emer-gency Fund and a 20% increase in learning about COVID-19-related volunteering compared to negative exam-ples. For public role models these effects are reversed. Negative examples lead to a 29% and 53% increase in donations and volunteering, respectively, compared to positive examples.

Automated summary

People's uncertainty in balancing self-interest and prosocial behavior in public good provision and other collective action problems can be influenced by the actions of others. This experiment shows that different role model behaviors have different effects on public donations and volunteering.