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

ABSTRACT: Prior laboratory research has suggested that humans may become more prosocial in stressful or threatening situations, but it is unknown whether the link between prosociality and defense generalizes to real-life. Here, we examined the association between defensive responses to a real-world threat (the COVID-19 pandemic) and everyday altruism. Four independent samples of 150 (N = 600) US residents were recruited online at 4 different timepoints, and self-report measures of perceived COVID-19 threat, defensive emotions (e.g., stress and anxiety), and everyday altruism were collected. Our operationalization of defensive emotions was inspired by the threat imminence framework, an ecological model of how humans and animals respond to varying levels of threat. We found that perceived COVID-19 thr

SUBMITTER: Vieira JB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9632580 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature