Cross-Cultural Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Willingness to Share Possessions

We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer openness to sharing their possessions through peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms. Studies 1 and 2, run before and during the pandemic respectively, reveal that the pandemic had different effects on sharing across three countries studied such that it decreased in India, increased in the United States, and remained unchanged in Singapore. Cultural and individual-level differences in interdependent self-construal predict openness to sharing in both time periods. Studies 3 and 4 explore the role of relationship importance and financial motivation in increasing willingness to share in the United States. This paper highlights an important consequence of the pandemic for self-construal and related behaviors such as sharing one’s possessions, and considers implications for the sharing economy