Do Prosocial Considerations Play a Role in Individuals’ Decision-Making Under Risk? Experimental Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

We examined the interplay between risk attitudes and prosocial behavior in the context of a pandemic. To do so, we developed a theoretical framework and conducted an online experiment involving more than 3,000 participants. Through a framed risk elicitation task, the experiment explored how individuals respond to the trade-off between personal infection risk and the benefits of social interaction while considering the risk posed by individuals’ decisions to the welfare of the broader community’s. Specifically, participants were asked how many people they were willing to meet while considering potential consequences for the community. Our findings indicate that individuals, when making decisions under risk, take into account not only their own risk but also the risk posed by their decisions to others. The degree of altruism we observed, however, fell short of optimal welfare outcomes