Threat of COVID-19 pandemic, conditional cooperation and health-protective behaviour: Evidence from a global survey

Why do some people ‘cooperate’ by adhering to anti-pandemic government guidelines and mandates, while others opt to behave in more selfish ways? This study addresses this question by focusing on the concept of ‘conditional cooperation’. Data were drawn from the Global Behaviors and Perceptions in the COVID-19 Pandemic, a large online survey (N = 98,310) consisting of respondents from 63 countries fielded during the weeks of March and April of 2020. Two-level mixed effects models were fitted. Adjusting for controls, people's compliance behaviours were significantly related to the mechanism of conditional cooperation. More specifically, those who perceived others to be more cooperative were more likely to engage in social distancing behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, subjective assessment of the infection rate was negatively associated with it. In addition, at the macro (country) level, physical mobility index negatively predicted health-protective or disease-avoidant behaviour, a relationship that fluctuated partly as a function of the level of perceived infection. A major implication of this study is that cross-nationally individual decisions to contribute to the provision of public good during a global public health crisis hinge critically on both subjective and objective measures of others' willingness to cooperate.