Exposure to the COVID-19pandemic environment andgenerosity

We report data from an online experiment which allows usto study how generosity changed over a 6-day period duringthe initial explosive growth of the COVID-19 pandemicin Andalusia, Spain, while the country was under a strictlockdown. Participants (n= 969) could donate a fraction of a€100 prize to an unknown charity. Our data are particularlyrich in the age distribution and we complement them withdaily public information about COVID-19-related deaths,infections and hospital admissions. We find correlationalevidence that donations decreased in the period understudy, particularly among older individuals. Our analysis ofthe mechanisms behind the detected decrease in generositysuggests that expectations about others’behaviour, perceivedmortality risk and (alarming) information play a key—butindependent—role for behavioural adaptation. These resultsindicate that social behaviour is quickly adjusted in responseto the pandemic environment, possibly reflecting some formof selective prosociality