Do crises bring people together or pull them apart? Here we examine how
people’s willingness to help others and their perceived interdependence
with others changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and assess what factors
are associated with these changes. We collected data from two longitudinal
cohorts during the pandemic, starting on March 6th, 2020 and lasting
through October 2020. At each timepoint, participants reported on their
perceived interdependence with neighbors and fellow citizens, their beliefs
about helping others being the right thing to do, and their willingness to
help others. We see that participants believed their shared fate with their
neighbors increased over time. We also see interesting patterns when our
participants rated their interdependence with their neighborhood over time
– out participants became less willing to help their neighbors and had less
need-based attitudes towards their neighbors, but their empathetic
engagement with their neighbors did not change over time. However, we that
most perceptions of interdependence with all of humanity did not change
across the course of the pandemic (shared fate, willingness to help,
need-based attitudes) – however, empathetic engagement with all of humanity
decreased over time. Taken together, our results suggest that crises, such
as the COVID-19 pandemic, have target specific implications for
interdependence. We may feel more shared fate with those who directly
influence day-to-day outcomes but may feel less inclined to help them if
their actions during the crisis put us at risk.