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.