Differences in Anxiety, Altruism, and Pandemic Mitigation: Secondary Analyses of Two US Surveys

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in historically high levels of psychological distress. Significant age differences in distress were consistently observed, and they present an opportunity to identify the mechanisms driving the prosocial decision-making underlying pandemic mitigation behaviors. As predicted by the cascade model of individual and age differences in prosocial motivation, re-analyses of the data from two previous surveys revealed the positive role of prosocial motivation in pandemic decisions as well as the negative roles played by neuroticism, anxiety, and depression. Social distancing was altruistically motivated, as evidenced by its positive associations with both altruism and sympathy measures. Moreover, the increases in distancing with age and concern for close others suggests that distancing was not primarily driven by concerns regarding the personal consequences of infection. Multiple age-related positivity effects were observed in which concerns and risk assessments decreased with age. Concern for others decreased with age less than concerns for oneself, suggesting a possible basis for age-related increases in altruism. Taken together, these findings suggest theoretical linkages between the cascade model and socioemotional selectivity theory, linkages that may have implications for prosocial public health messaging.