Cooperation and Acting for the Greater Good During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cooperation is essential to overcome global pandemics and other health crises, as many preventive measures require people to bear a personal cost to benefit other people or society as a whole. Wearing a face mask, for example, protects other people more than it protects oneself. This chapter first discusses several key mechanisms that are known to promote cooperative behavior in economic games and real-world scenarios. Then a review is given of the experimental research on what type of interventions could support a cooperative response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the chapter focuses on message-based interventions that are intended to promote social distancing, physical hygiene, mask wearing, vaccine uptake, and information seeking. The chapter concludes with some suggested interventions, lessons learned, and future research ideas.