Effects of age, psychological distress, and compassion on people’s decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic

If one thinks of the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment, the most important quasi-experimental manipulation for psychologists was the overall increase in people’s psychological distress. Notably, however, distress in adults decreased as a function their age, revealing a perhaps unexpected resiliency. That resiliency may reflect the well-established decrease in neuroticism with age, but it was also associated with an age-related increase in compassion. This, in turn, was associated with both more social distancing and a greater likelihood of revaccination if recommended. Taken together, these findings suggest an altruistic motivation for such pandemic decisions, which while they may protect the person doing the distancing or getting the vaccination, also protects those around the person who is engaging in these behaviors. Indeed, social distancing may be the most altruistic because it involves giving up desired activities and doing so repeatedly. Finally, it should be noted that the relations among Neuroticism, Distress, and Compassion as well as with Distancing and Vaccination were hardly diminished by statistically controlling for Age, suggesting that the observed relations, both positive and negative, hold throughout adulthood. An important implication of this finding is that decreasing people’s distress may make them more compassionate, regardless of their age. Although a person’s acquaintances and political ideology also matter, decreasing anxiety may be key to increasing prosocial attitudes and behavior.