Pandemic Panic: The Effect of Disaster-Related Stress on Negotiation Outcomes

Abstract

Prior research often finds increased altruism following natural disasters. One explanation is the social heuristic hypothesis: humans are prosocial by nature but become self-interested when they have the opportunity to deliberate. As the stress of a disaster lowers people's ability to engage in effortful deliberation, their heuristic prosocial tendencies emerge. However, this link has often been explored with very simple tasks like the dictator game. Here we study the impact of COVID-related stress on outcomes in multi-issue negotiations with a computational virtual agent. These tasks are interesting because they share some of the characteristics of dictator games (some pot of resources must be divided) but they also involve presumably effortful perspective taking (that can grow the size of the pot). Furthermore, the interaction of humans with virtual agents allows us to explore the extent to which humans apply the CASA (computers as social actors) paradigm to negotiation when under considerable stress. In two experiments with a virtual negotiation partner, we provide evidence for two distinct pathways for how COVID-19 stress shapes prosocial behavior. Consistent with the social heuristic hypothesis, COVID-stress increases giving, mediated by heuristic thinking. But COVID-stress also seems to enhance information-exchange and perspective taking, which allowed participants to grow more value which they could give away. Our results give new insights into the relationship between stress, cognition, and prosocial behavior.