Stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic as a real-life social dilemma: A person-situation perspective

Abstract

Prior research using economic games has shown that personality drives cooperation in social dilemmas. In this study, we tested the generalizability of these findings in a real-life social di-lemma during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely stockpiling in the presence of low versus high resource scarcity. Honesty-Humility was negatively related to stockpiling intentions and justi-fiability of stockpiling. Moreover, we found a positive albeit weaker effect of Emotionality on stockpiling intentions. Victim Sensitivity was mostly positively associated with stockpiling intentions. None of the personality traits interacted with resource scarcity to predict stockpil-ing. Our findings replicate established associations between personality and cooperation in a real-life social dilemma, and suggest that the characteristics of interdependent situations during a pandemic additionally afford the expression of Emotionality.