Does pro-sociality or trust better predict staying home behavior during the Covid-19?

Investigating the relationship of COVID-19 preventive and mitigation measures with mosque attendance in Pakistan

Social distancing served as a principal strategy to curtail the spread of COVID-19. However, congregational activities in mosques made it challenging to practice social distancing and led to a rapid surge in virus infections in several Muslim countries. This study uses nationally representative cross-sectional data from Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country, to examine the relationship of practicing preventive measures (such as social distancing, wearing mask and hand washing) and mitigation measures (like avoid going to the market, social gatherings, healthcare seeking, use of public transport, and long-distance travel) with mosque visits by utilizing logistic regressions. The results show that individuals adhering to preventive and mitigation measures also avoid visiting mosques and other religious gatherings. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that the government of Pakistan can avoid direct religious confrontation when it needs to minimize mosque visits to curtail the spread of the virus by implementing preventive and mitigation measures.

Stability of pro-sociality and trust amid the Covid-19: panel data from the Netherlands

The Covid-19 has impacted most spheres of life and continues to influence the future course of socio-economic decisions. The effects of pandemic and virus contraction on the stability of social preferences are however relatively less know. This study examines the effects of the Covid-19 on pro-sociality and general trust by using the LISS panel data (time frame: 2019-2020) from the Netherlands. The fixed effects panel regressions show that pro-social behavior and general trust do not differ pre-and-after the Covid-19. The article further analyzes the stability of pro-sociality and general trust among people who unfortunately contracted the Covid-19 virus and the uninfected ones (time frame: 2019-2020) using difference-in-differences (DD) method to infer a causal effect of infections on preferences. The DD analysis also leads to insignificant causal effect of virus contractions on pro-sociality and trust. However, the sub-group analysis shows a positive causal impact of infections on trust for respondents above 60 years. Overall, both fixed effects regressions and DD analysis suggest that pro-sociality and to a large extent general trust in the Netherlands are stable despite the negative Covid-19 shock.