How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect cooperation and interdependence?

Did the COVID-19 pandemic bring people together or push them apart? We asked an international sample (N = 1,006) about their inclinations to cooperate, perceptions of interdependence with others, and perceived risk of COVID-19 infection on fourteen different occasions from March 6, 2020 to August 22, 2020. We found that willingness to cooperate decreased over the first six months of the pandemic. However, perceptions of interdependence towards neighbors and all of humanity tended to increase over time. In addition, people who reported high interdependence with others showed slower or no declines in their willingness to cooperate over time. These results suggest that, even during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, interdependence might allow cooperation to remain relatively stable. Keywords: COVID-19, crises, interdependence, cooperation