Episodic Simulation of Helping Behavior in Younger and Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Published in: Journal of applied research in memory and cognition Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 443 - 456
• Main Authors: Ryan, A. Dawn, O'Connor, Brendan Bo, Schacter, Daniel L., Campbell, Karen L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Educational Publishing Foundation 01.09.2023; Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
• Subjects: Assistance (Social Behavior); COVID-19; Emerging Adulthood; Female; Human; Male; Older Adulthood; Pandemics; Simulation; COVID-19; helping behavior; aging; scene imagery; episodic simulation
• ISSN: 2211-3681; 2211-369X
• DOI: 10.1037/mac0000073

Imagining helping a person in need increases one's willingness to help beyond levels evoked by passively reading the same stories. We examined whether episodic simulation can increase younger and older adults' willingness to help in novel scenarios posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Across three studies, we demonstrate that episodic simulation of helping behavior increases younger and older adults' willingness to help during both everyday and COVID-related scenarios. Moreover, we show that imagining helping increases emotional concern, scene imagery, and theory of mind, which in turn relate to increased willingness to help. Studies 2 and 3 also showed that people produce more internal, episodic-like details when imagining everyday compared to COVID-related scenarios, suggesting that people are less able to draw on prior experiences when simulating such novel events. These findings suggest that encouraging engagement with stories of people in need by imagining helping can increase willingness to help during the pandemic. General Audience Summary Since late 2019, news outlets and social media platforms have shown examples of people in need amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Across a series of studies, we examine whether people are more willing to help others in need after imagining a scenario in which they help the other person, compared to when they passively read the same story. Specifically, we examined whether imagining helping scenarios increase younger and older adults' willingness to help in novel scenarios posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Across three studies, we found that imagining helping others in need increases one's willingness to help during both everyday and COVID-related scenarios of people in need. Further, we show that imagining helping increases emotional concern, scene imagery (i.e., vividness of a scene), and theory of mind (i.e., perspective-taking), all of which are related to participants' willingness to help those in need. In Studies 2 and 3, we found that people produce richer, more event-related details when imagining everyday scenarios, but more basic, factual details for COVID-related scenarios. This suggests that people may use memories of similar past events to help imagine familiar scenarios and rely more on factual knowledge when imagining more novel or unfamiliar scenarios. These findings suggest that encouraging audiences to engage with stories of people in need by imagining helping can increase willingness to help during the pandemic.