Dire times inspire adolescents’ prosocial giving behavior to those in need

In an eight-wave longitudinal online experiment, we test pre-registered hypotheses on adolescents’ giving behavior during and after the COVID-19 pandemic employing a Pandemic Dictator Game (PDG). Participants (n = 898) showed higher generosity towards pandemic- related targets (medical doctors, individuals with a poor immune system and COVID-19 patients) than to a friend and an unknown peer, which was more marked among younger and female participants. As the pandemic progressed, this generosity diminished; the level of giving to doctors and individuals with a poor immune system dropped to a similar level as giving to a friend, while that to COVID-19 patients dropped below that of a friend. Additionally, participants were more generous to vaccinated others than to unvaccinated others, unless they were unvaccinated themselves. Our findings based on an online experiment format PDG imply strong contextual adaptability of adolescents’ generosity. Future research using a real-life PDG can further establish their external validity.