PONE-D-23-42608Shared Fate was Associated with Sustained Cooperation During the COVID-19 PandemicPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Guevara Beltran,

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Editor's comments:

Two reviewers familiar with research on the effects of natural or social threat on psychology have read your manuscript.

Both reviewers recognize the importance of your research using a large sample and longitudinal study, but are concerned about the lack of explanation in the manuscript. Reviewer 1 also noted deficiencies in several references. Reviewer 2 made some suggestions for the analysis.

Please review the reviewers' comments and revise your manuscript according to their point-by-point responses.

I would also like to point out some minor issues. 

Regarding the description of Figure 4(c), I think there seems to be a discrepancy. Please check it. 

Also, please review the submission guidelines carefully and correct any errors. Reference style deviates from the guidelines.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This study looks at the relationship between perceived interdependence and reports and intentions to provide social support over time during the first 5 months of the pandemic. There is a very impressive dataset using a panel study with multiple waves and an international sample. The paper is clearly written and the rationale is developed logically. As a social psychologist for me there were some gaps in what was otherwise what looked like an up to date and comprehensive literature review – the introduction seemed to be based more on anthropology and evolutionary psychology than social psychology, despite the relevance of the latter to the research questions. I can’t comment on all the statistics described – the editors need to get the views of a specialist on these. The conclusions followed logically from the results and there was some awareness of the limitations of the study (though see below).

My main concern is with the measures used. The study uses single-item measures, with no indication of their origin, reliability or validity. I assume that this decision was taken to make the questionnaire more acceptable to respondents? The items seem intuitive so they are probably mostly ok (the authors themselves acknowledge that one of the measures of social support is seriously ambiguous), but I would have expected some explanation and justification of them in the method section and an explicit acknowledgment of the limitations of them in the discussion.

The other issue is I was slightly surprised that there was no account of what was happening with the pandemic in the period in question. Surely participant answers on questions concerning common fate and helping will be affected by whether there is a wave. (We know for example that there was a large increase in helping behaviour in response to the first wave.) In the periods between waves, when politicians often played down the pandemic and attempted to open society up again, there would have been less perceived need for help.

My other comments are questions and suggestions for the authors to consider.

Introduction:

p. 3/11 of the pdf ‘Sometimes

67 people become fearful and aggressive, stealing resources and committing crimes (Drury et al.,

68 2013)’

This is an odd choice of reference given that the paper cited is about disaster myths.

p. 3/11 of the pdf

‘Crises can create positive interdependence, eliciting perceptions of shared fate and

70 promoting cooperation (e.g., Andrighetto et al., 2016; Drury et al., 2016)’

The Drury et al. study found no direct relation between common fate and cooperation. In line with the social identity approach, common fate predicted shared identity and it was shared identity that predicted cooperation.

p. 4/ 12 of the pdf

‘and panic buying were prevalent aspects of

94 behavior (The White House, 2020)’

I don’t know any source suggesting that so called panic buying was ‘prevalent’ during the pandemic. The excellent study by Kantar showed that that just a small number of people bought extra, and that only a minority of these bought very large amounts. Moreover these episodes of extra buying occurred at the start of the pandemic rather than operating throughout 2020. The source cited (The White House) was ‘page not found’ so I couldn’t check what it says.

p. 8/16 of the pdf

‘After a natural disaster (i.e., flood,

220 earthquake)’

Some argue that the term ‘natural disasters’ is misleading: see https://www.nonaturaldisasters.com/

p. 18 of the pdf

‘For example, cooperation could marginally increase over time, as has been reported in

267 most crises.’

This claim is not referenced. Also, in the readings I’m more aware of, the opposite is the case. Immediately after a disaster there is extensive cooperation, which then declines afterwards as people run out of resources. Krys Kaniasty has written extensively about this and is probably worth including. For application of his approach to cooperation during Covid (and for literature and data on decline in social support over the first year of the pandemic, see:

Ntontis, E., Fernandes-Jesus, M., Mao, G., Dines, T., Kane, J., Karakaya, J., Perach, R., Cocking, C., McTague, M., Schwarz, A., Semlyen & J. & Drury, J. (2022). Tracking the nature and trajectory of social support in Facebook mutual aid groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103043

Methods:

Why this sample size?

Why the extra recruitment at time 3?

Why these particular timepoints?

I can’t follow how the t1-2 data can be used with the other data.

Demographics – provide age range, not just SD?

How long did it take and how much were people paid?

Discussion:

p. 31 of the pdf

‘people high on

589 self-other-merging, a marker of perceived interdependence’

But there wasn’t a measure of ‘self other merging’, was there?

p. 31 of the pdf

‘Our results have potential implications for emergency preparedness and suggest that

609 opportunities to build interdependence within communities prior to an emergency might be

610 important for sustaining cooperation when crises hit.’

This is the basis of many countries’ approach to community resilience, so cite some examples.

Why is table 3 in the discussion?

Reviewer #2: Dear Authors,

This study observed through a longitudinal study conflicting psychological changes in the COVID-19 pandemic: whether people's cooperative behavior was promoted or inhibited. The study captures continuous responses through a longitudinal survey, providing valuable insights into the development of psychological responses during a public health crisis. However, some areas could be improved to enhance clarity and elaboration.

1. Introduction

1-1. Line 161: Request for additions regarding the characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic

Unlike its other crises, the COVID-19 pandemic did not initially have robust guidelines for crisis management or clear-cut right answers for cooperative behavior. Also, unlike other crises that were localized in time and geography, this pandemic was a dynamic, ongoing global crisis. I ask that you consider adding that this was a dynamic, highly unknowable, and endlessly stressful situation in the manuscript. In this connection, please note that the comparison with the terrorist incidents (i.e., localized crises) cannot be made simply (Lines 191 to 200).

Also, under such an unknown and ongoing crisis, some people would have acted as supporters or selfishly according to "social norms" such as government guidelines and local community rules. Simple dichotomous statements such as supportive and selfish people (Lines 85 to 100) risk oversimplifying the discussion.

1-2. Lines 140-160: Request for causal clarification of arguments based on fitness interdependence theory

This paragraph suggests that fitness interdependence theory may go beyond interrelationships among individuals and within relatively small groups to the larger group level. If my understanding is correct, why not cite and organize one of the clues, "a history of sharing" (Line 122), to make it clearer to the reader?

I was under the impression that the statement in this paragraph is the reverse of the causal relationship with the fitness interdependence theory. That is, in the fitness interdependence theory, I understood that the three clues in line 114 exist as causes, which in turn affect each other in terms of disaster survival (lines 133 to 139). However, from lines 140 to 160, it seemed to me that there is another process of acquiring an interdependent perception of the experience of disasters such as earthquakes and terrorist attacks as cues.

2. Analysis

2-1. Line 346: Request for clarification regarding cluster-mean score

How was the individual baseline handled when calculating the cluster-mean scores?

2-2.Suggestions for analysis model

Please consider including the number of infections per day in the participant's country at each time point in the analysis model.

It is possible that regional differences in the perceived infection risk at a given point in time, such as whether the infection situation in a country is severe or not, may arise.

3. Results

3-1: Suggestions for modification of the description

For results with small effects, I request careful description to prevent readers from over-interpreting them (e.g., Lines 394-395, 405-406). Also, please consider presenting a visual figure showing the 95% confidence interval.

4. Discussion

4-1. Line 580: Request for additional prior studies

Imada & Mifune (2021) suggest that when an infectious disease is prevalent in a group, the behavior of avoiding other members of the inner group may increase (data not verified).

Please consider bolstering your argument through the following and other papers.

Imada, H., & Mifune, N. (2021). Pathogen threat and in-group cooperation. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 2568. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678188

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Reviewer #1: Yes: John Drury

Reviewer #2: Yes: Mei Yamagata

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Shared fate was associated with sustained cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic

PONE-D-23-42608R1

Dear Dr. Guevara Beltran,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Yutaka Horita

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Thank you for submitting the revision. Unfortunately, one reviewer declined to review the manuscript again for personal reasons, but I have reviewed the manuscript instead to ensure that your revisions address their comments. I think that there are no major problems with both content and format, and the paper meets the criteria for publication.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing the raised comments appropriately and positively. The reanalysis of the data, including regional COVID-19 prevalence, and the subsequent discussion are particularly interesting. Additionally, the structure of the introduction has been organized, significantly strengthening the basis of the discussion. The characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic have been thoroughly considered, clearly distinguishing it from other crises.

I apologize for any confusion caused by my inadequate explanation regarding the cluster-mean scores. My concern was about the potential influence of the individual baseline (initial time point scores) on the subsequent time series patterns. One way to address this is by including the baseline scores as covariates in the model. However, after re-reading the authors' comments and the manuscript, I understand that the mean scores were calculated using the entire time series data for each individual and that within-person effects were considered. This approach does not rely solely on specific time point scores and does not compromise the results of this study. Therefore, I believe this is not an issue.

I am confident that this paper meets the necessary standards for publication.

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Reviewer #2: Yes: Mei Yamagata

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