A sample of 641 participants were presented with four decision-making tasks during the first stages of the COVID–19 lockdown in Spain: The dictator game, framing problems, utilitarian/deontological and altruistic/egoistic moral dilemmas. Participants also completed questionnaires on mental health status and experiences related to the COVID–19 pandemic. We used boosted regression trees (an advanced form of regression analysis based on machine learning) to model relationships between responses to the questionnaires and decision-making tasks. Results showed that the psychological impact of the COVID–19 pandemic predicted participants’ responses to the framing problems and utilitarian/deontological and altruistic/egoistic moral dilemmas (but not to the dictator game). More concretely, the more psychological impact participants suffered, the more they were willing to choose the safest response in the framing problems, and the more deontological/altruistic were their responses to moral dilemmas. These results suggest that the psychological impact of the COVID–19 pandemic might prompt automatic processes.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 大流行影响决策过程的心理影响

在西班牙 COVID-19 封锁的第一阶段，641 名参与者的样本被提出了四项决策任务：独裁者游戏、框架问题、功利主义/义务论和利他/自私的道德困境。参与者还完成了与 COVID-19 大流行相关的心理健康状况和经历的问卷调查。我们使用增强回归树（一种基于机器学习的高级回归分析形式）来模拟问卷响应与决策任务之间的关系。结果表明，COVID-19 大流行的心理影响预测了参与者对框架问题和功利主义/义务论和利他/利己主义道德困境的反应（但不是对独裁者游戏）。更具体地说，参与者遭受的心理影响越多，他们越愿意在框架问题中选择最安全的回应，他们对道德困境的回应就越道义/利他。这些结果表明，COVID-19 大流行的心理影响可能会促进自动过程。