***THIS IS A WORKING PAPER THAT HAS NOT BEEN PEER-REVIEWED*** Emerging infectious outbreak inhibits pain empathy mediated prosocial behaviour Siqi Cao1,2, Yanyan Qi3, Qi Huang4, Yuanchen Wang5, Xinchen Han6, Xun Liu1,2*, Haiyan Wu1,2* 1CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China 2Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China 3Department of Psychology, School of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China 4College of Education and Science, Henan University, Kaifeng, China 5Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States 6School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Corresponding author Please address correspondence to Xun Liu (
[email protected]) or Haiyan Wu (
[email protected]) Disclaimer: This is preliminary scientific work that has not been peer reviewed and requires replication. We share it here to inform other scientists conducting research on this topic, but the reported findings should not be used as a basis for policy or practice. 1 Abstract People differ in experienced anxiety, empathy, and prosocial willingness during the coronavirus outbreak. Although increased empathy has been associated with prosocial behaviour, little is known about how does the pandemic change people’s empathy and prosocial willingness. We conducted a study with 1,190 participants before (N=520) and after (N=570) the COVID-19 outbreak, with measures of empathy trait, pain empathy and prosocial willingness. Here we show that the prosocial willingness decreased significantly during the COVID-19 outbreak, in accordance with compassion fatigue theory. Trait empathy could affect the prosocial willingness through empathy level.