CBOS has been looking at Polish people’s attitude to cooperation for two decades, which allows for observation of long-term changes in this respect. Choosing from pre-prepared responses, people this year most frequently put them in the same order as in previous surveys. In first place was readiness to lend a valuable item to someone they knew (60%), somewhat less frequent was the inclination to help (without being paid) with work to improve the shared environment or to bring help to the needy (50%), and engage in shared business activity (39%). Knowing somebody whom they were willing to help get elected to parliament or to the local council was least frequent (31%).

In all of these areas people’s readiness to help is now lower than it was during the last survey, which was two years ago. In comparison with earlier results, in some cases this can be a record low. For example, the percentage of respondents prepared to help someone they know to run for office (31%) is now the lowest in the whole 20-year period, and that of respondents inclined to run a business with someone they know is as low as it has ever been over the past two decades.

Covid-19 could clearly have a role in affecting Polish people’s willingness to help others. The pandemic had not yet spread in Europe at the time of the last CBOS survey on this topic, in February 2020, and facing the reality of the disease, coupled with long periods of enforced isolation could, on the one hand, have weakened respondents’ ties with other people and, on the other, made them more inclined to focus on their own needs and safety.

More on this subject in the CBOS report.