Figure 1. Research variables and general hypothesis: a specific cultural group practices biàn tōng and survives in a pandemic crisis; the greater the degree of change in intertemporal choice for this cultural group, the more likely it is to survive the fight against COVID-19.

Figure 2. The ladder of subjective socioeconomic status

Figure 3. Radar map drawn according to Hofstede's 6 cultural dimension indicators. Note. China's vector distance is defined as point 0. The farther away from 0, the farther away from Chinese culture.

Figure 4. Hierarchical clustering tree diagram of 17 countries (excluding Mongolia) in 6-dimensional cultural space. Note. Clustering was carried out according to Hofstede’s 6-dimensional index of cultural distance. The Ward method was used as the clustering algorithm and the square Euclidean distance was used as the measurement index of inter-cluster distance to obtain five categories.

Figure 5. Ladder of self-rated survival achievement (underwater ladder)

Figure 6. Ranking of discount rates for five types of countries and Mongolian participants (N = 26,355) over six major global currencies and four pandemic currencies. Note. Vertical axis unit (0-100). 0-50 (blue interval) indicates preference for the “smaller gain now and larger loss in the future” option: the smaller the value, the greater the discount rate and the greater the likelihood of preferring a fast strategy; 50-100 (green range) indicates a preference for the “smaller loss now and larger gain in the future” option: the larger the value, the smaller the discount rate and the greater the likelihood of preferring a slow strategy; 50 denotes a preference for neither strategy. In the quarantine time option, given that the number of days to be exempted from quarantine is seen as gain while the number of days of quarantine is seen as loss, the scoring for this in reversed. The error line shows the standard error.

Figure 7. Participant’s intertemporal choice preferences for different currencies in different countries. Note. Peacetime currency (orange) and pandemic currency (red). From left to right, changes are arranged from large to small. A unit of Vertical axis (0-100): 0-50 (blue interval) the smaller the value, the greater the discount rate and the greater the likelihood to prefer the fast strategy; 50-100 (green range): the larger the value, the smaller the discount rate and the greater the likelihood to prefer the slow strategy; 50 denotes a preference for neither strategy. Error line indicates standard errors.

Figure 8. The degree of change in intertemporal choice at different stages from different countries. Note. Blue indicates the mask option (peacetime vs. pandemic time), red indicates the toilet paper option (peacetime vs. pandemic time). From left to right, changes are arranged from large to small. The larger the value of the vertical axis, the greater the difference between the discount rate of the temporal outcomes now (pandemic) and one year ago (peacetime). Error lines indicate standard errors.

Figure 9. Self-rated survival achievement (underwater ladder level) of participants in different countries during the pandemic situation. Note. See section 2.2.4 for an explanation of the underwater ladder item. Error lines indicate standard errors.

Figure 10. Response surface graph of the effect of degree of change in intertemporal choice of different currencies and different stages for people in the Chinese/ Singapore cultural circle on self-rated survival achievement. Note. The degree of change for different currencies (Change Indicator 1) is the X axis; degree of change at different stages (Change Indicator 2) is the Y axis; self-rated survival achievement is the Z axis. The response surface graph is plotted according to the regression equation Z = 3.143 + 0.13X-0.009Y + 0.001 X2 -0.01XY.