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Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

Shopping behaviour in response to extreme events is often characterized as “panic buying” which connotes irrationality and loss of control. However, “panic buying” has been criticized for attributing shopping behaviour to people’s alleged psychological frailty while ignoring other psychological and...

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Autores principales: Ntontis, Evangelos, Vestergren, Sara, Saavedra, Patricio, Neville, Fergus, Jurstakova, Klara, Cocking, Chris, Lay, Siugmin, Drury, John, Stott, Clifford, Reicher, Stephen, Vignoles, Vivian L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8880905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35213639
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264618
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author Ntontis, Evangelos
Vestergren, Sara
Saavedra, Patricio
Neville, Fergus
Jurstakova, Klara
Cocking, Chris
Lay, Siugmin
Drury, John
Stott, Clifford
Reicher, Stephen
Vignoles, Vivian L.
author_facet Ntontis, Evangelos
Vestergren, Sara
Saavedra, Patricio
Neville, Fergus
Jurstakova, Klara
Cocking, Chris
Lay, Siugmin
Drury, John
Stott, Clifford
Reicher, Stephen
Vignoles, Vivian L.
author_sort Ntontis, Evangelos
collection PubMed
description Shopping behaviour in response to extreme events is often characterized as “panic buying” which connotes irrationality and loss of control. However, “panic buying” has been criticized for attributing shopping behaviour to people’s alleged psychological frailty while ignoring other psychological and structural factors that might be at play. We report a qualitative exploration of the experiences and understandings of shopping behaviour of members of the public at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, we developed three themes. The first theme addresses people’s understandings of “panic buying”. When participants referred to “panic buying” they meant observed product shortages (rather than the underlying psychological processes that can lead to such behaviours), preparedness behaviours, or emotions such as fear and worry. The second theme focuses on the influence of the media and other people’s behaviour in shaping subsequent shopping behaviours. The third theme addresses the meaningful motivations behind increased shopping, which participants described in terms of preparedness; some participants reported increased shopping behaviours as a response to other people stockpiling, to reduce their trips to supermarkets, or to prepare for product shortages and longer stays at home. Overall, despite frequently using the term ‘panic’, the irrationalist connotations of “panic buying” were largely absent from participants’ accounts. Thus, “panic buying” is not a useful concept and should not be used as it constructs expected responses to threat as irrational or pathological. It can also facilitate such behaviours, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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spelling pubmed-88809052022-02-26 Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic Ntontis, Evangelos Vestergren, Sara Saavedra, Patricio Neville, Fergus Jurstakova, Klara Cocking, Chris Lay, Siugmin Drury, John Stott, Clifford Reicher, Stephen Vignoles, Vivian L. PLoS One Research Article Shopping behaviour in response to extreme events is often characterized as “panic buying” which connotes irrationality and loss of control. However, “panic buying” has been criticized for attributing shopping behaviour to people’s alleged psychological frailty while ignoring other psychological and structural factors that might be at play. We report a qualitative exploration of the experiences and understandings of shopping behaviour of members of the public at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, we developed three themes. The first theme addresses people’s understandings of “panic buying”. When participants referred to “panic buying” they meant observed product shortages (rather than the underlying psychological processes that can lead to such behaviours), preparedness behaviours, or emotions such as fear and worry. The second theme focuses on the influence of the media and other people’s behaviour in shaping subsequent shopping behaviours. The third theme addresses the meaningful motivations behind increased shopping, which participants described in terms of preparedness; some participants reported increased shopping behaviours as a response to other people stockpiling, to reduce their trips to supermarkets, or to prepare for product shortages and longer stays at home. Overall, despite frequently using the term ‘panic’, the irrationalist connotations of “panic buying” were largely absent from participants’ accounts. Thus, “panic buying” is not a useful concept and should not be used as it constructs expected responses to threat as irrational or pathological. It can also facilitate such behaviours, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Public Library of Science 2022-02-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8880905/ /pubmed/35213639 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264618 Text en © 2022 Ntontis et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ntontis, Evangelos
Vestergren, Sara
Saavedra, Patricio
Neville, Fergus
Jurstakova, Klara
Cocking, Chris
Lay, Siugmin
Drury, John
Stott, Clifford
Reicher, Stephen
Vignoles, Vivian L.
Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
title Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Is it really “panic buying”? Public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort is it really “panic buying”? public perceptions and experiences of extra buying at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8880905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35213639
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264618
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