Yue-Qian Hu, Piao Xie, Ying Wang, Zhi-Xin Huang, Yi-Ting Wu, Hai-Long Sun
School of Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China.
Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 25;12:718797. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.718797. eCollection 2021.
Based on the scarcity theory, this study focuses on exploring the relationship between the severity of public health emergencies (i.e., COVID-19) and individual irrational consumer behaviors through the serial mediating variables of perceived scarcity (PS) and negative mentality (NM). An online questionnaire was used to collect data from participants in China and we obtained 466 effective (115 male and 351 female) questionnaires in total. The findings showed that the relationship between each pair of factors - perceived pandemic severity, PS, NM, and irrational consumption behaviors - was significantly positive. Although the perception of the severity of this public health emergency did not directly predict irrational consumer behavior, the effect was mediated by PS and NM independently and serially. These findings reveal that people who strongly perceive scarcity and are prone to negative attitudes are more likely to demonstrate irrational consumer behaviors (such as rushing to buy and hoard living supplies) once the public perceives a public health emergency as severe. This effect occurs because the PS that results from the epidemic affects people's cognition, emotion, and behavior.
基于稀缺理论，本研究聚焦于通过感知稀缺（PS）和消极心态（NM）这两个系列中介变量，探索突发公共卫生事件（即新冠疫情）的严重程度与个体非理性消费行为之间的关系。我们通过在线问卷收集了中国参与者的数据，共获得466份有效问卷（男性115份，女性351份）。研究结果表明，每对因素之间的关系——感知到的疫情严重程度、PS、NM和非理性消费行为——均呈显著正相关。虽然对这一突发公共卫生事件严重程度的感知并未直接预测非理性消费行为，但其效应通过PS和NM独立且依次起中介作用。这些发现表明，一旦公众认为突发公共卫生事件严重，强烈感知到稀缺且容易产生消极态度的人更有可能表现出非理性消费行为（如抢购和囤积生活物资）。这种效应的发生是因为疫情导致的PS会影响人们的认知、情绪和行为。
