School of Psychology and Counselling, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
School of Psychology and Life Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2022 Feb 25;17(2):e0264618. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264618. eCollection 2022.
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.
人们对极端事件的购物行为通常被描述为“恐慌性购买”，这暗示了非理性和失控。然而，“恐慌性购买”因其将购物行为归因于人们所谓的心理脆弱，而忽略了可能起作用的其他心理和结构因素而受到批评。我们报告了对 COVID-19 大流行开始时公众购物行为的经验和理解的定性探索。通过对 23 名参与者进行半结构化访谈的主题分析，我们提出了三个主题。第一个主题涉及人们对“恐慌性购买”的理解。当参与者提到“恐慌性购买”时，他们指的是观察到的产品短缺（而不是可能导致此类行为的潜在心理过程）、准备行为，或恐惧和担忧等情绪。第二个主题侧重于媒体和其他人的行为对后续购物行为的影响。第三个主题涉及增加购物背后的有意义动机，参与者用准备来描述这些动机；一些参与者报告说增加购物行为是为了应对其他人的囤积，减少去超市的次数，或为产品短缺和更长时间呆在家里做准备。总体而言，尽管参与者经常使用“恐慌”一词，但“恐慌性购买”的非理性主义内涵在很大程度上不存在于他们的描述中。因此，“恐慌性购买”不是一个有用的概念，不应该被使用，因为它将对威胁的预期反应构建为非理性或病态。它还可以促成这种行为，从而形成自我实现的预言。
