Exploring panic buying as a situational response – the role of fear, media exposure and context-specific paranoia

IF 2.7 4区 管理学 Q2 BUSINESS
Matej Nakić, Mirna Koričan Lajtman, Goran Oblaković
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Abstract

Purpose

Drawing on prospect theory, terror management theory, and social influence theories, this study explores the phenomenon of panic buying amid the COVID-19 pandemic, namely its situational antecedents such as fear of COVID-19, increased media exposure to COVID-19-related news, and context-specific paranoia. It offers insight into the situational nature of panic buying, contrary to the purely dispositional/trait conceptualization of irrational spending, usually depicted through the phenomenon of compulsive buying.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a cross-sectional study. An online questionnaire was used for data collection from 621 Croatian citizens. The questionnaire features a series of validated instruments designed to measure compulsive buying, fear of COVID-19, and context-specific paranoia. The media exposure scale (MES) was also specifically developed and empirically tested for the purpose of this research.

Findings

The results suggest that individuals who exhibited greater fear of COVID-19 while also experiencing increased exposure to COVID-19-related news were more likely to engage in panic buying. This connection has remained significant even after controlling for compulsive buying tendencies, suggesting that panic buying witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic was a situational phenomenon, not strictly dispositional. This establishes the fear of COVID-19 and increased exposure to pandemic-related news content as situational antecedents to panic buying. After controlling for compulsive buying, this paper does not demonstrate a significant connection between context-specific paranoia and panic buying. Furthermore, context-specific paranoia does not mediate the relationship between media exposure to pandemic-related content and panic buying, whereas the fear of COVID-19 significantly mediates the same relationship.

Practical implications

This study recognizes people's panic behavior amid the COVID-19 pandemic as a byproduct of a situational, reactive process – not a psychopathological one. Furthermore, it recognizes media sensationalism and the audience's impaired capacity for rational spending as major risk factors preceding the event of panic buying.

Originality/value

This study proposes a novel conceptual framework of irrational spending amid crises such as COVID-19 pandemic, introducing the differentiation between the situational nature of the phenomenon (panic buying), thereby separating it from its previous dispositional operationalizations (hoarding, compulsive buying).

探讨恐慌性购买作为一种情境反应--恐惧、媒体曝光和特定情境妄想症的作用
目的本研究以前景理论、恐怖管理理论和社会影响理论为基础,探讨了在 COVID-19 大流行中出现的恐慌性购买现象,即其情境前因,如对 COVID-19 的恐惧、媒体对 COVID-19 相关新闻曝光率的增加以及特定情境下的偏执。与通常通过强迫性购买现象来描述非理性消费的纯粹倾向性/特质概念相反,本研究深入探讨了恐慌性购买的情境性质。研究采用在线问卷调查的方式收集了 621 名克罗地亚公民的数据。该问卷采用了一系列经过验证的工具,旨在测量强迫性购买、对 COVID-19 的恐惧以及特定情境下的偏执。研究结果表明,对 COVID-19 表现出更大恐惧的人,同时接触到更多与 COVID-19 相关的新闻,更有可能进行恐慌性购买。即使在控制了强迫性购买倾向后,这种联系仍然很明显,这表明冠状病毒大流行期间出现的恐慌性购买是一种情景现象,而非严格意义上的倾向性购买。这就确定了对 COVID-19 的恐惧和更多地接触与疫情相关的新闻内容是恐慌性购买的情境前因。在对强迫性购买进行控制后,本文并未证明特定情境下的偏执狂与恐慌性购买之间存在显著联系。此外,特定情境下的妄想症并不能调节媒体对大流行病相关内容的曝光与恐慌性购买之间的关系,而对 COVID-19 的恐惧则能显著调节两者之间的关系。此外,该研究还认为媒体的煽情报道和受众理性消费能力的受损是恐慌性购买事件发生前的主要风险因素。原创性/价值该研究提出了一个新颖的概念框架,即在COVID-19大流行等危机中的非理性消费,引入了该现象(恐慌性购买)的情境性质之间的区别,从而将其与之前的处置操作(囤积、强迫性购买)区分开来。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
5.90
自引率
14.80%
发文量
206
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