The Roles of Legacy Versus Social Media Information Seeking in American and Chinese Consumers’ Hoarding During COVID-19

Abstract

Through two studies conducted with cross-cultural samples (the United States and China), this research examines the psychological mechanism of consumer hoarding during COVID-19. Findings from Study 1 suggest that consumer hoarding is differently affected by legacy and social media information seeking, perceived scarcity, and scarcity attributions in the United States versus China. For China, while social media information seeking has a negative downstream relationship to hoarding, legacy media information seeking has a positive relationship with hoarding. In the United States, only social media information seeking has a positive relationship with hoarding. Further, these effects are significant when consumers attribute the scarcity responsibility to insufficient supply but not high demand. Study 2 shows that when the cause of scarcity is stated directly, perceived scarcity increases hoarding intention for Chinese consumers when the scarcity cause is due to supply but not demand, whereas U.S. consumers’ hoarding intention does not vary with the scarcity cause. The findings underscore cross-cultural differences in how legacy and social media information seeking influence consumer hoarding and highlight implications for situations in which hoarding is likely.