Pandemic buying: Testing a psychological model of over-purchasing and panic buying using data from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic
Open accessAbstract
The over-purchasing and hoarding of necessities is a common response to crises, especially in developed economies where there is normally an expectation of plentiful supply. This behaviour was observed internationally during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the absence of actual scarcity, this behaviour can be described as ‘panic buying’ and can lead to temporary shortages. However, there have been few psychological studies of this phenomenon. Here we propose a psychological model of over-purchasing informed by animal foraging theory and make predictions about variables that predict over-purchasing by either exacerbating or mitigating the anticipation of future scarcity. These variables include additional scarcity cues (e.g. loss of income), distress (e.g. depression), psychological factors that draw attention to these cues (e.g. neuroticism) or to reassuring messages (eg. analytical reasoning) or which facilitate over-purchasing (e.g. income). We tested our model in parallel nationally representative internet surveys of the adult general population conducted in the United Kingdom (UK: N = 2025) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI: N = 1041) 52 and 31 days after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were detected in the UK and RoI, respectively. About three quarters of participants reported minimal over-purchasing. There was more over-purchasing in RoI vs UK and in urban vs rural areas. When over-purchasing occurred, in both countries it was observed across a wide range of product categories and was accounted for by a single latent factor. It was positively predicted by household income, the presence of children at home, psychological distress (depression, death anxiety), threat sensitivity (right wing authoritarianism) and mistrust of others (paranoia). Analytic reasoning ability had an inhibitory effect. Predictor variables accounted for 36% and 34% of the variance in over-purchasing in the UK and RoI respectively. With some caveats, the data supported our model and points to strategies to mitigate over-purchasing in future crises.
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The 12-item Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale may have slightly different psychometric properties than the measure used in this study, which may explain why the study did not replicate Bentall et al. (2021).
“This may be because Bentall et al. (2021) utilised the 12-item Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (Carleton et al., 2007), which may have slightly different psychometric properties.”
From Why did all the toilet paper disappear? Distinguishing between panic buying and hoarding during COVID-19 (2021) · cites this paper as Bentall et al., 2021
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- Authors
- Bentall, R. P., Lloyd, A., Bennett, K., McKay, R., Mason, L., Murphy, J., McBride, O., Hartman, T. K., Gibson-Miller, J., Levita, L., Martinez, A. P., Stocks, T. V. A., Butter, S., Vallières, F., Hyland, P., Karatzias, T., & Shevlin, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- Royal Holloway University of London (GB)
- University of Liverpool (GB)
- University College London (GB)
- University of Ulster (GB)
- Trinity College Dublin (IE)
- National University of Ireland, Maynooth (IE)
- Edinburgh Napier University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Bentall, Richard P.
- ORCID
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2021-01-27
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e0246339
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7840055
- OpenAlex
- W3071479733
- Cited by
- 138
- References
- 75
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 23.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- Maynooth University ePrints and eTheses Archive (Maynooth University) (acceptedVersion)
- Ulster University Research Portal (Ulster University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Edinburgh Napier Research Repository (Edinburgh Napier University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Lenus, The Irish Health Repository (Dr Steevens Hospital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/V004379/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- panic buying, hoarding, COVID-19 pandemic, psychological distress, depression, fear of death, threat sensitivity, right-wing authoritarianism, paranoia, analytical thinking, household income, children at home, urban-rural differences, consumer behavior, crisis response
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adult, Aged, Anxiety, Consumer Behavior, Depression, Female, United Kingdom, Humans, Ireland, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Panic, Surveys and Questionnaires, Stress, Psychological, Pandemics, Hoarding
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