The panic buying behavior of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the influences of uncertainty, perceptions of severity, perceptions of scarcity, and anxiety

A Short Form for Measuring Anxiety in Nursing Education

Background and Purpose: Nursing education lacks an easily accessible, valid, and reliable short instrument to support researchers and instructors in quickly assessing student anxiety. The purpose of this research was to respond to this need by assessing the reliability and validity of a short-form anxiety instrument adapted from psychology which could measure state and trait anxiety. Methods: Using a one-group, repeated measures design, 51 sophomore level undergraduate nursing students had their state and trait anxiety levels measured at three time points over the course of a semester. Results: Results showed that the anxiety instrument was valid and reliable for use in nursing education with coefficient α ranging from .65 to .88. Conclusion: Future nurse researchers and educators should consider using the short-form anxiety instrument when a quick differentiation is needed to measure state and trait anxiety.

Effect of negative emotions in consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic: A study from Peru

The research examines the negative consumer emotions generated by the perception of social networks or traditional media with consumer behavior during the covid_19 pandemic. The study was developed in Peru with a sample of 220 consumers; the design is quantitative and structural equations were used for data processing. The results indicate that social networks and traditional media are not related to negative emotions, but are related to the change in consumer behavior in the purchase of more products and new products. The research has theoretical implications since it provides evidence to the literature that the negative emotions generated during the covid_19 pandemic are related to changes in consumer behavior, which affect the purchase of more products and new products. The practical implications of the research is for businessmen on the causes of changes in consumer behavior generated during crises. like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effects of Locomotion Regulatory Mode on COVID-19 Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a significant impact on mental health globally. The uncertainty, fear, and stress associated with this crisis have contributed to a heightened prevalence of anxiety, depression, and various other mental health disorders. In this scenario, the present study aimed at investigating the relationship between locomotion regulatory mode, resilience, and COVID-19 anxiety. It is worth noting that previous extensive research has established a significant correlation between high levels of locomotion and diverse positive psychological conditions, such as optimism, reduced hopelessness, and a positive effect. A total of 243 participants completed measures of locomotion regulatory mode, resilience, and COVID-19 anxiety. In line with our hypotheses, individuals' locomotion regulatory mode was negatively, although non-significatively, associated with COVID-19 anxiety. Furthermore, resilience was found to mediate the relationship between the locomotion regulatory mode and COVID-19 anxiety, indicating that individuals displaying high locomotion may be better equipped to cope with the stress and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic due to their greater levels of resilience. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of considering both locomotion and resilience in managing anxiety related to COVID-19, and suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing resilience may be particularly beneficial for individuals with a low locomotion regulatory mode.

Defining collective irrationality of COVID-19: shared mentality, mimicry, affective contagion, and psychosocial adaptivity

This paper defines the nature of collective irrationality that flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic and lays out specific individual and shared traits and dispositions that facilitate it. Drawing on the example of globally experienced phenomenon of panicked toilet paper buying and hoarding during the COVID-19 pandemic and resources from philosophy, psychology, sociology, and economics this paper identifies four essential features of collective irrationality: weak shared mentality; non-cognitive and immediate mimicry; affective contagion; and psychosocial adaptivity. After (I) initially pointing out conceptual problems around benchmarking collectivity and irrationality, this paper (II) identifies weak mentality as serving the goals of "group" recognition internally and externally. It is argued that (III) the non-cognitive and immediate mimicry and emotional contagion are shared and individual dispositional conditions that facilitate collective irrationality in environments affected by uncertainty (IV). The human mimetic faculty and susceptibility to emotional contagion are presented as enabling and augmenting conditions under which collective irrationality flourishes. Finally, (IV) presenting collective irrationality in the context of psychosocial adaptivity, the paper provides evolutionary reasons for engaging in irrational behaviors, rendering collective irrationality as an adaptive strategy.

People's Perceptions and Coping Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological-Longitudinal Study in Bangladesh

By emphasizing the Terror Management Theory, this study investigated the participants' perceptions, psychological experiences, coping strategies, and behavioral changes during the pandemic in Bangladesh in two phases: first, after the pandemic's immediate outbreak, and second, after 3 months of the pandemic (daily infection cases were very high). To perform the research, an empirical-phenomenological method was used. Findings indicate that at the first stage, participants' death phobia was extremely high, and poor medical facilities, religious struggles, imprudent behavior of others, concerns for family members, and a tendency to compare the socioeconomic status with other developed countries affected participants' emotions severely. Later on, participants' perceptions of the disease changed significantly. This study highlights that people's behavior varies depending on whether the thought of death is in the center or on the periphery of their attention. In both stages, religious faith and rituals played a crucial role in coping with the crisis situation.

Excessive Food Buying in Saudi Arabia Amid COVID-19: Examining the Effects of Perceived Severity, Religiosity, Consumption Culture and Attitude toward Behavior

The current study builds on both the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to examine why consumers in Saudi Arabia engage in excessive food-buying behavior amid COVID-19. The study tests the direct impact of food consumption culture, perceived severity of COVID-19, and religiosity on excessive food-buying intentions and the indirect effect through attitudes toward excessive food buying. The results of the inner model using SmartPLS4 showed that the perceived severity of COVID-19 has a direct significant positive effect on attitudes toward excessive food buying and excessive food-buying intention. Despite food consumption culture being found to have no direct significant effect on excessive food-buying intention during the pandemic, it has a direct effect on attitudes toward excessive food buying. Surprisingly, religiosity was found to have a positive effect on consumers' attitudes and excessive food-buying intentions. The results confirm that consumers misunderstood Islamic religious principles regarding food consumption, which does not accept excessive buying or food waste. Attitudes toward excessive food buying were found to mediate the relationship between food consumption culture, perceived severity of COVID-19, religiosity, and excessive food-buying intention. The results of the study are discussed and implications are highlighted for academics and policymakers.

The influence of uncertain expectations on Chinese rural residents' consumer behavior decisions: Theoretical analysis and empirical test

Economic uncertainty will result in consumers' unstable environment expectations, thus affecting household consumption decisions. The paper established a consumption model though using the cointegration theory and ECM model, and used the annual data from 2002 to 2021 to examine the influence of uncertain expectations on the consumption behavior of rural residents in China. The research results show that consumers' income, consumption, consumption habits liquidity constraints and precautionary savings jointly produce the feelings of uncertainty, which will lead to rural consumers' uncertain expectations. Uncertain expectations will not only lead to rural residents the prudent consumption behavior of residents, but also lead to the lack of confidence of residents, forming phased consumption characteristics. Combining the results of the empirical analysis, this paper gives suggestions to promote rural consumption from the perspective of increasing rural residents' income, reforming the income distribution system, improving the rural financial system, and reinforcing the construction of rural consumption infrastructure.

A theoretical model of factors influencing online consumer purchasing behavior through electronic word of mouth data mining and analysis

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has impacted and changed consumer behavior because of a prolonged quarantine and lockdown. This study proposed a theoretical framework to explore and define the influencing factors of online consumer purchasing behavior (OCPB) based on electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) data mining and analysis. Data pertaining to e-WOM were crawled from smartphone product reviews from the two most popular online shopping platforms in China, Jingdong.com and Taobao.com. Data processing aimed to filter noise and translate unstructured data from complex text reviews into structured data. The machine learning based K-means clustering method was utilized to cluster the influencing factors of OCPB. Comparing the clustering results and Kotler's five products level, the influencing factors of OCPB were clustered around four categories: perceived emergency context, product, innovation, and function attributes. This study contributes to OCPB research by data mining and analysis that can adequately identify the influencing factors based on e-WOM. The definition and explanation of these categories may have important implications for both OCPB and e-commerce.

Is Purchase Behavior Different for Consumers with Long COVID?

COVID-19 has generated an uncertain environment, which has motivated changes in consumers' behavior globally. However, previous studies have not clarified if these effects are equally strong throughout the population. In this research, we want to analyze if there are behavioral differences between long-COVID consumers and others. For this purpose, we analyzed a sample of 522 consumers divided into three groups depending on their type of exposure to the disease: those with long COVID; ones that had recovered from COVID-19; and those that had never had COVID-19. The results show that the effect that COVID-19 has on purchase behavior differs depending on the type of exposure to the disease. In fact, those with long COVID experienced more pleasure when purchasing than other people, but they needed higher trust levels in the enterprises to purchase from them, since that reduces their perception of uncertainty. Furthermore, for long-COVID individuals, an organization's legitimacy level is even more important than for other consumer groups with less contact with the disease.

The emotion bias of health product consumers in the context of COVID-19

The ongoing COVID-19 has led to an increase in negative emotions and health awareness among consumers. This paper discusses the emotion bias of Chinese consumers during the three periods: the pre-COVID-19 period, the COVID-19 lockdown period, and the COVID-19 normalization period. This study takes health products as the research object and crawls relevant reviews on the JD platform to classify products. The data were classified into emotion, the intensity of emotion was calculated, and the logistic regression model and variance analysis were used to analyze the difference in emotion expression. The study reveals that consumers are willing to express fear and sadness during the COVID-19 lockdown era and are willing to express like emotions before the pandemic compared to the three periods. There are also differences in the emotional intensity of different product reviews. The intensity of emotional expression is more vigorous for consumers who purchase nutritional products, while for those who purchase healthcare equipment, the intensity of emotional expression is lower. This study offers the emotion bias of consumers in response to COVID-19 to provide a theoretical basis and reference solution for implementing marketing strategies for health product companies.

Panic Food Purchasing amid COVID-19 Pandemic: Does the Impact of Perceived Severity, Anxiety and Self-Isolation Really Matter?

This research examines the influences of perceived severity, anxiety, and self-isolation intention, amid the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), on panic food purchasing. The research adopted a quantitative approach using a pre-examined instrument, which was self-administered by the research team (with support from a data collection-specialised company) to consumers who were urgently shopping for food in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results of structural equation modelling (SEM) using analysis of a moment structures (AMOS) software showed a significant positive impact of perceived severity on consumers' anxiety and self-isolation intention amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-isolation intention was found to have a significant positive impact on the anxiety of consumers amid the pandemic. Additionally, perceived severity, anxiety, and self-isolation have a significant positive impact on panic food purchasing. Both anxiety and self-isolation were found to have partial mediating effects in the link between perceived severity and panic purchasing intention. The results of the current research contribute to a better understanding of factors that influence panic purchasing behaviour, especially amid a pandemic. This will help policymakers to deal with this behaviour when such issues arise in the future. Other implications for scholars and policy makers are discussed.

Scarcity Enhances Outcome Evaluation in the Present: Electroencephalography Evidence

Scarcity goods have generally been perceived as high in value in real-world and empirical studies. However, few studies have investigated this value over time, such as performance in intertemporal decision making. This study’s chief objective was to determine how scarcity evaluation changes temporally. We used the electroencephalogram technique and an outcome evaluation task with the valuation of scarcity and ordinary rewards delivered at different times to explore the effect of scarcity on delay discounting. The feedback-related negativity (FRN) results show that ordinary goods were associated with a more negative amplitude than scarcity goods, and that rewards delivered in the future evoked more negative deflection compared to those delivered immediately. The prominent FRN effect was derived mainly from ordinary trials rather than scarcity trials in the immediate condition and in the future rather than only in the immediate condition. The Frontal Asymmetry Index (FAI) results show that the scarcity condition was associated with greater relative left frontal cortical activity than the ordinary condition when delivered immediately. The frontal asymmetry indicated greater approach motivation. Our electrophysiology data indicate that scarcity goods have a perceived high value, particularly when delivered immediately.

Brain-computer interface to predict impulse buying behavior using functional near-infrared spectroscopy

As the rate of vaccination against COVID-19 is increasing, demand for overseas travel is also increasing. Despite people's preference for duty-free shopping, previous studies reported that duty-free shopping increases impulse buying behavior. There are also self-reported tools to measure their impulse buying behavior, but it has the disadvantage of relying on the human memory and perception. Therefore, we propose a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)-based brain signal processing methodology to supplement these limitations and to reduce ambiguity and conjecture of data. To achieve this goal, we focused on the brain's prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity, which supervises human decision-making and is closely related to impulse buying behavior. The PFC activation is observed by recording signals using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) while inducing impulse buying behavior in virtual computing environments. We found that impulse buying behaviors were not only higher in online duty-free shops than in online regular stores, but the fNIRS signals were also different on the two sites. We also achieved an average accuracy of 93.78% in detecting impulse buying patterns using a support vector machine. These results were identical to the people's self-reported responses. This study provides evidence as a potential biomarker for detecting impulse buying behavior with fNIRS.

Reducing consumer materialism and compulsive buying through emotional intelligence training amongst Lithuanian students

Consumers’ inclinations towards materialism and compulsive buying are influenced by a variety of factors. Materialistic consumers face maladies that cause stress and lower subjective well-being and are unable to control their buying behaviour that in turn leads to social and financial issues. This paper aims to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence training on consumers’ materialism and compulsive buying. The experimental design involves 36 respondents across both groups. Findings confirm the hypothesis that ability-based training programmes can help consumers improve their emotional intelligence whilst also lowering their levels of materialism and compulsive buying. In sum, the results extend the existing literature on consumer materialism by providing an explanation on how specific emotional ability-based training can diminish materialistic and excessive buying inclinations. The development of emotional intelligence skills-based training programmes contributes to more sustainable consumer behaviour, mitigating the vulnerability to materialism and related addictive behavioural consequences.

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner: Examining the Role of Religiosity on Generation M’s Attitude Toward Purchasing Luxury Counterfeiting Products in Social Commerce

Counterfeiting has become a prevalent business worldwide, resulting in high losses for many businesses. Considerable attention has been paid to research an individual attitude toward purchasing luxury counterfeit products in the offline context. However, there is currently lesser-known literature on the given phenomenon in the context of social commerce. Moreover, researchers observed that counterfeiting consumption is associated with consumer ethical values or beliefs. Practitioners and researchers are keen to find those factors that affect consumers’ ethical consumption behavior to reduce pirated products’ demand. However, the role of religion in shaping ethical behavior is less documented in the counterfeiting context. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of religiosity on the counterfeiting of luxury products in Pakistan. A five-dimensional Islamic religiosity model was adopted to understand the consumption phenomena. For quantitative research, cross-sectional data were collected from the generation M of Pakistan through self-administrative questionnaires. A total of 394 valid responses from active online users were collected to empirically examine the conceptual model by employing the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that all five dimensions of religiosity negatively affect the attitude of generation M. Moreover, it is found that knowledge has the highest negative effect on attitude, followed by orthopraxis, experience, central duties, and basic duties. The study also explains the theoretical and practical implications of the research. Finally, limitations and future research were also discussed.

How did COVID-19 change what people buy: Evidence from a supermarket chain

This research takes a retrospective view of the COVID-19 pandemic and attempts to accurately measure its impact on sales of different product categories in grocery retail. In total 150 product categories were analyzed using the data of a major supermarket chain in the Netherlands. We propose to measure the pandemic impact by excess sales – the difference of actual and expected sales. We show that the pandemic impact is twofold: (1) There was a large but brief growth at 30.6% in excess sales associated with panic buying across most product categories within a two-week period; and (2) People spending most of their time at home due to imposed restrictions resulted in an estimated 5.4% increase in total sales lasting as long as the restrictions were active. The pandemic impact on different product categories varies in magnitudes and timing. Using time series clustering, we identified eight clusters of categories with similar pandemic impacts. Using clustering results, we project that product categories used for cooking, baking or meal preparation in general will have elevated sales even after the pandemic.

Factors Affecting Food Consumers’ Behavior during COVID-19 in Romania

Crisis periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic may reshape consumers’ behavior and challenge all food chain actors on how to assure and better respond to consumers’ needs and wants. This study aimed to reveal the main concerns of consumers related to food consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify factors that may influence their behavior. An online survey was performed among 859 Romanian consumers. The Principal Component Analysis revealed five factors: ecofriendly, socio-economic aspects, food waste, plant-based food, and easily accessible food, which affected consumers’ food behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was noticed that females tended to be more preoccupied with the socio-economic aspects and food waste components, compared to males. At the same time, older people were more concerned about the ecofriendly, socio-economic aspects and health concerns, compared with the younger group, the differences being statistically significant. These insights provide information on crucial aspects that shape consumers’ behavior during crisis periods.

Impacts of COVID-19 on the post-pandemic behaviour: The role of mortality threats and religiosity

This study explores the influence of intra-pandemic perceptions on travellers' post-pandemic hotel booking behaviour among crisis-resistant travellers and crisis-sensitive groups. It also examines the moderating role of mortality threats and religiosity on these behaviours. We collected quantitative data utilising survey method via questionnaires to address various levels of the research. We used PLS-SEM to evaluate our proposed model. We collected data from 1580 who had booked hotels in Egypt. Our study indicated that intra-pandemic perception has a stronger effect on travellers’ post-pandemic hotel booking behaviours if the travellers are less religious and feel deeply threatened by the idea of their own level of mortality. Moreover, it revealed that intra-pandemic perceptions had a stronger association with post-pandemic planned behaviour for travellers who chose to cancel their hotel booking plans. Our study also indicated that emergency public information plays a critical role in influencing post-pandemic planned behaviour. Our study offers effective strategies to aid hospitality and tourism practitioners when risky and threating situations such as COVID-19 arise, specifically in the period of response and recovery.

Identifying emergence process of group panic buying behavior under the COVID-19 pandemic

The sudden COVID-19 caused frequent incidents of large-scale material panic buying, resulting in imbalance in supply and demand of goods and threatening social stability. It is of great significance to analyze the formation of group panic buying and help alleviate such action. This paper takes the panic buying phenomenon as the research target, quantifies the internal and external factors affecting individual buying behavior, restores the selection process of individual buying behavior, and constructs the emergence model of group panic buying behavior by using the idea of cluster dynamics. Through simulations, we find that: (1) The epidemic information intensity has a significant impact on the emergence of group rush buying behavior. (2) Government intervention plays a significant role in reducing the scale of group rush buying. Besides, the effects of intervention reach the best before people who do not participate in rush buying disappear. In addition, we also discuss the impact, limitations and future research directions.

Restaurant hygiene attributes and consumers’ fear of COVID-19: Does psychological distress matter?

Restaurant unhygienic affairs have concerned consumers and policy makers alike since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. The current study incorporates restaurant hygiene attributes—consumers-use spaces, personal hygiene of staff, workplace hygiene— and their association with consumers’ fear of COVID-19 (CFC). Moreover, how CFC educes consumers’ psychological distress (CSD) and the consequent behavioral reactions—preventive behavior (PB) and revisit intention (RI)— has been examined. Furthermore, perceived vulnerability (PV) employed as a moderator between hygiene attributes and CFC. Data collected from 407 respondents via Chinese online platform was analyzed in SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 24.0. Results showed significant association between hygiene attributes and CFC. Similarly, CFC significantly engenders CSD, which consequently effects PB. Contrarily to our hypothesis, CSD positively developed RI. Lastly, PV moderated the relationships between antecedents and CFC. Findings add to the literature of health management, consumer psychology, and service management with practical relevance, followed by limitations and potential future avenues.

Consumption Coupons, Consumption Probability and Inventory Optimization: An Improved Minimum-Cost Maximum-Flow Approach

The issuance of consumption coupons during the epidemic period to stimulate the economy must take full account of the level of probabilistic consumption and inventory optimization. In this paper, an improved minimum-cost maximum-flow model is constructed to dynamically adjust the inventory capacity of node enterprises with the change of probabilistic consumption level, and three scenarios are simulated by numerical assumptions. The results show that: (1) The model can better solve the problem of consumption coupons, probabilistic consumption and inventory optimization; (2) Consumer welfare remains unchanged, the largest number of government consumption coupons is issued, and the number of enterprise inventories reaches the lowest; (3) Enterprise inventories are minimized with different decisions on consumer probability consumption, and the government’s issuance of consumption coupons and the satisfaction of consumer demand have reached a dynamic balance. Corresponding suggestions are put forward, hoping to better help the government to implement the consumption coupons policy to stimulate the economy.

Enablers for resilience and pandemic preparedness in food supply chain

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous disruptions to supply chain (SCs). Border restrictions forced countless businesses to close either permanently or temporarily. However, the food industry is an essential sector that needs to be operational during a pandemic. Although the food industry has proactively worked towards fulfilling human needs, the food supply chain (FSC) faced numerous challenges, forcing SC managers to rethink their business strategy to cater to consumer demands effectively. In a pandemic situation, manufacturing operations need to repurpose and adapt to produce different high-demand products. Resilience initiatives help fight disruption phases in an uncertain environment by building capacity to resist and recover to a better position. This study identifies 14 key enablers to develop a resilient FSC and reveals the most significant enablers in India. We used a hybrid Delphi-interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (Fuzzy-DEMATEL) methodology to achieve these goals. The Delphi technique identified essential enablers, while the ISM analyzed the interrelationship among enablers and level of importance in a hierarchical structural model. Finally, the Fuzzy-DEMATEL categorized the enablers into the cause-effect group. This study helps SC decision-makers recognize the enablers and the contextual and causal relationships to improve resilience initiatives. It also helps them repurpose their manufacturing operations and shift to other highly required and high-demand production.

Social determinants of panic buying behaviour amidst COVID-19 pandemic: The role of perceived scarcity and anticipated regret

Panic buying behaviour is inherently undesirable due to its detrimental impact on community's resources and disruptions to supply chain systems. The prevailing COVID-19 pandemic has seen a resurgence of this phenomenon across the world, leaving supermarkets in stockout situations. While panic buying is largely reasoned as a psychological reaction to an extreme event, it is also a socially relevant behaviour as our perception of a crisis can be shaped by our observations and interactions within the society. The social determinants of panic buying behaviour, particularly on how these factors heighten one's perception of scarcity, and trigger panic buying behaviour, are studied. A theoretical model is developed to explain panic buying behaviour in a social context by synthesizing various social and behavioural theories, and the inter-relationship among the latent constructs is analysed using the structural equation modelling approach. Accordingly, an online survey was administered and analysis of the data confirmed that non-coercive social influence, social norm and observational learning directly influence one's perception of scarcity. Additionally, perceived scarcity can motivate panic buying behaviour directly or indirectly through feelings of anticipated regret. This study has contributed to the limited literature on panic buying. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of panic buying will aid policymakers and businesses in developing intervention or support strategies to cope with such behaviour.

The Impact of Consumer Purchase Behavior Changes on the Business Model Design of Consumer Services Companies Over the Course of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound psychological and behavioral impact on people around the world. Consumer purchase behaviors have thus changed greatly, and consumer services companies need to adjust their business models to adapt to this change. From the perspective of consumer psychology, this paper explores the impact of consumer purchase behavior changes over the course of the pandemic on the business model design of consumer services companies using a representative survey of 1,742 individuals. Our results show that changes in consumer purchase behavior have a significant impact on the design of consumer services firms' business models. Specifically, changes in consumers' purchase object, motive, and timeframe are more likely to spark a novelty-centered business model design, whereas changes in purchase method tend to inspire an efficiency-centered one. Our findings provide a theoretical reference for consumer services companies in designing business models when faced with unexpected crises.

Changes in consumption patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic: Analyzing the revenge spending motivations of different emotional groups

People tend to alleviate their negative emotions by shopping. Considering the change of shopping behavior during COVID-19 outbreak, negative emotions are the key contributors to this change. In this light, this study aims to investigate how negative emotions caused by COVID-19 affect shopping behaviors. This study classified consumer groups based on their perceived negative emotions (i.e., anxiety, fear, depression, anger, and boredom). By clustering analysis, four groups (i.e., group of anxiety, depression, anger, and indifference) were derived. Then, this study examined how each of the emotional groups differently affect the shopping-related motivations (i.e., mood alleviation, shopping enjoyment, socialization seeking, and self-control seeking) and shopping behaviors (i.e., shopping for high-priced goods and buying of bulk goods). Results revealed all emotional groups affect socialization seeking and influence high-priced shopping intentions. However, depression and indifference are positively associated with socialization seeking and influence bulk shopping intentions. In addition, other emotions except for anxiety affect mood alleviation and influence high-priced shopping intentions. Finally, anger is associated with self-control seeking and affects bulk shopping intentions. This study enables practitioners and researchers to better understand how people control negative emotions by shopping in pandemic situations such as the current COVID-19 crisis.

Buying to Cope With Scarcity During Public Emergencies: A Serial Mediation Model Based on Cognition-Affect Theory

Panic buying is a common phenomenon that occurs during public emergencies and has a significant undesirable impact on society. This research explored the effect of scarcity on panic buying and the role of perceived control and panic in this effect through big data, an online survey and behavior experiments in a real public emergency (i.e., COVID-19) and simulative public emergencies. The findings showed that scarcity aggravates panic buying (Studies 1–3), and this aggravation effect is serially mediated by perceived control and panic (Studies 2–3). Moreover, this serial mediation model is more suitable for public health emergencies (Study 3). These findings enrich the understanding of panic buying and provide important enlightenment for guiding rational public behavior and managing public opinion during public emergencies.

The Triple Blow Effect: Retailing in an Era of Disasters and Pandemics—The Case of Christchurch, New Zealand

In the last two decades, the retail sector has experienced unprecedented upheaval, having severe implications for economic development and sustenance of traditional inner-city retail districts. In the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, this effect has been exacerbated by a series of earthquakes in 2010/2011 which destroyed much of the traditional retail precinct of the city. After extensive rebuild activity of the city’s infrastructure, the momentum of retailers returning to the inner city was initially sluggish but eventually gathered speed supported by increased international visitation. In early 2020, the return to retail normality came to an abrupt halt after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses spending and transaction data to analyze the compounding impact of the earthquake’s aftermath, shift to online shopping, and the retail disruption in the Christchurch central retail precinct because of COVID-19. The findings illustrate how consumers through their spending respond to different types of external shocks, altering their consumption patterns and retail mode (offline and online) to cope with an ever-changing retail landscape. Each event triggers different spending patterns that have some similarities but also stark differences, having implications for a sustainable and resilient retail industry in Christchurch. Implications for urban retail precinct development are also discussed.

Drivers of medical spending behaviour amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Heuristic or systematic

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has been creating unprecedented chaos and it could forever alter the way people live and work. Experiencing multiple waves of pandemic attacks could make people evolve their perceived risks about the health crisis, change their healthcare behaviours and medical spending to deal with the changing threats over time.

Objectives

Even though there has been a great dealt of research on personal healthcare behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic, the individual decision on medical spending has not been well explored. This study uses the health belief model and heuristic-systematic information processing theory to study the key drivers of medical spending behaviour as the COVID-19 pandemic evolved in Vietnam.

Methods

Two surveys were conducted during the first (April 2020) and second waves (August 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a sample size of 1037 cases. The partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed to explore the structural relationships between health-seeking behaviours, pandemic perceived risks, panic buying, and demographic factors and how these sets of factors drive medical spending behaviours over time.

Results

Comparing the two pandemic waves, this study finds significant distinctions in how people evaluate the risks of the pandemic and process information to make decisions about their medical spending. People were primarily influenced by the heuristic processes of panic buying patterns (β = 0.313, p < 0.001) and the health-related established habits in the first wave. Only in the second wave of the pandemic, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic perceived risk has been recognized as a significant factor on medical spending via the comparison between perceived risks of the first and second pandemic waves (β = 0.262, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

This study explores how individuals formulate their spending decisions in extreme conditions and provide valuable insights to help governments and institutions plan their policies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic more effectively.

A Cross-sectional Study of Antecedents and Consequence of Panic Buying Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Rumors

The novel corona virus pandemic has influenced people buying behaviors. Due to the significant psychological and behavioral impact of COVID-19 on society, this study aimed to examine the determinants of panic buying behavior and a resultant psychological outcome in the form of a sense of security. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of COVID-19 caller ringback tone (CRT) experiences, that is, informational and stimulation experience, on the panic buying behavior and how rumors moderate this relationship. This research is quantitative and uses a purposive sampling method to collect the survey-based data from 264 respondents. The researchers analyzed the data using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results of data analysis indicated that the informational and stimulation experience of COVID-19 CRT had a significant influence on panic buying behavior which further resulted in a sense of security in public. This study could not find evidence of the moderating role of rumors in the relationship between COVID-19 CRT experiences and panic buying behavior. The findings highlight the role of the COVID-19 CRT in causing panic buying behavior and resultant psychological outcome and thus provide implications for policymakers on the control of panic buying under COVID-19.

Recent Advances in Consumer Behavior Theory: Shocks from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic has had an enormous impact on people's lives, particularly aspects of life such as consumption, and has therefore brought new elements to the expansion of Consumer behavior theory. Methods: This paper searches the literature on consumption research conducted from 1981 to 2021, including sources such as CNKI, Wanfang, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. Through the exploration of the existing relevant literature, this article found that the COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic has had a profound impact on consumption willingness, consumption patterns, and consumption objects, and, as such, has newly expanded the theoretical model of consumer behavior. Results: Through reviewing the literature, this paper found some results. For example with regard to consumption patterns, early studies and the impact of COVID-19 was focused on online consumption, however in the context of COVID-19, scholars proposed paying attention to the combination of online and offline development. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic has had a profound effect on consumer behavior worldwide. Under the current economic depression, the government should take adequate measures in order to respond to the new changes in consumer behavior and therefore promote economic growth. For example, the government should encourage the combination of online and offline business operation modes to break the boundaries of customer groups and supply chains, so that consumers can buy anytime and anywhere.

The Influence of COVID-19 on Irrational Consumption Behavior in a Chinese Sample: Based on a Serial Mediating Model

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.

COVID-19, Economic Impact, Mental Health, and Coping Behaviors: A Conceptual Framework and Future Research Directions

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused serious economic and social consequences. Recent research shows that the pandemic has not only caused a physical health crisis but also caused many psychological and mental crises. Based on the contemporary cognitive-behavioral models, this article offers a conceptual analysis of how the pandemic affects individual mental health and coping behaviors from the perspective of individual economic status, individual context, and social context. The analysis shows that (1) the pandemic has led to increased economic uncertainty, increased unemployment and underemployment pressure, increased income uncertainty, and different degrees of employment pressure and economic difficulties; (2) these difficulties have stimulated different levels of mental health problems, ranging from perceived insecurity (environmental, food safety, etc.), worry, fear, to stress, anxiety, depression, etc., and the mental health deterioration varies across different groups, with the symptoms of psychological distress are more obvious among disadvantageous groups; and (3) mental health problems have caused behavior changes, and various stress behaviors such as protective behaviors and resistive behaviors. Future research directions are suggested.

Food Consumption Patterns in Romania during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Food consumption behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic has changed worldwide as a consequence of the restrictions imposed by law and/or due to the fear of contamination. Although some similarities are found among countries, there are still many particularities for each nation. The present study focused on Romanian consumers and their consumption behavior related to four main food categories: fruits and vegetables, meat and meat products, bread and bakery products, and milk and milk products. Frequency of buying, shopping habits, place of purchase, and concerns related to the place of purchasing food products during the COVID-19 pandemic were analyzed in comparison with the pre-COVID-19 period using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics regarding an online survey. Three types of behavior were identified as being related to the frequency of buying and to organizing a shopping list (less often, no change, more often). Two groups of consumers were identified as being related to the place of purchasing food: people with the same habits and people with new habits. Concerns related to the location of the stores and to the choice of buying directly from producers were also investigated using the ordered logistic regression. The empirical study revealed the new consumption patterns with a reflection on future trends.

Ethnocentrism Effects on Consumers’ Behavior during COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has upset everyone’s normal daily activities, generating psychiatric disorders and changing consumers’ preferences. Among others, the agri-food sector has experienced strong changes and, during the lockdown period, Italian consumers modified their purchasing habits in response to the fear and uncertainty generated by the spread of the virus. In order to find out the main consequences of the shock suffered during the period and to understand which factors have affected purchasing choices, an online survey was conducted on 286 Italian consumers. The results show that ethnocentrism has been the factor that most has influenced consumers’ behavior during the lockdown period and that consumers will continue to prefer national agri-food products when pandemic will be over, constituting a deep change to future eating habits.