According to foreign media reports, before the outbreak of covid-19, there were many strange things in the world. After the outbreak of the epidemic, various strange phenomena are emerging in endlessly. In this new world where everyone keeps social distance, one of the strange phenomena is that a respiratory disease has made toilet paper extremely valuable. Why suddenly everyone started rushing for toilet paper? Kit yarrow, a consumer behavior researcher, said that this is actually the response of human beings, as a social primate, when they receive a large number of eye-catching and sometimes misleading visual information through news reports.

Coping with panic by over shopping

Panic shopping during a crisis is not new in itself. In the Midwest of the United States, every time before the snowstorm, the supermarket shelves will be sold out of bread, eggs and milk. In coastal areas, peanut butter is a necessity to be stocked up every hurricane season. Yarrow pointed out that it is reasonable that people want to be fully prepared for the crisis. But to some extent, panic shopping is also the behavior that people want to obtain a certain "sense of control" when facing uncertainty and danger.

When everyone feels anxious, it seems abnormal if they have no anxiety at all. The antidote to anxiety is' control ' Yaro pointed out that since we cannot control the process of the epidemic, we can only turn our attention to what we can control, so people will go shopping crazily. I feel like I'm at least doing something. I feel I am actively preparing. I feel that I am in control of what I can control, that is, stocking.

"Some people are hoarding goods. They are not bad people or selfish people. They are just scared. I think if they can consider their relationship with others and their responsibility to society, they may not do so." Yaro said.

It is easy for us to understand the behavioral logic behind storing soap and hand sanitizer (although it is somewhat irrational), but why is it?

Yaro pointed out that such behavior is indeed not so common. "I don't think that in general panic shopping, such as before the hurricane, most people don't think of hoarding toilet paper. This is also a new phenomenon. During the crisis, when social media as the carrier of communication and human instinct collide with each other, the phenomenon of people competing to buy toilet paper arises."

Illusion of out of stock

"Human beings are social animals," Yaro pointed out. "In this unprecedented and uncertain period, we all imitate others' actions. Unfortunately, other people will make all kinds of crazy actions, which makes us feel that we should do the same."

Nowadays, most people use social media or news reports with pictures and videos to understand the behavior of their peers. Therefore, the cues we receive are mainly visual, which will affect the way we process specific information. Compared with canned tuna, larger commodities such as toilet paper will leave larger and more conspicuous vacancies on the shelves after they are bought. Moreover, toilet paper often takes up a whole row of shelves, while canned tuna only takes up a small row of space, which is naturally less impressive than the former.

"In the photo, the empty toilet paper shelf looks much more dramatic than the empty can shelf, and the scene of someone holding two large bags of toilet paper is much more dramatic than holding two large bags of cans." Yaro said, "the media seems to particularly like to focus on toilet paper. After getting such a prompt, people will inevitably think of hoarding toilet paper."

Stop stocking paper

If we don't stock up on toilet paper, what should we do?

"I won't say to you, 'don't be prepared.' because this practice can bring satisfaction to people in many ways. From a practical point of view, I think people really need to be prepared; from an emotional point of view, it's really pleasant to be actively prepared."

But once people are ready for what they really need, they need to find another way to seek "sense of control".

"Remember, we just want to feel that we still have use and control in this weird, loose and uncertain world, so we only need to control what we can control."

In the days of keeping social distance, you can control your life by making a schedule, control the surrounding environment by cleaning and tidying, and keep in touch with others as much as possible on the premise of maintaining social distance, such as video chat, walking in the park, or making phone calls.