What people drives to panic buying

We now live in uncertain and crazy times which has shown that it is difficult for some to cope and know what to do. People fall into panic buying and supermarket shelves are emptied out.

There is psychological reasoning that helps us understand why people become irrational and stock up on food stuffs and toilet paper unnecessarily.

David Rock, the Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer of the NeuroLeadership Institute, developed a model which provides an understanding of the true drivers of human social behaviour. The SCARF model consists of five domains: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

Status is about my own importance in relation to others. If my status it threatened; for example, due to a job loss I am trying to do anything to change that.

Certainty is about knowing what comes next and being able to predict the future. We now live in highly uncertain times. We might be in lock down tomorrow; we don’t know when we will be able to travel again; we don’t know if we will keep our job through this crisis and how we will get through this.

Autonomy gives us a sense of control over events, something we have lost right now. This crisis is out of our control and we don’t know when this will end.

Relatedness gives us a sense of safety; we are in this together and we need to cope together.

Fairness means that we like to be treated fairly.

Now let’s bring this into the context of irrational behaviour such as panic buying.

This crisis threatens our status, we might lose our jobs, have less money and we won’t be able to do the things we used to do.

These are highly uncertain times and most of us don’t know what to do; so, some resort to panic buying as this provides a sense of security and the feeling that I am doing something.

We currently have no autonomy, no control of the current events. Panic buying provides some control in that we have enough, food and hygiene products at home.

We are all in this together and if I see people panic buying then I should do the same or I will miss out.

There is no fairness in this, it is survival of the fittest and the fastest in the supermarket. It has been so bad that some items are now rationed in order make shopping fair for everyone.

While we all know that there is no need to panic buy rice, pasta, toilet paper and other products, in uncertain times where we have no control, we act irrational that makes us believe we are in control.

https://neuroleadership.com/

#Davidrock #neuroleadership #panic