Analysis of Panic Buying Behavior from Fear of Covid-19 and Citizen Trust

Abstract

Early in 2020 China, Japan, and dozens of other countries were busy with a terrible and deadly disease outbreak, Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19). Then, the spread of this virus is very concerned about it because of its very rapid spread through air media or fluids from the respiratory tract. This phenomenon has a significant impact on life globally. Anxiety, panic, and public fear of the virus create a new lifestyle that must be controlled by oneself. The health, economic, educational, political, social, and psychological impacts are felt by all people in all countries. The obvious psychological impact is panic buying, self-control, trust in the government, and fear of COVID19. This study aims to determine the role of fear of COVID19 and citizen trust to panic buying behavior. The research conducted using quantitative correlation methods, involving research respondents with a minimum sample of 536 people. The character of the research response was at least 18 years old and affected by Covid19. Data processing using Multiple regression with the help of SPSS software. The research result shows that panic buying build from fear of COVID and citizen trust. Both fears of covid-17 and citizen trust have a simultaneous role in panic buying. However, in the partial role only fear of covid which have a role to panic buying, while citizen trust has not role to panic buying.

Factors Influencing Panic Buying Behavior among Consumers in Lebanon during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Furthermore, the findings of this study indicated that there is a positive relationship between the fear of COVID-19 and panic buying behavior. This finding supports other study by Akhrani et al, (2020) that argued the fear of COVID-19 influences panic buying behavior. The researchers suggest that the positive relationship between the fear of COVID-19 and panic buying behavior is instigated by the customer's fear of complete lock down that could be implemented by the government to decrease the cases and the prevalence of COVID-19.…”

“…The considerable direct and indirect correlations among the investigated variables confirm previous researchers' argument that fear of COVID-19, severity perceptions, scarcity perceptions, and anxiety are critical precursors to panic buying. (Kemp et al, 2014;Liren et al, 2012;Sim et al, 2020;Yuen et al, 2020;Akhrani et al, 2020;Omar et al, 2021).…”

“…Previous studies have proposed that panic buying behavior are influenced by the consumer fear of COVID-19 (Akhrani et al, 2020), perceived severity (Liren et al, 2012), perceived scarcity (Sterman et al, 2015). These factors increase consumer's anxiety that leads to the panic purchase behavior (Akhrani et al, 2020;Omar et al, 2021).…”

“…In this context, individuals fear is stimulated by their characteristics and traits which triggered by specific social and cultural relationships (Gill & Burrow, 2017). Akhrani et al, (2020) argued that the fear is triggered by various events and situations. Further, the lack of individual awareness along with some psychological predictors cause fear, due to individual experiencing of some particular events, such as war, a zone of conflict or catastrophe, terrorism, and others (Gallagher, 2008;Carleton, 2016).…”

“…COVID-19 is pandemic life-threatening infectious disease entered the human life and affect their social, psychological and physiological human health. Akhrani et al, (2020) argued that COVID-19 pandemic is a viral infection that spread rapidly between human and has a high mortality rate. In this regard, the fear of COVID-19 appeared during the time of pandemic.…”