Panic Buying
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A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that only comes true because people who are aware of the prediction respond to it in a way that makes it happen.
A bank run was used to describe this concept when it was initially coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton back in 1949, in his book, Social Theory and Social Structure.
If a group of people believe a bank is going to be shut down or will go bankrupt, they may go to that bank and remove all of their money. The bank in question could, then, actually go bankrupt, despite the lack of any risk of that happening before those people decided there was something to worry about.
In Merton’s words: “The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfillment.”
A bank run is an example of what’s called herd behavior: collective activity we find in species which aggregate into herds, flocks, packs, and schools—including human beings.
This behavior is characterized by a general lack of leadership, with each atomic unit of the group (a single fish or bird or human being) deciding how to behave largely by looking at other, nearby individuals, subconsciously responding to actions and cues that may or may not be any more informed than their own understanding.
This is why bank runs, mob violence, and the generally (but not always) less destructive congregations following sporting events can sometimes cause people to behave in ways that are not reflective of who they are as individuals. Losing oneself to mob mentality is a real thing, and we succumb because our rational minds have been sidelined, causing us to be guided, instead, by emotional triggers and instinctual defense mechanisms.
When we become part of a herd, and when that herd is not being responsibly guided, mob behavior can lead to conduct that negatively impacts the larger herd.
With the emergence of the COVID-19 coronavirus, we’ve seen new rules and realities influencing our social systems, leading to all kinds of disruptions, from the very strange and borderline comical, to the incredibly serious, sad, and dangerous.
One of the superficially comical aspects of this pandemic has been the seemingly reflexive need experienced by some to stockpile strange things; most commonly, toilet paper.
There’s been some analysis performed about the hoarding of this particular product, with experts positing that pandemics trigger a disgust reflex in some people, triggering a need to purify and clean themselves and their families. A common, knee-jerk response to that impulse is to grab toilet paper—enough of it that they and theirs can remain clean and pure, and by the logic of this desire, healthy and protected, for the duration of the real or perceived emergency.
Toilet paper would probably be the least of our worries if our distribution systems collapsed and common products were no longer available, but that doesn’t seem to register for many people: they’re not acting upon rational motives, they’re feeling a strong need based on what’s happening around them, and their sub-rational response is to scoop up something they associate with cleanliness and perhaps even modernity and civilization.
The legitimacy of this theory aside—there’s not a lot of evidence available, or arguably to even convincingly gather—there is evidence that what’s called fear contagion, a sort of panic virus, can cause us to lose our high-level cognitive capabilities, leading us to become more reactive, watching others for implied instructions rather than thinking through what we’re doing and why.
The survival benefits of this sort of biological algorithm are clear: if you’re one bird in a flock, and you see a bunch of other birds suddenly leap into the air, as if they’re being attacked, it’s probably prudent to also leap into the air.
Superorganisms like flocks of birds can protect the individual units of which they are constituted by ensuring that those single components are jumpy and impressionable in this way—the bird that doesn’t reflexively follow the behaviors of the flock is a bird that’s maybe eaten by a snake.
This is something that’s hardwired into humans, too, and for better and for worse, it throws our amygdala—the portion of our brain that helps us respond to threats—into overdrive.
What this means for modern humans, living in a world that floods our senses with always-on information from around the globe, is that when we see news reports about shortages of toilet paper, even when those reports are from halfway around the world, this latent instinct is triggered and we become more likely to leap into action, driving out to the store to buy as much toilet paper as we can get our hands on to assuage a subconscious sense of unease that’s been sparked by this new, far-flung information.
News reports and social media posts and other information distribution mediums can become the same type of triggering mechanism as nearby birds leaping into the sky. And while it’s still useful, at times, to receive this sort of danger-related information from other human beings, these days it’s more likely to be a false positive: a message that doesn’t apply to us because it’s from very far away or otherwise irrelevant to our specific circumstances.
That non-applicability can change, though, due to the nature of panic buying: it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If there was no panic buying of toilet paper, chances are good that everyone would have as much as they need, just like we always do. It’s generally not supply chain shortages that cause people to go without in these situations: it’s the panic buyers, triggered into an over-the-top emotional response that makes things worse for everyone.
We manifest our own worst fears, sometimes, by responding to those fears irrationally.
We deeply, biologically, need to establish a sense of control, feel like part of a group, and feel like we’re smart and capable. The act of shopping can superficially fulfill some of these needs, when we’re feeling down—a behavior sometimes both jokingly and scientifically called retail therapy—but this effect can be amplified when we’re also in the midst of a seemingly dangerous or otherwise status quo-disrupting situation that makes us feel like we lack control, are more alone, and are perhaps incapable of dealing with whatever comes next.
It’s not irrational to make sure you have some extra food and other necessities in the face of something like a serious pandemic. But the impulse to buy a year’s worth of something is almost certainly overblown, not to mention antisocial.
Speaking of which, another variable that leads to this sort of behavior and our consequent societal weakness is the focus on individuality over collectivism.
There are a great many benefits to individualistic thinking, and there are excellent arguments to be made on both sides of the debate between social structures that favor the individual versus social structures that favor the group.
There are pros and cons on both ends of the I-versus-we spectrum, and when we look at highly individualistic societies like those in the United States, and highly collectivistic societies like those in China, it’s easy to see benefits and downsides inherent in both.
The damage that can be done to shared social systems by emotionally reactive individuals, though, is immense—especially in the midst of a disaster that is already weakening our shared structures in other ways.
In this case, we have individuals deciding to buy up as much of as finite supply of a particular item as possible, ignoring or justifying away the fact that, if stocks are indeed lower than usual as they fear, they, by buying mass quantities in this way, are actively, consciously, denying other people those resources, leaving dozens of other families without toilet paper; not because there isn’t toilet paper available, but because they, as individuals, want to feel more secure, competent, and in control.
These are tricky impulses to counter, and we all experience them to some degree or another, though we’re very good at disguising them as legitimate needs and wants, so that’s not necessarily clear, even when we take the time to self-interrogate.
We are psychologically incentivized to dismiss information that might imply we’re the villains, and to instead decide that we are clever and everyone else is just a sore loser. We maybe tell ourselves that if we hadn’t hoarded the toilet paper, someone else would have.
There’s a minor element of game theory in this larger discussion, then, as that last bit—the idea that if I don’t do this harmful, self-enriching thing, someone else will—isn’t necessarily always wrong; it’s just an ideal default stance if we want to have a flourishing social ecosystem.
If I think that you will buy all the toilet paper if I do not, it takes more willpower on my end to not stockpile toilet paper: to take the risk, in essence, that I will end up being the one without this resource, despite having had the chance to get it.
Most of us, I think, would prefer to be the seemingly clever person in such a situation, not the sucker.
Most resilient systems have either tribally enforced norms that cause people to internally overrule this impulse to stockpile, ostracizing or otherwise socially punishing those who enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, or they have top-down regulations in place: laws that disincentivize self-serving impulses so that we are all more likely to do the “right thing” in the context of a collectively experienced disaster, rather than the individual-focused, biologically incentivized “right thing” we might otherwise do.
After the initial rush of emotional, panic-driven responses, we’re beginning to see more business- and government-instigated regulations and laws, meant to help with this problem in the context of the current pandemic: one pack of toilet paper per person policies, and punishments for people who stockpile scarce resources (like hand sanitizer) so they can resell them at higher prices, enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else.
All of these mechanisms are gameable and flawed in a variety of ways, and there’s no perfect system available. Even the highly collectivistic societies around the world have struggled with oversteps in either direction, plagued by self-serving opportunists on one end, and government overreach and abuse toward individuals, on the other.
These impulses are worth understanding, though, both so we can recognize these motivations in ourselves and counter them accordingly, and so we can figure out how to incentivize behaviors that increase our social and structural stability, moving forward.
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