Real reasons behind panic buying

THE EDITOR: My country, there is a clear difference between disaster preparation and panic buying. I am a married man, I know these things.

In case of a hurricane or flood, we have a fair idea of the items needed in the event of a blackout or water shortage. It is unclear at this stage what effects covid19 will have, there is a lot of uncertainty driving this spending. Panic buying is fuelled by anxiety and a willingness to go to lengths to quell those fears like queueing for hours or buying way more than you need.

My neighbour Kundan Lal now has enough crix to survive an atomic blast. People are hoarding non-perishables, bottled water and money too.

Panic buying helps people feel in control of the situation. People feel the need to do something that is proportionate to what they perceive is the level of the crisis.

We know washing hands and practising coughing hygiene is all you need to know at this point.

Hand washing seems too ordinary. This is a dramatic event so a dramatic response is required. This leads to people throwing money at things in hopes of protecting themselves.

Panic buying is a psychological mechanism to deal with our fear and uncertainty, a way to assert some control over the situation by taking an action. Please read that again.

At times like these, we consider loss aversion .You do not want to miss out.

Losing $100 feels worse than winning $100. If later we realise we needed toilet paper and did not buy it when we had the chance, we will feel bad. Condider herd mentality, the fact that panic buying is happening at all can prompt people to participate.

Panic buying is getting excessive play in social and news media and that amplifies the sense of scarcity which worsens the panic buying.

There’s a snowball effect of further increased sense of urgency. If we are going from Trinidad to Tobago on the MV ‘AVR 69’ and all start running for the lifeboats, you are going to start running too, regardless if the vessel is sinking or not.

AV RAMPERSAD

Princes Town