Why Hong Kong panic buying happened: herd mentality, the media, overreaction and distrust
- Toilet paper offers no protection against the coronavirus, so why the panic buying and even armed robbery in Hong Kong
- Mental health experts offer some reasons for the irrational behaviour and how it affects large groups of people
Hong Kong clinical psychologist Dr Cindy Chan explains that panic buying is about people trying to get a sense of control. There are so many unsettling factors surrounding the Covid-19 outbreak – the increasing death toll, people having to work from home, and schools being suspended – that people have the sense that they are losing control of their life.
“People feel they need control, so they go out and buy things – rice, toilet paper – and feel that they are doing what they can for themselves, getting a sense of control. It’s a groupthink phenomenon, the herd mentality,” says Chan.
From a neuroscience perspective, when we face a threat – and Covid-19 is a threat – the amygdala, the part of our brain that processes fear and emotions, is over activated. This heightened activation temporarily shuts off rational thinking.
“We cannot reason rationally, we are more easily affected by group think, our behaviour becomes more irrational,” says Chan.