Panic Behavior Research Articles

Exploring panic buying as a situational response – the role of fear, media exposure and context-specific paranoia

PurposeDrawing on prospect theory, terror management theory, and social influence theories, this study explores the phenomenon of panic buying amid the COVID-19 pandemic, namely its situational antecedents such as fear of COVID-19, increased media exposure to COVID-19-related news, and context-specific paranoia. It offers insight into the situational nature of panic buying, contrary to the purely dispositional/trait conceptualization of irrational spending, usually depicted through the phenomenon of compulsive buying.Design/methodology/approachThis is a cross-sectional study. An online questionnaire was used for data collection from 621 Croatian citizens. The questionnaire features a series of validated instruments designed to measure compulsive buying, fear of COVID-19, and context-specific paranoia. The media exposure scale (MES) was also specifically developed and empirically tested for the purpose of this research.FindingsThe results suggest that individuals who exhibited greater fear of COVID-19 while also experiencing increased exposure to COVID-19-related news were more likely to engage in panic buying. This connection has remained significant even after controlling for compulsive buying tendencies, suggesting that panic buying witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic was a situational phenomenon, not strictly dispositional. This establishes the fear of COVID-19 and increased exposure to pandemic-related news content as situational antecedents to panic buying. After controlling for compulsive buying, this paper does not demonstrate a significant connection between context-specific paranoia and panic buying. Furthermore, context-specific paranoia does not mediate the relationship between media exposure to pandemic-related content and panic buying, whereas the fear of COVID-19 significantly mediates the same relationship.Practical implicationsThis study recognizes people's panic behavior amid the COVID-19 pandemic as a byproduct of a situational, reactive process – not a psychopathological one. Furthermore, it recognizes media sensationalism and the audience's impaired capacity for rational spending as major risk factors preceding the event of panic buying.Originality/valueThis study proposes a novel conceptual framework of irrational spending amid crises such as COVID-19 pandemic, introducing the differentiation between the situational nature of the phenomenon (panic buying), thereby separating it from its previous dispositional operationalizations (hoarding, compulsive buying).

Sectoral performance of Indian stock market during 1st and 2nd wave of COVID-19 pandemic: an event study analysis

PurposeCapital markets are the backbone of an economy. COVID-19 has created an unacceptable and unpredictable economic environment worldwide, resulting in a significant setback for securities exchanges. India also experienced two waves of this pandemic, which led to a significant downturn in the capital market.Design/Methodology/ApproachResearchers have endeavored to study the impact of the first and second waves of COVID-19 on the performance of various sectoral stocks in India. The performance of selected sectoral indices of the Bombay Stock Exchange was compared with the market performance of the S&P BSE 100. An event study was conducted to analyze the normal return, abnormal return (A.R.), and t-statistics of A.R. for various sectoral stocks. In addition, the abnormal returns of sectoral stocks between the first and second waves of COVID-19 in India were comparedFindingsThe results of the tests showed heterogeneous A.R. between different sectors in both the first and second waves of COVID-19 in India. Positive investor outlook and government financial support programs for various sectors helped them recover from the second wave of COVID-19.Research limitations/implicationsThe study analyzed the impact of the peak of the first and second waves of COVID-19 on selected sectoral indices. There may be several reasons for the performance of this particular stock index. However, we have tried to analyze the best possible reasons for this turbulence in the performance of stocks of selected sectoral indices. The study can be further analyzed to examine the long-term impact of such a pandemic on other sectors.Originality/valueThe study is based on the panic behavior of investors during such a pandemic. No one was prepared for this and expected this pandemic to last this long. This pandemic has taught so many lessons to everyone involved. Investors need to be prepared and cautious for such unforeseen disasters before making any investment decision. They need to analyze which industry can survive under such circumstances, and then they should invest there. Industries and enterprises must adapt and improve by honestly looking at their weaknesses and trying to meet investors' expectations.

Revisiting the paper ”Simulating dynamical features of escape panic”: What have we learnt since then?

The paper ”Simulating dynamical features of escape panic” by Helbing, Farkas, and Vicsek, published over two decades ago in Nature, has left an indelible mark on the field of crowd dynamics. With nearly 3,000 citations to date, according to the Web of Science records, and significant influence, it has shaped the crowd dynamics field. This analysis investigates the overall influence of this paper through a variety of indicators, mapping its reach across research areas. The intellectual foundation of the paper is traced, examining the references cited. The terminological impact is also explored, showing how the paper made use of terms like ”panic” and ”herding”. Moreover, the alignment of the assumptions of the paper with empirical evidence is discussed, finding discrepancies in key assertions about panic behaviour. The numerical simulations of the paper and observations have significantly influenced the field, such as for the case of the ”faster-is-slower” phenomenon. The paper remains a key pillar in crowd dynamics, nevertheless, we advocate for a new course of the field shifting away from the terminology adopted in the paper and focusing more on empirical evidence.

Understanding Mass Panic

Mass panics can arise in response to a variety of situations, such as the spread of pathogens, bank failures, or insecurities about economic supplies. Such panics can produce contagious behaviors such as fleeing social contacts, bank withdrawals, and panic buying. In such situations, the processing of external stimuli, mediated by the perceptions and biases of the individual, can reach a threshold point at which panic behaviors are triggered. Due to the human propensity to imitate the behavior of others in uncertain crisis situations, one individual’s panic behavior can spread contagiously. This paper looks at the similarities among case studies of mass panic around the world and from these cases synthesizes a conceptual model to aid our understanding. Decision-makers can use this model to strengthen national resilience against panic-generated behaviors and ensure an orderly and successful public response to future biological, financial, or economic crises.

Exploring Indonesian Panic Buyers’ Typologies in Time of Covid-19 Pandemic

Purpose – This study aims to investigate hitherto unresearched panic buyer (shopper) typologies among Indonesian consumers as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. In this study, a panic buyer (shopper) is described as a customer who worries about their stock during a pandemic and decides to purchase things in bulk or in greater quantities at the start of the pandemic.
 Design/methodology/approach – To identify probable groupings of the items, an exploratory factor analysis is carried out using principal component analysis and varimax rotation. Then to identify consumer groups, a two-step cluster analysis was conducted. Lastly, an ANOVA test is run on the whole set of variables to identify differences between the detected clusters in order to validate the cluster solutions.
 Findings – Five components that served as the foundation for the typology emerged from exploratory factor analysis. Using behaviour and attitude factors including "consumption savers," "adapters reluctant," "preservers of social consciousness," "online shopping shifters," and "all-around adapters," five clusters were then defined.
 Research limitations/implications – This study contributes significantly to the body of knowledge on consumer behavior during health crises (Covid-19) by putting into context the frantic shoppers that we frequently observe during these situations. It's noteworthy that throughout the epidemic, no panic buyers (shoppers) voiced worry about health problems.
 Practical implications – This study provides essential practical information for marketing professionals. For instance, it may be necessary to consider research showing that panic buyers (shoppers) tend to be consumption savers during a pandemic when developing a price plan.
 Originality/value – Despite the fact that there have been many studies on panic behavior during COVID-19, most of them tend to concentrate on medical problems. There are now a few studies that examine several sorts of panic buyers (shoppers) based on their purchasing behaviors and attitudes. By categorizing various categories of panic buyers (shoppers) among 121 decision-makers in families, this study aims to close this literature gap.

Panic Buying Pandemonium: The Bandwagon Effect and Healthcare Implications

The bandwagon effect — also known as the “contagion effect” — is a psychological phenomenon wherein individuals tend to adopt certain behaviors or beliefs because of the influence of others. This article explores the multifaceted dynamics of the bandwagon effect within the healthcare context, shedding light on its impact on panic behaviors, patient choices, medication compliance, and even healthcare policy.

Dynamic Disturbance Propagation Model of Pedestrian Panic Behaviors and Lyapunov-Based Crowd Stability Analysis

In public places, pedestrian panic behaviors have received increasing attention due to their dangerous impact on normal pedestrian flow. To address this issue, this study considered crowd panic behaviors as two-dimensional Gaussian disturbances quantitatively triggered by accidents and analyzed the stability of the pedestrian crowd based on Lyapunov criterion. First, this study established a two-dimensional static model for the disturbance pressure in a crowd. Then, a dynamic disturbance–propagation model (DPM) of crowd panic behaviors was proposed based on the conservation law of fluid dynamics. The anisotropy of the disturbance pressure propagation was proven with theoretical derivations and simulation experiments, which kept consistent with ground truth. Further, a stability criterion was proposed for pedestrian crowd flow under disturbances based on Lyapunov theory. To validate the proposed DPM, we simulated a disturbance scenario in the waiting hall of Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station. Subsequently, the visual disturbance propagation dynamics and crowd state evolution due to a panic behavior disturbance in a pedestrian crowd were investigated; Finally, the experimental results demonstrated that disturbance pressures and pedestrian density fluctuated and diffused with the panic behavior outbreak point as the disturbance center, showing heterogeneous characteristics. This study shows how we can locate the high-risk areas affected by pedestrian panic behaviors in advance, and further help control crowd flow to keep a pedestrian crowd safe in public buildings.

Panic-Pressure Conversion Model From Microscopic Pedestrian Movement to Macroscopic Crowd Flow

Abstract Understanding the effects of panic on crowd dynamics in emergency situations has long been considered necessary for pedestrian evacuation control. In the case of disasters, stampedes caused by panic behaviors occur with high possibility, and pedestrians are crushed or trampled, leading to enormous casualties. To eliminate the computational errors accumulated in the traditional macromodel, a macro-microconversion model based on the SF (social force) model and the AR (Aw-Rascle) model is proposed in this paper. The purpose is to use the crowd parameters of the microscopic model as the input part of the macroscopic model and to combine the advantages of the two models to ensure accuracy and improve calculation performance. The concept of the “pressure term” is defined to measure the panic level of the crowd. In addition, a flowchart of the numerical simulation is designed based on the road network conditions at the trampling site. To validate the conversion model, a numerical simulation is conducted in a case study of the Mecca Hajj stampede in 2015. The simulation results display the whole process of crowd marching and meeting with the dynamic variations of the “pressure term.” The simulation results are compared with the traditional simulation results based on a Gaussian distribution, which verifies that the simulation results obtained by the proposed method are closer to the real situation. Moreover, in this study, a new micromacro transformation method for crowd evaluation dynamics, which can enhance computing speed and execution efficiency, is provided.

The Impact Of Misinformation In Social Media That Caused Panic Behavior On Covid-19 Pandemic Among University Students In Ipoh, Perak

Social networking has become a regular part of everyone's life. Nowadays, practically everyone uses social media and messaging platforms for communication, especially university students who frequently use smartphones and other devices for social interaction and communication. Due to this, university students began to believe the information shared on social media without verifying its accuracy. The veracity of the information shared on social media is unconfirmed for a number of reasons. Some of the false information spread has led to students at the university behaving panicked. As a result, the focus of this study will be on the effect of misleading news on Covid-19 among Malaysian university students. This will help to ensure that the study's goals, which include determining how social media misinformation influences university students' behaviour and fostering the spread of fear about COVID-19 in Malaysia, are successfully attained. In due to that the study uses quantitative methodology as its main research approach. Information was gathered by the researcher from university students using online surveys. The findings of this study indicated that disinformation disseminated via social media platforms, particularly the amplifying of dread that resulted in increased worry and anxiety, was likely to have an impact on university students in Ipoh, Perak. In order to discover the trends that may spread to other new consumers, particularly with the increased adoption of mobile connectivity, this study should be continued by focusing on the behavioural patterns and attitudes of this news consumption segment.

Study of the Effect of Rescuers and the Use of a Massive Alarm in a Population in a Disaster Situation

Faced with an ongoing or imminent danger, crisis managers must do their utmost to protect the exposed population and limit the extent of the disaster. More than during the pre- and post-disaster phases, time is of the essence. This temporal specificity of the disaster is essential compared to the risk. It requires a perfect coordination and a quick response in a context of uncertainty. It is important to intervene rapidly on the scene of the disaster while ensuring there are enough first responders. Crisis managers must also quickly alert the population at risk in order to favor the adoption of protective behaviors and limit inappropriate reactions, panic phenomena, and the spread of rumors. In France, in the event of a danger affecting the population, the intervention of law enforcement and emergency services is relatively rapid, even though there may be differences depending on the territories (urban or rural). On the contrary, the triggering of the alert by institutional actors (the mayor or the prefect, depending on the extent of the disaster) must follow a strict procedure that imposes longer delays and may limit or even neutralize its effectiveness. This article proposes a theoretical reflection on the effectiveness of these two types of intervention (relief and warning) with affected populations in the case of rapid kinetic or unpredictable events affecting people with a low risk culture. This reflection is based on the mathematical model “alert, panic, control” (APC) inspired by models used in epidemiology. It enables the modeling of behavior dynamics by distinguishing control and panic behaviors resulting from the difficulty or incapacity to regulate emotions. Several scenarios are proposed to identify the phases during which these two kinds of intervention have an optimal effect on the population by limiting panic phenomena.

An internet-based photography therapy intervention into the grief of persons who have lost a loved one

ABSTRACT Persons who have lost a loved one by death are increasingly searching for support from online peer groups to process their grief. One approach involves sharing photographs with peers online. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a four-week internet-based photography therapy intervention concerning participants’ grief reactions using the Hogan Grief Reaction Checklist (HGRC). Another aim was to assess the role of the moderator and describe development targets in the internet-based photography therapy group based on the participants’ experiences. The participants were individuals who had lost a loved one divided into an intervention group (n = 101) and a comparison group (n = 55). The changes in the dimensions of grief of the intervention group members were slightly greater than in the comparison group. The dimension of panic behaviour declined statistically significantly more in the intervention than in the comparison group during the follow-up period. While the participants from the intervention group valued the expertise of the moderator, the moderator’s role could have been more visible. The participants also wished that the therapeutic photography group would have included more active involvement. Additionally, the participants made suggestions on modifying intervention content and developing a platform better suited for sharing photographs.

Thermoregulatory responses, heart rate, and the susceptibility to anxiety in obese animals subjected to stress

Obesity and stress are related to cardiovascular diseases. Rats fed a high-fat diet (HFD) show increased cardiovascular reactivity to emotional stress and altered defensive behavioral responses. Indeed, changes in thermoregulatory responses in an aversive environment are observed in these animals. However, studies aimed at clarifying the physiological mechanisms linking obesity, stress hyperreactivity and behavioral changes are needed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in thermoregulatory responses, heart rate, and the susceptibility to anxiety in obese animals subjected to stress. Nine-week high-fat diet protocol was effective in inducing obesity by increasing weight gain, fat mass, adiposity index, white epididymal, retroperitoneal, inguinal and brown adipose tissue. Animals induced to obesity and subjected to stress (HFDS group) by the intruder animal method showed increases in heart rate (HR), core body temperature and tail temperature. HFDS showed an increase in the first exposure to the closed arm (anxiety-like behavior) in elevated T-Maze (ETM). The groups did not differ with respect to panic behavior assessed in the ETM and locomotor activity in the open field test. Our study shows that HFDS animals presented increased reactivity to stress with higher stress hyperthermia and anxious behavior. Thus, our results present relevant information regarding stress responsiveness and behavioral changes in obese animals.

Large scale simulation of pedestrian seismic evacuation including panic behavior

Understanding human behavior and predicting evacuation processes subsequently to an earthquake are critical aspects to provide valuable information to support disaster response activities. One possible and relevant aspect that characterizes human behavior in emergency situations is panic reactions, which can lead to dysfunctional and irrational responses by fugitives. Given the relevance of this component, this paper implements a panic behavior model in a large-scale agent-based model considering phenomenal parameters, such as seismic damage to the built environment, disruption of roads by earthquake-induced falling debris, and injuries of individuals. The proposed model is applied and tested in IdealCity, a virtual city simulation environment which resembles the geometry of the city of Turin, with about 900,000 inhabitants. The numerical simulations show that the inclusion of a panic behavior model increases the evacuation time despite the increased speed of agents during the evacuation process and this is probably caused by the fact that pedestrians tend to perform random actions before reaching their destination. Furthermore, existing human relationships between agents tend to convert the crowd from individual agents to group of agents that move together, and this behavior might affect the shelter saturation time of both shelters and hospitals as shown in the simulations analyzed in this paper.

Chronological ant lion optimizer-based deep convolutional neural network for panic behavior detection in crowded scenes

Chronological ant lion optimizer-based deep convolutional neural network for panic behavior detection in crowded scenes

The Effect of Fear of COVID-19 on Luxury Consumption Tendency and the Role of Materialism

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of COVID-19 fear on people’s luxury consumption tendencies and the role of materialism in mediating the effect of COVID-19 fear on people’s luxury consumption tendencies. The theory of psychological reactance (TPR) serves as the theoretical foundation for this work. TPR explains why people are so motivated to regain their freedom when their ability to perform a specific action is threatened or hampered. Panic behaviours triggered by anxiety, fear, and uncertainty were observed in almost every society at the start of the pandemic, and people tended to purchase food and hygiene products, particularly those required for survival. Consumers who gained the freedom to purchase goods or services from stores that opened as a result of the relaxation of restrictions immediately following the pandemic period turned to luxury goods in search of "compensation". When the pandemic rules are initially relaxed, consumers’ "luxury consuming" behaviour/freedom is restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to "revenge buying". Based on the TPR, it is assumed that the COVID-19 fear of consumers following extraordinary processes such as pandemics may have a positive effect on their luxury consumption tendencies in this study. The online questionnaire technique was used in the study to collect data. Data were gathered from 845 adults aged 18 and up who volunteered to participate in the study in Turkey. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to analyse the data for the measurement model and hypothesis testing in the study. The study’s findings show that COVID-19 fear has a significant and positive effect on the desire to consume luxury goods. Furthermore, materialism plays an important and positive mediating role in the influence of fear of COVID-19 on the tendency to consume luxury goods. While this study contains cultural relics of luxury consumption tendencies, it also provides critical insights into consumer luxury tendencies in the aftermath of COVID-19. It is critical to evaluate various elements that may influence luxury consumption tendencies to analyse the effects of comparable processes that may be experienced by future consumers.

Model considering panic emotion and personality traits for crowd evacuation

Panic is a common emotion when pedestrians are in danger during the actual evacuation, which can affect pedestrians a lot and may lead to fatalities as people are crushed or trampled. However, the systematic studies and quantitative analysis of evacuation panic, such as panic behaviors, panic evolution, and the stress responses of pedestrians with different personality traits to panic emotion are still rare. Here, combined with the theories of OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) model and SIS (susceptible, infected, susceptible) model, an extended cellular automata model is established by the floor field method in order to investigate the dynamics of panic emotion in the crowd and dynamics of pedestrians affected by emotion. In the model, pedestrians are divided into stable pedestrians and sensitive pedestrians according to their different personality traits in response to emotion, and their emotional state can be normal or panic. Besides, emotion contagion, emotion decay, and the influence of emotion on pedestrian movement decision-making are also considered. The simulation results show that evacuation efficiency will be reduced, for panic pedestrians may act maladaptive behaviors, thereby making the crowd more chaotic. The results further suggest that improving pedestrian psychological ability and raising the standard of management can effectively increase evacuation efficiency. And it is necessary to reduce the panic level of group as soon as possible at the beginning of evacuation. We hope this research could provide a new method to analyze crowd evacuation in panic situations.

Antecedents of agriculture supply chain performance during COVID-19: an emerging economy perspective

COVID-19 led to several complications like labor shortage, inadequate availability of supply chain facilities, price fluctuation, panic behavior, and uncertainty. Despite the challenges, the farmers and stakeholders adopted different strategies for sustaining the agricultural supply chain performance. Hence, the study proposes to explore the antecedents that led to the ASC performance and their linkages. The study combines literature review and qualitative methods to understand and recognize antecedents that impact ASC performance in developing countries. The conceptual model is built with the underpinning theory (the theory of commitment and organization). A quantitative survey follows the study to validate the theoretical model empirically using covariance-based structure equation modeling (AMOS). The ASC performance in the earlier phase of COVID-19 was disrupted. With time, ASC performance was managed by linking different antecedents. The findings reveal the application and linkage of organization theory and theory of commitment which led to ASC performance. The study finds a unique contribution among academia and practitioners by paving directions to manage the uncertainty during COVID-19 and any such risk triggers in the future. The study offers essential insights for practitioners and policymakers to develop a road map for ASC during the calamities.

Unpacking the Effect of Social Media Infodemic on Consumers’ Panic Banking Behaviour during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Evidence from the Banking Sector in Oman

During the Covid-19 pandemic, some government restrictions to curb the spread of corona virus rendered print media obsolete. Social media became a convenient channel of communication. However, social media was awash with false and alarming information about the pandemic and government initiatives. This led to infodemic as consumers accessed misrepresented information on social media. As a result of social media infodemic, some consumers engaged in panic banking through withdrawal rush due to uncertain future expectation. This study aimed to examine the effect of social media infodemic during the Covid-19 pandemic on consumers’ panic intention behaviour in the banking industry. Data for the study was collected from 230 consumers of the baking industry in Oman using a questionnaire. A social media infodemic model was developed using a deductive approach. The study found out that social media infodemic was responsible for panic banking intention behaviour in Oman. The four determinants of social media panic behaviour were all statistically significantly impacting on panic banking behaviour. The study concluded that social media infodemic is a key determinant of panic banking in the banking sector. In light of the above findings, the banking industry should monitor social media so as to dilute misinformation with factual corporate communications so as to minimise panic banking behaviour.

MuST-POS: multiscale spatial-temporal 3D atrous-net and PCA guided OC-SVM for crowd panic detection

Crowd panic detection (CPD) is crucial to control crowd disasters. The recent CPD approaches fail to address crowd shape change due to perspective distortion in the frame and across the frames. To this end, we are motivated to design a simple but most effective model known as multiscale spatial-temporal atrous-net and principal component analysis (PCA) guided one-class support vector machine (OC-SVM), i.e., MuST-POS for the CPD. The proposed model utilizes two multiscale atrous-net to extract multiscale spatial and multiscale temporal features to model crowd scenes. Then we adopted PCA to reduce the dimension of the extracted multiscale features and fed them into an OC-SVM for modeling normal crowd scenes. The outliers of the OC-SVM are treated as crowd panic behavior. Three publicly available datasets: the UMN, the MED, and the Pets-2009, are used to show the effectiveness of the proposed MuST-POS. The MuST-POS achieves the detection accuracy of 99.40%, 97.61%, and 98.37% on the UMN, the MED, and the Pets-2009 datasets, respectively, and performs better to recent state-of-the-art approaches.

Barriers of emergent psychological groupness predict stockpiling during the pandemic: Lack of trust, media exposure, and anxiety

AbstractThe stockpiling behaviors during the COVID‐19 pandemic emerged as an example for situations where cooperation is inhibited by lack of trust, media exposure, and increased anxiety. In this paper, I test the hypothesis that stockpiling results from social psychological factors that prevent psychological groupness and cooperation (e.g., low trust in governments and other citizens, high frequency of news exposure, high pandemic anxiety), rather than being an inherently selfish and uncontrollable panic behavior. Specifically, I hypothesized that lower levels of satisfaction with the governments’ COVID‐19 policies, lower trust in people in following physical distancing rules, and more frequent media exposure would predict higher stockpiling behaviors through increased pandemic‐related anxiety. In a cross‐sectional survey study conducted in Turkey and the UK during the first‐wave of the pandemic (N= 5137), I tested a conceptual model via SEM. Findings showed that lower trust in people, lower satisfaction with governments’ COVID‐19 policies, and high exposure to news predicted higher pandemic related anxiety which predicted higher stockpiling in both countries. I discussed that governments policies and media in both countries may be the reason for mass stockpiling behaviors by decreasing predictability and trust.