Everyone gets anxious when the world takes an uncertain turn. And often, we treat that anxiety with a little panic buying.
A study published last year in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people buy things in troubled times as a means of keeping control over their lives. The researchers noted that utility items (实用物品) – specifically, cleaning products – tend to move most quickly from store shelves. The hoarding (囤积) of toilet paper, as perhaps the most fundamental cleaning product, may represent our most fundamental fears. An invisible enemy moves slowly and quietly towards us. We need to hold on to something in uncertain times. Maybe hoard of toilet paper brings promises.
The thing is, it's not actually going anywhere. For all the sharp words and even sharper elbows thrown around by the crazy toilet paper shoppers, they seem to be missing one essential fact: There is no toilet paper shortage.
As The New York Times points out, shop owners that see their shelves emptied often fill up the shelves again in a day, often in just a few hours.
"You are not using more of it. You are just filling up your closet with it," Jeff Anderson, president of paper product manufacturer Precision Paper Converters, tells the Times.
The thing is, the toilet paper-obsessed shoppers have been infected with something many times more contagious(感染性的) than any coronavirus: fear.
"People are social creatures. We look to each other for cues (暗示) for what is safe and what is dangerous," Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, tells Fox News. "And when you see someone in the store panic-buying, that can cause a fear contagion effect. People become anxious ahead of the actual infection. They haven't thought about the bigger picture, like what are the consequences of hoarding toilet paper."
