ABSTRACT

Panic buying frequently occurs in health pandemics, disturbing both the market and people’s lives. The situation is exacerbated by the easy spread of misinformation online. With a web-based experiment, the present study examined how user-generated anti-panic buying messages online could be leveraged to combat panic buying. It was found that user comments discussing how panic buying affects the lives of less advantaged social groups on social media, as well as high social endorsement of the comment, significantly reduced readers’ derogation of the comment, thereby increasing negative attitudes toward panic buying and lowering intention to engage in it. The message format (narrative vs. non-narrative), however, did not influence the amount of impact it had on participants’ attitude and purchase intentions. The findings contribute to research on message-based and heuristic-based persuasion processes in reading reactance-inducing messages online and guide the design of persuasive messages to reduce panic buying during health pandemics.

摘要

恐慌性购买经常发生在健康流行病中，既扰乱了市场，也扰乱了人们的生活。错误信息在网上很容易传播，使情况更加恶化。通过基于网络的实验，本研究检查了如何利用用户生成的在线反恐慌购买信息来对抗恐慌购买。研究发现，用户在社交媒体上讨论恐慌性购买如何影响弱势社会群体生活的评论，以及对评论的高度社会认可，显着降低了读者对评论的贬损，从而增加了对恐慌性购买的负面态度并降低了有意参与其中。然而，信息格式（叙述与非叙述）并没有影响它对参与者态度和购买意图的影响程度。