The Psychology Behind Why Toilet Paper, of All Things, Is the Latest Coronavirus Panic Buy

Masks were the first to go. Then, hand sanitizers.Now, novel coronavirus panic buyers are snatching up … toilet paper?

Retailers in the US and Canada have started limiting the number of toilet paper packs customers can buy in one trip. Some supermarkets in the UK are sold out. Grocery stores in Australia have hired security guards to patrol customers.

An Australian newspaper went so far as printing eight extra pages in a recent edition — emergency toilet paper, the newspaper said, should Aussies run out.

Why? Toilet paper does not offer special protection against the virus. It’s not considered a staple of impending emergencies, like milk and bread are.

So why are people buying up rolls more quickly than they can be restocked?

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Reason 2

Some are reacting to the lack of a clear direction from officials

Several countries have already imposed mass quarantines. People buying up toilet paper and other household supplies may be preparing for the same thing in their city, said Baruch Fischhoff, a psychologist and professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy and the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University.

“Unless people have seen … official promises that everyone will be taken care of, they are left to guess at the probability of needing the extra toilet paper, sooner rather than later,” he told CNN. “The fact that there are no official promises might increase those probabilities.”

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Reason 4

It’s natural to want to overprepare

There may be some practicality in stocking up, says Frank Farley, a professor at Temple University and former president of the American Psychological Association.

With the CDC and other international health agencies now advising that certain populations should stay home and avoid contact with other people or crowds, it’s natural to want to prepare, he said.

“[The novel coronavirus] is engendering a sort of survivalist psychology, where we must live as much as possible at home and thus must ‘stock up’ on essentials, and that certainly includes toilet paper,” he told CNN. “After all, if we run out of [toilet paper], what do we replace it with?”

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