Food shopping under risk and uncertainty
Article
Dickins, T. and Schalz, S. 2020. Food shopping under risk and uncertainty. Learning and Motivation. 72, pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2020.101681
Type | Article |
---|---|
Title | Food shopping under risk and uncertainty |
Authors | Dickins, T. and Schalz, S. |
Abstract | During the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic panic buying of food was reported by the media. Panic buying has received little attention within behavioural science. In this paper we suggest that optimality models of foraging under risk and uncertainty would be a fruitful place to begin developing useful and testable hypotheses about this behaviour. In making this case we relate panic buying to a general increase in foraging effort, which we characterize as an increase in purchasing and spending. We note two risks during the pandemic – that of food security and that of predation, where predation is understood as a perceived threat to life due to infection risk. Food security was effectively solved early on in the pandemic, whilst perceived threat to life has remained but diminished to some limited extent. We relate panic buying to food caching as a method of buffering risk and make six predictions about how this behaviour should present under food insecurity and perceived threat to life. |
Keywords | Panic buying; Shopping; Foraging; Optimality; Risk and uncertainty; Food security; Threat to life |
Research Group | Behavioural Biology group |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Journal | Learning and Motivation |
ISSN | 0023-9690 |
Electronic | 1095-9122 |
Publication dates | |
Online | 11 Oct 2020 |
Nov 2020 | |
Publication process dates | |
Deposited | 23 Sep 2020 |
Accepted | 22 Sep 2020 |
Submitted | 08 Jun 2020 |
Output status | Published |
Accepted author manuscript | License |
Copyright Statement | © 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2020.101681 |
Web of Science identifier | WOS:000597275900020 |
Language | English |
https://repository.mdx.ac.uk/item/89145
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