COVID-19: What happened to the toilet paper?

You probably have already noticed either through news sources, social media or just having recently gone to the store that we are in the middle of a toilet paper crisis! Seriously, what happened? Normally when we find ourselves in the middle of something fearful, milk, bread and food become scarce, but toilet paper? Social media is going crazy with this, and many memes have popped up seemingly overnight.

I wanted to dive in a little more to understand the basic psychology behind this.

Our fear response is somewhat strange and difficult to understand. Ethologists (someone whom studies animal behavior) define fear as “a motivational state aroused by specific stimuli that give rise to defensive behavior or escape ” (A). In other words, fear changes the way we feel in our body to the point we want to escape the feeling, and thus the thing which is causing the fear; but mostly the feeling.

We know behavior can largely be controlled by our feelings and often without us being aware of the connection. This is why we say things we don’t mean while angry, or have thoughts we normally don’t while sad. Our feelings stem from the primal part of the brain (the part which controls your breathing, heart rate and reflexes) and pop up without us having any control over when or how. Essentially, our feelings are uncontrollable. And when people feel powerless with their feelings, or don’t have a controllable outlet (such as getting a vaccination) we often turn to what we can directly control; our behavior, words and actions.

For example, when rats become stressed out by something they can not escape or avoid, they start to groom themselves. This behavior is a form of self-soothing or being able to do something about the internal stress; making internal conflict external control. We humans have similar behavior, many of us will pull on our skin, or hair or touch our face or body. Some will start pacing, or we will find ourselves swaying back and forth. Others turn to drugs, alcohol or relationships. Our body craves movement of some sort, and this movement or action helps with self soothing (reducing the stress or feeling to a more manageable state). Which brings us to the toilet paper debacle.

Being able to purchase something we will need, especially without knowing how long this event will last gives us self-soothing capabilities. In other words, buying things like toilet paper and stocking up helps us reduce the anxious/fearful state we are experiencing and helps balance out the internal struggle. It is literally our escape from fear by doing something we can control; in this case, buying toilet paper.

References:

(A): The biology of fear-and anxiety related behaviros. Thierry Steimer (2002). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181681/