How science can help refocus our attention to control impulsive consumption in times of a pandemic
Stefan Bernritter, Ilias Danatzis, Elisa Schweiger and Ko de Ruyter
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed how people consume in the UK. One of the most concerning developments has been a dramatic surge in different types of impulsive consumption tendencies. For example, during the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020, pictures of empty supermarket shelves went viral as people engaged in stockpiling. As soon as lockdown rules eased in summer 2020, people started to flout restrictions in their desire to socialise. Extant social distancing measures were ignored, leading to overcrowded restaurants and pubs and packed beaches. Despite the government’s clear message that the second wave was in full motion and that stronger measures were needed to protect the NHS and save lives, pubs were flooded the night before the second lockdown by people having “one last pint”. Indeed, some investigators argued that this “last pint” lead to a measurable spike in COVID-19 infections in the following weeks.
These reoccurring patterns of impulsive consumption in times of crisis demonstrate how conventional interventions (e.g., information campaigns, fines) fail to achieve their goals. Given the dire consequences for society it is thus of utmost importance to understand why consumers engage in impulsive consumption behaviours and how to mitigate them.
Relevant scientific literature might provide some ideas. Research suggests that impulsive consumption simply is a powerful urge to consume. This urge stems from a lack of self-control to contain our impulse and delay gratification. Experiencing such an urge is more common than we realize. Try putting a freshly baked cake in front of you and not eat it for a couple of hours. You will notice that the cake will draw your attention more often than you’d like it to. Self-control is not a stable individual trait, but rather the result of two opposing psychological forces: our desire that drives impulsive consumption tendencies and our willpower to deflect this urge by using various strategies to divert attention from such tempting objects in our environment. In essence, if we lack sufficient willpower, we will effectively fail to resist the urge to consume, lack sufficient self-control and subsequently fall prey to impulsive consumption behaviours.
So, how do these insights help us design more effective interventions to curb excessive consumption? Importantly, our self-control can be augmented by situational factors. More precisely, whether we are able to control ourselves, is essentially driven by several cognitive biases that make us believe that a) it is necessary to stockpile or go out or socialise and b) that everyone else is stockpiling or going to pubs too. In effect, those biases are self-imposed. Successful interventions might consequently tackle exactly those biases by drawing our attention away from them. Indeed, clinical psychologists use a similar technique to treat anxiety and depression, called attentional bias modification (ABM).
ABM aims to modify automatic attentional processes. It is an effective treatment tool in reducing negative emotions and harmful behaviours such as anxiety or addictions, including compulsive buying – an extreme and pathological form of impulsive consumption. Different cognitive tasks are used to draw our attention to neutral or positive stimuli to avoid threatening or negative information. In a consumer context, ABM has been used to make salespeople more empathetic towards customer complaints. Finding empathetic words in a puzzle led salespeople to take customers’ perspectives and respond better to their complaints. Similarly, ABM allows us to refocus our attention before or during a shopping trip or a pub visit so that we do not fall prey to these cognitive biases. This would boost our self-control and help us overcome our urge to consume excessively.
Potential ABM-based interventions could include a wide range of online technologies and on-site interventions such as short training sessions, messages, displays, staff communications, and simple design changes to facilities. For example, augmented reality (AR) and short app-based training sessions, such as app-based puzzles, could draw attention to the fact that plenty of food is available and stockpiling is unnecessary. Such intervention could be shown to people while waiting in line to shop, book a holiday, or reserve a restaurant table to help further dissipate our self-imposed cognitive biases, thus reducing our urge to consume excessively.
While existing (failing) approaches to tackle impulsive consumption focus on information (campaigns) or punishment (fines), ABM-based behavioural interventions would tackle the root causes of impulsive consumption: the attentional, self-imposed cognitive biases people have. While ABM has shown very promising results in effectively changing negative behaviours in clinical settings[1][2], exploring its potential in campaigns to mitigate harmful impulsive consumption behaviours during the COVID-19 appears very promising.
[1] Hakamata, Y., Lissek, S., Bar-Haim, Y., Britton, J. C., Fox, N. A., Leibenluft, E., … & Pine, D. S. (2010). Attention bias modification treatment: a meta-analysis toward the establishment of novel treatment for anxiety. Biological Psychiatry, 68(11), 982-990.
[2] Kim, H. S. and Hodgins, D. C. (2018). Component model of addiction treatment: A pragmatic transdiagnostic treatment model of behavioral and substance addictions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9 (AUG), 1–17.