Consuming to Cope: The Luxury of Consuming in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Set in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic this paper examines the consumption choices of participants during the pandemic, presenting an exploratory study of how consumption was used as a means of coping with the crisis. It investigates the nature of consumption decisions and the key factors that influenced these choices. The findings suggest that the uncertainties, the pressures, and the unknown aspects of COVID-19 influenced participants. Government and media communication did little to inform the public and with the lack of information, consumption was used as a coping strategy. Moreover, the article details the pleasure experienced by participants of consuming luxury in the crisis and the hedonic nature of luxury consumption. These findings have direct relevance to future research on how luxury consumption is perceived and used to cope with crisis situations.

KEYWORDS:

• luxury
• consumption
• pandemic
• media
• communication
• consumption and coping

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Qiu et al., “The Pandemic and Its Impacts.”

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid; Morens et al., ”What Is a Pandemic?”

4 See note 1 above.; Amat et al., “Pandemics Meet Democracy”; Moraci et al., “Cities Under Pressure”; Bayer et al., "The Coronavirus Stimulus Package”; Tisdell, "Economic, Social and Political Issues Raised by the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

5 Mach et al., “News Media Coverage of COVID-19 Public Health and Policy Information.”

6 Pieri, “Media Framing and the Threat of Global Pandemics,” 73.

7 Dry and Leach, Epidemics; See note 5 above.

8 See note 6 above, 75.

9 Arafat et al., “Panic Buying.”

10 Leung et al., "Anxiety and Panic Buying Behaviour During COVID-19 Pandemic.”

11 Ibid.

12 Brivio et al., “Empowering Communication in Emergency Contexts.”

13 See note 5 above.

14 Davis et al., “We Became Sceptics”; Prentice et al., “Antecedents and Consequences of Panic Buying”; Barnes et al., “Understanding Panic Buying During COVID-19”; See notes 10 and 12 above.

15 Ratzan et al., "Enhancing Global Health Communication During a Crisis”; Piller et al., “Linguistic Diversity in a Time of Crisis.”

16 Graham, “Government Communication in the Digital Age.”

17 Roberts, "Pandemics and Politics”; Nyamutata, “Do Civil Liberties Really Matter During Pandemics?”

18 Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I.

19 Prentice et al., “Antecedents and Consequences of Panic Buying”; Barnes et al., “Understanding Panic Buying During COVID-19”; See notes 10 and 12 above.

20 Yuen et al., “The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis”; Barnes et al., “Understanding Panic Buying During COVID-19.”

21 Torlak, “Consumption,” 17.

22 Kotler and Lane Keller, “Marketing Strategy.”

23 Belk, “Possessions and the Extended Self.”

24 Marx, "1976. Capital, vol. 1.”

25 Lazarus and Folkman, Stress, Appraisal, and Coping, 141.

26 Lazarus, “Psychological Stress and the Coping Process”; Billings and Moos, "The Role of Coping Responses and Social Resources in Attenuating the Stress of Life Events";

27 O’Guinn and Faber, “Compulsive Buying”

28 Ibid, 155.

29 Eccles, “The Lived Experiences of Women as Addictive Consumers.”

30 Yuen et al., “The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis.”

31 Ballantine et al., Changes in Retail Shopping Behaviour in the Aftermath of an Earthquake.

32 Kumar and Singh, “The Effect of Recession on the Buying Behavior of Consumers in New Delhi During the Economic Slowdown of 2013”

33 Sneath et al., "Chronic Negative Circumstances and Compulsive Buying”

34 Laato et al., “Unusual Purchasing Behavior During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic”; Seale et al., "The Community's Attitude Towards Swine Flu and Pandemic Influenza.”

35 Jain et al., “Consumption Coping to Deal With Pandemic Stress.”

36 Loxton et al., “Consumer Behaviour During Crises.”

37 See note 30 above, 15.

38 Rosenberg and Siegel, "A 50-Year Review of Psychological Reactance Theory,” 1.

39 Kaur and Malik, “Understanding the Psychology Behind Panic Buying,” 4.

40 See note 30 above, 9.

41 Wallendorf and Arnould, “My Favorite Things”; Richins and Dawson, "A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and Its Measurement.”

42 Prentice et al., “Antecedents and Consequences of Panic Buying.”

43 Ibid.

44 Dedeoglu et al., “The Impact of Servicescape on Hedonic Value and Behavioral Intentions”

45 Overby and Lee, “The Effects of Utilitarian and Hedonic Online Shopping Value on Consumer Preference and Intentions”

46 Kim et al., “Threat-Induced Sustainability.”

47 Indrawati et al., “Utilitarian, Hedonic, and Self-Esteem Motives in Online Shopping.”

48 Vieira et al., "A Meta-Analytic Review of Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Values”

49 Bakırtaş and Divanoğlu, “The Effect of Hedonic Shopping Motivation on Consumer Satisfaction and Consumer Loyalty”

50 Overby and Lee, “The Effects of Utilitarian and Hedonic Online Shopping Value on Consumer Preference and Intentions”; See note 48 above.

51 Mears, "In-Depth Interviews.”

52 Berent, “The Depth Interview”

53 Ibid.

54 Stokes and Bergin, "‘Methodology’ or ‘methodolatry’?,” 27.

55 Miles and Huberman, “An Expanded Sourcebook Qualitative Data Analysis”; Carson et al., Qualitative Marketing Research.

56 Jain et al., “Consumption Coping to Deal With Pandemic Stress.”

57 Arafat et al., Psychological Underpinning of Panic Buying During Pandemic (COVID-19).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yasmin K. Sekhon Dhillon

Dr Yasmin Sekhon Dhillon is a Professor at Winchester School of Art, at the University of Southampton. Yasmin’s PhD focused on the consumption patterns of second-generation Asian Indians. Yasmin is an active researcher focusing on consumption, culture, and identity. Her most recent work explores the meaning of luxury to children, having successfully won an initial bid to explore consumption, luxury and children from a cross cultural perspective, Yasmin undertook this research in several countries to fully understand consumption decisions made by children across different nations in relation to luxury, design, well-being, and happiness. Most recently Yasmin has been exploring the consumption of luxury as a coping strategy in the pandemic. [email protected]