Modeling the Spatiotemporal Evolution Process of Panic-Buying Behavior During COVID-19: A Case Study in China

Panic-buying incidents triggered by public emergencies are often accompanied by panic emotions, which are prone to spread in both time and space, causing serious negative impacts on social stability and economic development. Therefore, we took stimuli-organism-response (SOR) as our framework to comprehensively consider the effects of internal and external factors and to clarify the chain evolution process of stimulus panic-buying behavior. Second, based on an improved infectious disease model using the Markov chain and combined with cellular automata methods, we studied the spatiotemporal evolution of group panic-buying behavior. Specifically, we focused on the evolutionary process of panic-buying across temporal sequences and within macroscopic geographical spaces such as urban communities. Our simulations yielded compelling insights: (1) the intensity of panic-buying information has a significant stimulating effect on panic-buying behavior. Interestingly, previous encounters with such buying experiences can act as a soothing balm, alleviating panic emotions. (2) The groups that participate in and stop buying both exhibit a clustered distribution in space, forming several clustered buying areas in space. Individuals at the center of the buying area often participate in the buying first, while those at the edge are more likely to stop buying. (3) Partition control implemented in the buying area can help mitigate the cascading effects of fear-driven purchasing behavior and increase its rate of decline. In addition, we also verified the effectiveness of the model using a case study in China, and discuss the model's theoretical and practical significance, limitations, and future research directions.