How to deal with irrational consumption behavior of residents under COVID-19?

Abstract

COVID-19, as a public health emergency, poses a major challenge to the economic and social development of numerous countries, impacting not only the psychology and behavior of residents at the individual level, but also the stability of society at the societal level, typified by the increased difficulty of smooth economic operation due to residents’ irrational consumption behavior. In the present study, we have drawn on the psychological stimuli-organism-response (SOR) and mediating effect theories to explore the causes of irrational consumption behavior. Finally, based on the actual situation in the questionnaire survey, we propose the system for assessing the effectiveness of the government’s response to the epidemic and measures under the influence of irrational consumption. In the results of our study, we found that the positive and negative irrational consumption adjustment coefficients of the government under the influence of its inherent image were 6.72% and 17.64%, respectively; the government intervention indices under the positive and negative perceptions output according to QFD theory were 0.14 and 0.02, respectively; and the positive and negative measure effectiveness indices of the government response programs were 2.28 and 2.10, respectively. Thus, through our study, we concluded that residents’ positive perception of government image would reduce the occurrence of irrational consumption behavior, while the improvement of irrational consumption behavior by perfect psychological services under residents’ negative perception of government image is more obvious. On the basis of summarizing the experience of this COVID-19, this study can serve the prediction and regulation of residents’ irrational consumption behavior under the government response to public health emergencies, and also enrich the research literature on irrational consumption behavior in related consumption behavior studies, and more importantly, provide theoretical and empirical support for similar academic cases in the international community.