2019 年新冠肺炎疫情爆發，人們瘋搶民生用品的行為陸陸續續的自各地傳出，而透過媒體不間斷放送空蕩蕩的貨架之報導則引發更多民眾對於物品可能面臨缺乏的恐懼, 於是造成許多人前往賣場搶購以便囤積更多的物品在家。但是，此種一窩蜂瘋搶之舉動非屬於常規消費者行為，而現有研究大多指出瘋搶行為 (Panic Buying)常與錯失恐懼症 (Fear of Missing Out)有關。
錯失恐懼症也被稱作「資訊遺漏恐懼症候群」，簡言之是一種個體害怕因遺漏了什麼資訊而錯過對自身有益的經驗 (Rewarding experience) 而引起的社交焦慮 (Social anxiety)，此焦慮感將促使個體發展從眾行為(Conformity Behavior)以換取相對的安全感及歸屬感，最終消除焦慮。

本研究以量化問卷進行資料收集，以探討瘋搶行為與錯失恐懼症之正向關係，共回收301份有效樣本。研究分析結果證實瘋搶行為與錯失恐懼症之間確實存在顯著相關。年紀較輕及學歷較低的族群對於錯失恐懼反應較大，若單獨以瘋搶行為角度來看則無任何顯著關係。此外，另得一結論為瘋搶行為需要因素誘發而成，非獨立事件。未來研究建議可以就此進行深入探討。

‘Panic buying’ (瘋搶) has become a hot topic associated with the recent COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020. People have been cleaning out the shelves in supermarkets in many countries around the world, and the action may seem like madness to some. However, this buying pattern is not new for Taiwanese people. In the last decade, several panic buying examples that were regarded to be triggered by social trends at the time. Prior research on panic buying in Taiwan is primarily based on the concepts of frenzied behavior, herding behavior, and corresponding marketing strategies (Chine Huei Hung, 2019) and rarely discuss the possible factors as the cause of the behavior.

Also, the existing relevant information about the relationship between panic buying and FoMO (Fear of Missing Out) is mostly a direct conclusion and observation by scholars from research fields in human behavior, consumer behavior, and social science without statistics backing up the theory. This study aims to identify and study the role of FoMO as a mediation to explain consumers’ actions for panic buying and conformity behavior after an unusual event such as the pandemic. Due to geographical location, the cultural background for the study will be primarily based in Taiwan. A quantitative method is carried in this study by distributing online surveys.
Total 301 valid responses were collected back and the result indicates that there is indeed a correlation between FoMO and Panic buying with significant level.
The result also reveals that people who are younger and with at a lower educational level tend to show higher level of FoMO but no significance toward the behavior of Panic Buying standalone. It is also concluded that panic buying is not an individual event, it requires trigger such as FoMO to activate the behavior. It is suggested that future research can examine the statement further and validate it with statistical information.

Thesis Validation Letter i
Abstract (Chinese) ii
Abstract (English) iii
Introduction 1-4
1 Literature Review 4
1.1 Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) 4-7
1.1.1 FoMO Measure Scale 7-8
1.2 Conformity Panic Buying 8
1.2.1 Crowd Theory and Conformity Behavior 9-11
1.2.2 Panic Buying and Conformity 11-15
1.3 The role of FoMO in explaining Panic Buying 15
2 Research Methodology 16
2.1 Research Framework 16-17
2.2 Research Hypothesis 17
2.3 Survey Design 18-22
2.4 Research Method 22-23
3 Data Analysis 23
3.1 Descriptive Analysis 24-25
3.2 Reliability Test Analysis 26
3.3 Result of correlation between FoMO and Panic Buying 27-29
3.4 Analysis 30
4 Conclusion and Implication 30
4.1 Limitation and advise for future research 31-32
References 33-37
Appendix A 38
Appendix B 39
Appendix C 40-42

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