Role of Fear on Consumers’ Buying Tendencies: Mediating Role of Social Media Usage

Aastha Verma, Gaurav Joshi, Charu Shri, Alka Chaturvedi and Siddharth Gupta

FIIB Business Review, 2026, vol. 15, issue 3, 396-409

Abstract: The present study empirically examines the impact of fear on consumers’ buying tendencies (Impulse buying, Panic buying and Online purchase intention). The study assesses the role of social media usage as a mediating variable in the above relationship. Also, it investigates the variation in consumer buying tendencies, fear, and social media usage across demographics. A total of 389 survey responses were collected online through a structured questionnaire using a snowball sampling technique from consumers of Delhi, India. A causal relationship established using Structural Equation Modelling reveals linkages of fear with panic buying and social media usage fully mediates this relationship, Further, the link between fear and online purchase is partially mediated by social media usage, and no linkage is found with impulse buying. ANOVA and T -test results show that panic buying tendency is higher in females and married individuals, social media usage is higher in unmarried younger age group people and online purchase intention is practiced more by males in middle- and upper-income groups. The study concludes by providing theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Fear; social media usage; impulse buying; panic buying; online purchase (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23197145231186281 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:fbbsrw:v:15:y:2026:i:3:p:396-409

DOI: 10.1177/23197145231186281

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in FIIB Business Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().