The Psychology Of Panic: What Toilet Paper Hoarding Teaches Us About Silicon Valley Bank’s Failure

Something curious happened during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic: people across the country began hoarding toilet paper. From February to March of 2020, toilet paper sales jumped 700 percent. Crazy, right? Why would anyone need hundreds of rolls of toilet paper? And why hoard toilet paper rather than, say, more things useful to survival like cans of beans or jugs of water?

Who knows what triggered the massive surge in toilet paper purchases, but once people started buying it in quantity, that led to a panic. Why? Because if you see lots of people buying lots of toilet paper, it makes perfect sense to think that might lead to even more people buying more toilet paper, which in turn could lead to a toilet paper shortage. So, what to do? Go stock up on toilet paper.