The Deep Psychology of Hoarding Toilet Paper
How Well I Understand the Fear of Running out of TP
Every time I travel internationally, I throw several rolls of toilet paper into my suitcase. And not just any rolls, oh no. I toss in the highly compact, 1,000 sheets per roll, Scott stuff that can last a very long time. I am often belittled by my traveling companions for what I see as a very wise move to be comfortable in foreign climes. Some bring it up over and over during a trip, usually when they are grabbing one of my stashed rolls for themselves. In my defense, anyone who has grocery shopped in, say, Europe, knows of their soft but shockingly skimpy rolls that last only a day or so which means you carry home several packs even if you are only staying for the weekend.
That’s why I had complete sympathy for the people who started hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, and why it doesn’t surprise me, even now, when I go to the store and see the half-empty shelves where the plethora of T.P. should be.
From my perspective, getting ready for a trip to a country with a reputation for slight and expensive rolls is the motivating factor for carrying American toilet paper across the Atlantic, but what motivates these others who surely know this country will never, ever run out of bathroom tissue? And even if we did, Americans have lots of other options for personal hygiene such a paper towels, Kleenex, baby wipes, dust cloths, T-shirts, and whatever fabric or big leaves that might be lying around the house. And there is always the shower.
Now we have the answer.
Political scientist Lisa Garbe of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, psychologist Richard Rau of the University of Münster in Germany, and psychologist Theo Toppe of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany have just published in the online journal PlosOne (June 12, 2020) a study evaluating people who were toilet paper hoarders in the first few months of the Covid-19 scare.
They were interested in motivation. Were hoarders pushed by the possible feeling of disgust (if they ran out of T.P.)? Were they just organized people who couldn’t tolerate running out of anything? Or maybe they were “anal retentive” types holding on to everything.
Using an online survey and advertising for participants on social media platforms (because, of course, they couldn’t interview people in person during this time), they received answers from 996 people across 22 countries. Their survey checked for the level of perceived threat about getting the virus. It also looked common personality traits with an assessment called the HEXACO which measures items such as emotionality, extraversion, conscientiousness, and experience, all labels that contain other quirks such as sociability, dependence, diligence, and many others.
And they asked how many toilet paper rolls each participant had bought and stacked at home.
Turns out people who scored high on “emotionality,” subjects prone to fearfulness, anxiety, dependence, and sentimentality, were those most fearful of getting the virus and the big hoarders. Also, those who came out high on conscientiousness (that is, organized, diligent, rather perfectionist, and prudent folk) were big TP shoppers.
In other words, people who are normally anxious and fearful were simply enacting their usual approach to life when they got scared of the virus grabbed all those extra rolls. And the conscientious were being their prudent selves. More interesting, both personality types wiped out any feelings about for sharing or helping others, which means lots of people move toward selfish when diseases hit and lives are threatened — communal public health goes out the window, which is too bad in the matter of T.P. since there are alternatives.
I can see that my toilet paper exporting in my suitcase is also selfishly about me, but surely, it’s only because I am so very organized and prudent. And those fine personality traits also explain why I already had 80 rolls of toilet paper (really, I did) in my basement, stacked there last fall, long before the pandemic.
