Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted the world with anxiety and unprecedented unclarity, the global economies have borne a colossal negative impact. Many small and medium-sized entrepreneurs were required to cease their operations due to the governmentimposed restrictions. The escalating numbers of infections and deaths caused ongoing uncertainty regarding the future, even causing extreme levels of fear in the public, as in an imminent holocaust. Current statistics of the COVID-19 global

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... pread, as reported by WHO, have reached over 100 million infected cases and approaching 2.38 million deaths (WHO Corona Disease Dashboard, 2021). There is uncertainty regarding the availability of and efficacy of the vaccine. As the situation worsened, countries all over the world were forced to adopt social distancing and other mandatory measures for preventing the spread of the virus. Using Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), wearing masks and adapting to lockdowns and quarantines have become new routines. It is reported that the pandemic also caused consumer behavioural shifts that have, since March 2020, been popularly addressed as the 'new normal' behaviour (The Straits Times, 2020). Stockpiling, aggressive in-store behaviours, compulsive hoarding and shop raiding have been some of the commonly reported shopping behaviours (Knotek et.al, 2020; Yap & Chen, 2020; Zaidi & Hasan, 2020) . The question is whether people choose to be self-centred during trying times, or is it that humans are naturally wired to react this way? According to Loxton et al. (2020) , panic buying has its roots in