Consumers’ Emotional and Behavioural Responses to COVID-19 in Canada

COVID-19 disrupted our lives since the very first day it was announced to be a global pandemic in early 2020. In Canada, social distancing measures and quarantine and health-protective regulations affected people’s emotional stability and changed how they undergo certain consumer behaviours to cope with those emotional effects. I surveyed 687 participants residing in Canada to understand some of the emotional and behavioural changes they went through during the past two and a half years since the pandemic began. Participants were asked questions on their emotional responses during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, their current well-being, and on some of their current consumer coping behaviours. Lastly, they were asked to report some demographic characteristics. My conceptual model, therefore, tests the relationship of consumers’ initial emotional response to COVID-19 in Canada with five coping behaviours via their current well-being indicators, moderated by two demographic characteristics—gender and income level. Results of this study showed that there is a significant relationship between the initial emotional response to COVID-19 (IERC) and buying behaviour via depression and loneliness, moderated by income level. While the rest of the indirect relationships were not significant, the research revealed significant direct relationship between IERC and all coping behaviours except social media behaviour and to have directly affected feelings of depression, loneliness, and hopelessness. This research has many theoretical contributions to the consumer behaviour and healthcare literature and managerial contributions that could be used by marketers, mental health professionals, public employees, and the government.