Economic data reveal the disturbing “echo of anxiety” after fatal school shootings

A new study finds that deadly school shootings affect the wider communities where they occur long after the tragedy. Researchers discovered that when a fatal shooting takes place, people buy fewer groceries, eat out less, and spend less money in stores. The findings, published in the Journal of Marketing Research, provide new insight into how traumatic events reshape everyday habits and hurt the economic health of neighborhoods long after the police tape is gone.

“This project began with a difficult but important question: How do communities cope with the unthinkable? After tragic school shootings, our public conversations often focus—rightly—on the loss of life and psychological trauma. But we wondered: are there quieter, less visible ways that communities are affected? Does fear bleed into the everyday fabric of life?” explained Shrihari Sridhar, a professor at Texas A&M University and the senior author of the new study.

“As researchers who study economic and consumer behavior, we were drawn to the idea that these events might disrupt even the most mundane routines—like grocery shopping or going out to eat. We wanted to understand how far-reaching the effects of violence could be, even for those not directly involved. That curiosity, coupled with a desire to quantify the hidden toll of such tragedies, led us to this project.”

To examine this, Sridhar and his co-authors (Muzeeb Shaik, John P. Costello, Mike Palazzolo, and Adithya Pattabhiramaiah) conducted a series of four studies.

The researchers started by focusing on grocery shopping because it is a routine activity for almost every household. They collected data from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which tracks every school shooting in the United States where a bullet hit school property. They focused on 63 fatal incidents between 2012 and 2019. They matched this data to household-level data from the NielsenIQ Homescan Panel, which monitors weekly grocery purchases across the country. The panel included over 8,000 households in counties where the shootings had taken place.

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To understand the shootings’ effects, the researchers used a technique called “difference-in-differences” analysis. This method compares how a household’s behavior changed after the shooting relative to its own behavior in the same weeks a year earlier, when no shooting had occurred.

The results showed that after a shooting, household grocery spending dropped by roughly 2.09% and remained lower for the following six months. The researchers noticed this drop was stronger in politically liberal counties (around 2.44%) compared to conservative counties (around 1.28%), suggesting that political context influenced how people responded.

They also analyzed how people changed their shopping habits. Households made fewer trips to stores, visited fewer different stores, and shopped across fewer departments within those stores. These changes reflected a desire to spend less time in public spaces, possibly due to increased feelings of vulnerability and anxiety.

“One surprising result was that the reduction in public activity didn’t lead to a corresponding increase in online activity,” Sridhar told PsyPost. “We expected people to shift some grocery purchases online as a coping mechanism, but we didn’t find meaningful substitution. That means the drop in spending isn’t just displaced—it’s a real economic contraction.”

“Another unexpected finding was the persistence of the effect. In many cases, spending remained depressed for up to six months. That’s a long tail for something that might otherwise be seen as a single-day tragedy. It underscores how deeply these events reverberate in a community’s sense of normalcy.”

To understand why these changes occurred, the researchers conducted an online experiment with about 1,000 participants across the United States. The participants were asked to imagine living in a town called Maplewood, where one of three tragedies had occurred: a school shooting, a motor vehicle accident, or a drowning accident. All scenarios involved the death of young people to match the emotional weight of the school shooting.

Each participant rated their likelihood of going grocery shopping and answered questions about how anxious they felt. The results were clear: those in the school shooting condition felt significantly more anxious and were much less likely to consider going grocery shopping. Compared with the other tragedy scenarios, anxiety about visiting public spaces was the biggest reason for this change in behavior. The researchers also tested other emotions, such as guilt and shame, but found that anxiety was by far the dominant mediator of behavior.

Importantly, political ideology shaped this reaction. Liberal participants felt more anxious about a school shooting than conservative participants, making them even less likely to shop in public spaces. This finding matched the patterns seen in the first study.

In the next study, the researchers asked a new sample of 1,000 people across the United States to imagine a school shooting or a motor vehicle accident in the town of Maplewood. This time, participants rated their likelihood of going out to dinner, and the researchers measured a wider range of emotions, including thoughts about death, feelings of mourning, distraction, and shock.

The results confirmed that people felt more anxious and less likely to visit restaurants after a school shooting, compared to a car accident. Other emotions like mourning, shock, and distraction also played a role, but statistical analyses revealed that anxiety was the largest and most significant factor driving people’s reluctance to spend time in public spaces. As with the second study, participants who were more liberal felt more anxious about school shootings and were less likely to consider going out to eat, highlighting how political ideology shaped consumer behavior.

In the final study, the researchers explored whether the effect was specific to public spaces. They recruited roughly 2,000 people online and asked them to imagine a school shooting or motor vehicle accident in a town called Maplewood. This time, participants rated their likelihood of making purchases in both public and private settings — such as going to a grocery store versus ordering groceries online, and seeing a movie in a public theater versus watching one at home.

The results revealed a sharp difference. The school shooting significantly reduced people’s interest in public consumption activities (such as going to a grocery store or movie theater), but had no effect on private alternatives (such as online shopping or watching movies at home). The findings confirmed that the impact of a school shooting is tied closely to the context of public spaces where people worry about their safety.

Taken together, the four studies reveal a common thread: after a school shooting, people’s behavior changes because of increased feelings of vulnerability and anxiety in public spaces.

“There are three primary takeaways,” Sridhar explained. “First, school shootings affect far more than the direct victims—they shake entire communities. We found that in the six months following a fatal school shooting, household grocery spending drops by about 2.1%, restaurant and bar spending drops by 8%, and overall food and beverage retail spending drops by 3%. These are not small numbers—they represent a substantial hit to local economies.”

“Second, this drop is not primarily driven by grief—it’s driven by anxiety. Our controlled experiments show that anxiety about public safety, more than sadness or distraction, causes people to avoid routine public activities. In other words, people pull back from public life not because they are mourning, but because they feel unsafe.”

“Third, the effect is stronger in liberal-leaning communities than in conservative ones. The difference appears to stem from political psychology: liberals are more likely to view shootings as evidence of systemic risk, while conservatives tend to see them as isolated acts. These differing worldviews shape how people perceive safety—and how they respond behaviorally.”

But as with all research, there are some limitations to consider. The data focused mostly on grocery and food service spending, and it only captured certain areas and time periods. It is still unclear whether other types of violence have a similar impact, or if the effects last longer than six months.

“While our results are robust across multiple data sets and methods, they apply specifically to fatal school shootings,” Sridhar noted. “Non-fatal incidents, or other forms of community trauma, may have different effects.”

“Also, while we focus on consumer behavior, we don’t want to suggest that economic impact is the most important consequence of school shootings. The human loss is always primary. Our work seeks to highlight a downstream effect that has, until now, received less attention but is nonetheless meaningful—especially for policymakers and business leaders trying to support community recovery.”

Future studies could investigate the role that neighborhood characteristics or socioeconomic status play in shaping consumer behavior after tragedy. Understanding these dynamics could help retailers and policymakers design more effective recovery and support measures for communities dealing with trauma.

“We see this as the beginning of a broader inquiry into the hidden costs of community trauma,” Sridhar explained. “We’re exploring follow-up projects on how businesses and local leaders respond to collective tragedies, and whether certain strategies—like trauma-informed marketing or community engagement—can accelerate healing.”

“More broadly, we’re interested in how consumer psychology and perceived safety interact. What does it take for a shaken community to feel whole again—not just emotionally, but behaviorally? These are the kinds of questions we hope to keep pursuing.”

“Behind every statistic in our study is a community trying to find its footing again,” Sridhar added. “While our data tracks foot traffic and spending, what we’re really observing is the behavioral echo of anxiety. Grocery trips become shorter, nights out are cancelled, errands get postponed. These aren’t just data points—they’re choices made by anxious people trying to regain a sense of control. If our study helps even a few local leaders better understand and support that process, then we feel the work was worthwhile.”

The study, “How Fatal School Shootings Impact a Community’s Consumption,” was authored by Muzeeb Shaik, John P. Costello, Mike Palazzolo, Adithya Pattabhiramaiah, and Shrihari Sridhar.