http://mindhacks.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Fri, 24 May 2013 17:03:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://mindhacks.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5336 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:26:56 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5336 A mass hysteria is interesting to think about as a case of embodied and affective influences on cultural evolution. Besides the usual suspects (eg, prestige-biased social learning), automatic mimicry and implicit emotional contagion might help explain panics/crazes, which we should arguably expect to be sensitive to initial conditions, by predicting their early dynamics.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5335 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:28:14 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5335 Here is a great example. Many townspeople were convinced that there was a Leprechaun in a tree.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5334 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:16:32 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5334 Feint with a sword or basketball shoes; faint with glee when you stand up too quickly.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5333 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:16:18 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/mass-hysteria-crazes-and-panics/#comment-5333 This is very interesting.
Have you got an opinion why economists who study financial panics don’t a) know more about this field of sociology, and b) confuse social influence with local individual irrationality?

]]>