Panics and Crazes

Panics and crazes both represent responses to some generalized belief. A craze is an exciting mass involvement that lasts for a relatively long period. For example, in late 1973, a press release from a Wisconsin congressman described how the federal bureaucracy had failed to contract for enough toilet paper for government buildings. Then, on December 19, as part of his nightly monologue, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson suggested that it would not be strange if the entire nation experienced a shortage of toilet paper. Millions of people took his humorous comment seriously and immediately began stockpiling the item out of fear that it would soon be unavailable. Shortly thereafter, as a consequence of this craze, a shortage of toilet paper actually did occur. Its effects were felt into 1974.

In contrast, a panic is a fearful arousal or collective flight based on a generalized belief that may or may not be accurate. In a panic, people commonly think there is insufficient time or inadequate means to avoid injury. Panics often occur on battlefields, in overcrowded burning buildings, or during stock market crashes. The key distinction between panics and crazes is that panics are flights from something, whereas crazes are movements to something.

One of the most famous cases of panic in the United States was touched off by a media event: the 1938 Halloween eve radio dramatization ofH. G. Wells's science fiction novel The War of the Worlds. This broadcast told realistically of an invasion from Mars, with interplanetary visitors landing in northern New Jersey and taking over New York City 15 minutes later. The announcer indicated at the beginning of the broadcast that the account was fictional, but about 80 percent of the listeners tuned in late. Many became frightened by what they assumed to be a news report.

Some accounts have exaggerated the extent of people's reactions to The War of the Worlds. One report concluded that "people all over the United States were praying, crying, fleeing frantically to escape death from the Martians." In contrast, a CBS national survey of listeners found that only 20 percent were genuinely scared by the broadcast. Although perhaps a million people reacted to the program, many reacted by switching to other stations to see if the "news" was being carried elsewhere. This "invasion from outer space" set off a limited panic rather than mass hysteria.

It is often believed that people who are engaged in panics or crazes are unaware of their actions, but that is certainly not the case. As the emergent-norm perspective suggests, people take cues from one another as to how to act during such forms of collective behavior. Even in the midst of an escape from a life-threatening situation, such as a fire in a crowded theater, people do not tend to run in a headlong stampede. Rather, they adjust their behavior on the basis of the perceived circumstances and the conduct of others who are assembling in a given location. To outside observers studying the events, people's decisions may

seem foolish (pushing against a locked door) or suicidal (jumping from a balcony). Yet for that individual at that moment, the action may genuinely seem appropriate - or the only desperate choice available.

Rumors

The e-mail carried the subject line "Travelers Beware!" Its message was to warn those planning to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 1997 that a highly organized crime ring there was drugging tourists, removing organs from their bodies, and selling them on the black market. The rumor circulated the country via e-mail and fax, causing an avalanche of calls to the New Orleans Police Department. Of course, an investigation turned up absolutely no evidence of an organ-snatching ring. The department finally set up a Web site to squash the rumors.

New Orleans wasn't the first city to be struck with this rumor. Similar stories targeted visitors to Houston and Las Vegas. It was said that a visitor to Las Vegas woke up one morning in a bath-tub full of ice minus one kidney Some version of the organ-snatching tale has swept through numerous countries, repeated by thousands of people. No one has ever been able to verify the story or to offer proof of its truth.

Not all rumors we hear are as astonishing as the one about kidney snatchers. But none of us is immune to hearing or starting rumors. A rumor is a piece of information gathered informally that is used to interpret an ambiguous situation. Rumors serve a function by providing a group with a shared belief. As a group strives for consensus, members eliminate those rumors that are least useful or credible. Sociologist Tamotsu Shibutani sees this process as being akin to the survival of the fittest or strongest rumor. Rumors are also a means of adapting to

change. If a business is about to be taken over by another firm, rumors will usually abound as to the significance the move will have for personnel. Gradually, such rumors are either verified or discarded, but the very exchange of rumors allows people to cope with changes over which they have little control. Scary rumors probably spread the fastest, because fear induces stress and stress is reduced by sharing the fear with others.

The attack on the Pentagon and the WorldTradeCenter produced a flurry of rumors. According to one false account a police officer "surfed" a steel beam 86 floors as one of the towers collapsed. Given the role of the media in covering the event, many rumors centered on them. For example, one rumor suggested that a CNN film of Palestinians dancing in the streets after the attack was actually file footage photographed during the Gulf War. In Pakistan, rumors spread that the vivid photos of the hijacked planes crashing into the WorldTradeCenter had actually been staged. Like these examples, rumors often reinforce people's ideologies and their suspicion of the mass media.

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