People get group feeling and cease to think personally. Academic study of this theory has grown in recent years due to the nature of mass shooting events, frequency of references to previous rampage shooters as inspiration and the acquisition of fame using violence, particularly in the United States. The Contagion theory proposes that crowds exert a hypnotic influence on their members.

These entire theories share a basic idea of how individual can act briefly unreasonable or inconsistent within a group and become normal when they are not in it.Contagion is a very old term which refers to anything that spreads from person to person like a disease such as chicken pox or flu.

A person’s independent actions are eliminated through milling which results in displaying of curious and unreasonable behavioral patterns. Crowds are supposed to create a hypnotic effect on people which spreads from one person to another.People act as a contagion basically to avoid individual responsibility and adopt a mass behavior. Financial contagion can create financial volatility and can seriously damage the economy and financial systems of countries.

Contagion theory talks about collective behavior of human beings.

His theories were improved by sociologist Robert Park and later by Herbert Blumer and explained how the crowd influenced the individuals dynamically within a group in a socio-psychological aspect. As a historian and philosopher his works reflected more of political and social opinions. A contagion is the spread of an economic crisis from one market or region to another and can occur at both a domestic or international level. Contagion theory is a theory of collective behavior which explains that the crowd can cause a hypnotic impact on individuals. They are … The demotion of behavior cannot be controlled as individuals feel anonymous and do not have to think about the aftereffects. He introduced the term “milling” and according to him during milling, people become extremely conscious and respond to each other spontaneously avoiding the external provocations.

As a historian and philosopher his works reflected more of political and social opinions. There is less action due to external provocations in milling. The extent to which such an effect holds empirically, however, will also depend on the nature and number of redundant paths between people at various degrees of separation, as described below. While contagion literally means “through touch” and is commonly used to explain the spread of diseases, in communication, it means the social transmission, by contact, of ideas, culture and behaviours. The theory adapted this idea in a sociological basis and stated as the transmission of ideas or even irrational behavior collectively displayed by an individual when engaged in a group. He observed that the individual behavior would be demoted to the level of the most noisiest or sadistic person in the crowd. A tragic book called “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann von Goethe caused mass suicide effect across Europe in the 18Cite this article as: businesstopia, "Contagion Theory," in Cite this article as: businesstopia, "Contagion Theory," in Find descriptive alternatives for contagion effect. He came up with a sociological explanation for how people mimic and support each other’s activities. The demotion of behavior cannot be controlled as individuals feel anonymous and do not have to think about the aftereffects. Common contagion behavior are deliberate self-harm, rule violation, aggression, hysterias, financial and consumer behavior contagions.Similarly, people need not be in the same place or time to have contagion feelings. According to Gustave, individuals are influenced and their behavior turns into absurd, violent and sadistic due to the nature of crowd behavior. The hypnotic influence, combined with the anonymity of belonging to a large group of people, results in irrational, emotionally charged behavior.

He focused on the normal individual’s behavior turning irrational or violent accordingly to the nature of the crowd. It decreases individual behavior and actions, increasing impossible behavior.The contagion behavior can have exceptions and exclusions. The next factor is the willingness to sacrifice through collective thinking as a group rather than thinking personally.

It is stated that large number of people are influenced by the contagious behavior of the group and avoids their individual responsibility.The theory is further developed by the 3 socialist in different periods:“The crowd- a study of the popular mind” written by Gustave Le Bon paved the way to the development of collective behavior.

This mass behavior is uncontrollable by an individual. There are several branches of classifications that explain the mechanism of financial contagion, which are spillover effects and financial crisis that are caused by the influence of the four agents' behavior. Communication is also done in the form of a collective behavior, as a mass of people believe in the same things and react similar too.

Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior. He concluded his findings with the possibility of emergence of a new social institution or a social change as the result of this extreme collective behavior.The studies on the collective behavior among the scientists are still going on to provide a more specific reasoning for the cause of this mass conduct.We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. People act as a contagion basically to avoid individual responsibility and adopt a mass behavior. People get group feeling and cease to think personally. Any person can act as the leader of the group by acting authoritatively and this position can be varied according to the situation.He is an American sociologist have conceptualized the collective behavior in a more specific way. It assumes that social transmission can occur from mere touch or contact with culture.