contagion effect

Kissinger was “somewhat obsessed” with Allende’s government, fearing that the rise of a socialist government through democratic means could have a contagion effect in the region, said Chilean Sen. José Miguel Insulza, a former secretary general of the Organization of American States who served as a foreign policy adviser in Allende’s government.

The patients can write down their feelings about suicide, but they aren’t allowed to talk about them in depth with others in their sessions, only with a therapist — teenagers, more than any other group, are vulnerable to the contagion effect in which a peer’s suicide can lead to copycat attempts.

But the sense that U.S. authorities were taking steps to limit “the contagion effect” helped calm the situation somewhat, although “markets remain skittish” in Asia, said Venkateswaran Lavanya at Mizuho Bank.

Harris noted that many were starting to wonder whether profiling the shooter is something we should even be doing at all, for fear of a contagion effect.

Research also suggests a “contagion effect,” in which mass shooters are likely to copy previous attackers, down to the type of firearm used, he said.