Why was there so much hysteria surrounding Sars in Hong Kong, such as panic buying in supermarkets and mass avoidance of open public spaces? The media was partly to blame, of course. It helped create a self-serving sort of mass hysteria, knowingly or otherwise. But hysteria cannot be imposed. It springs from interaction. So what was in the Hong Kong air at the time?
From a psycho-sociological perspective, one does not have to look far. Mass panic is lodged in personal anxieties, which are psychologically 'expressed' and 'contained' using outside phenomena - in this case illness.
When people feel tense about their particular life circumstances, they tend to be especially sensitive to contributing worries they see in wider social patterns. Nagging anxiety is ratcheted up a few notches with each additional threat to peace of mind. In Hong Kong, there was the weak economy, increasing unemployment, uncertainty about the relationship with the central government and doubts about the local authorities' ability to lead Hong Kong effectively into the future.
These worries, for the most part, are beyond any private individual's control. And partly because of this impenetrability, these problems are assimilated in a very particular, personal way. So, for example, a lack of confidence in authorities may trigger a sense of frustrated helplessness at the most intimate, unconscious level. A weak economy may be unconsciously digested with a mixture of uncomfortable and possibly contradictory emotions such as guilt, anger and feelings of victimisation, insignificance and so on.
In other words, people instinctively attach emotions and their own meaning on to outside events. How they assimilate an economic slump or a health risk is coloured by their own particular psychological baggage and their culture's shared baggage. And it is tinged by the psychological character of the era in which they live. This includes, for instance, the tone of the relationship between informed individuals and experts such as the World Health Organisation, between citizens and decision-makers, and how consultative or paternalistic those relationships are.
This unstoppable urge to construct meaning around events - and not to see them as simply random - is crucial to our approach to life. Indeed, it is an active ingredient in our sense of ourselves. Layers of meaning come together to create our internal mental life stories, as well as that of our family and community. This synthesis happens through discussion, remembering together and so on. We are constantly revising our version of reality in collaboration with others. People tend to think, feel, behave - and construct meaning - consistent with the prevailing consensus of assumptions of those around them. We look to create mutual meaning which both draws on the world and sets the tone for how we understand it.