The wisdom of herds: How social mood moves the world
May 26, 2010 | Source: New Scientist Opinion
Empirical evidence suggests that events taking place in periods of positive social mood are of a dramatically different character from events you can expect when the mood is negative — thus the importance of mood as an early-warning indicator for extreme events in human society, suggests futurist John Casti.
One very useful measure of the social mood, reflecting both actions and herding, is a financial market average.