panic spreading
Alarm catching on
Panic spreading describes how fear and alarm propagate through groups, often faster than the threat itself.
The phrase captures both the contagion-like nature of panic—jumping from person to person—and deliberate acts of amplifying fear: Authorities warned against panic spreading on social media.
A crowd's panic spreading can turn minor incidents into stampedes.
- hysteriaUncontrollable emotional excess
- mass hysteriaShared irrational public fear
- contagionDisease spread by contact
- social contagionSpread through observation
- fearEmotional response to threat
chaos · stampede · alarm · dread · frenzy · wildfire · rumor · word of mouth · crowd · herd mentality · screaming · flight · fight or flight · terror · outbreak · viral · mob · ripple
- fearmongeringscaremongering, fearmongering, scare tactics, fear tactics, alarmism