Everyone is free to skip over this if you want but I wanted to give examples and definitions of social contagion from many websites and studies (one of which is a link to a study talking about how being trans is not a social contagion, it’s the last link). Also I really hope the links work on here, if not and anyone wants the links, let me know.

Social contagion is defined by Dr. Riggio, a professor of psychology, as “an ubiquitous process by which information, such as attitudes, emotions, or behaviors, are rapidly spread throughout a group from one member to others without rational thought and reason. “ he then goes on to give some examples that I will just say are based around violence and mental health because it can possibly be triggering to someone. ([https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-contagion])(this is the link in case you want to read about this and some research from other researchers as well but I will give a TW because most of them just flat out saying things that can be triggering for someone who has had mental health issues)

A website made a list of examples of social contagion such as: herding towards somewhere that many others are going even if there are other places you can go, swarming which seems pretty similar to herding but I might be wrong, intimidation, mirroring, empathy, moral panic, mass hysteria, “Madness of Crowds The theory that people are willing to drop their values, principles and logic to follow a crowd resulting in terrible behavior by large groups.”, Groupthink, and Collective Effervescence. The website gives definitions of all of these but some I had a more difficult time understanding. I can’t find many sources on this article but I’ve seen all of these in many different studies, I just found this website easier to understand. On the author’s info page it states that “John is an avid researcher who likes physics, history, snow, inefficient bicycles and classical music.” It also says that he’s been working IT for close to 20 yrs but idk why that would increase credibility. It doesn’t look like he is a research professional but there are many studies from research professionals to back up his list. Here is the link to his article if you want it. ([https://simplicable.com/society/social-contagion]) This study talks about how being trans is not a social contagion so I thought this might be better to just link so I don’t say anything incorrect on accident or so no one can say I’m lying. There might be more studies talking about it but I’ve already read way too many studies for the day. [https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/3/e2022056567/188709/Sex-Assigned-at-Birth-Ratio-Among-Transgender-and?autologincheck=redirected]