ABSTRACT
Who does not remember the mad cow “madness,” a food scare that made the greatly expanded beef markets collapse almost overnight in 1996? It is an illustration of collective fear and panic, which sometimes overwhelm us. Within our highly complex society, the perception of all kinds of vague risks has a highly capricious nature. The minute chance of a huge and strange disaster, for instance, stirs the imagination much more than the chance of a minor, everyday disaster. One important aspect is the metaprinciple of critical thresholds. The reputation of a product or brand, of an institution or person, may long remain more or less the same, but yet be gradually undermined or eroded. In that case, a minor incident may provoke a major shift.
