The Socionomic Timing of Multiple Shootings

Aug. 24, 2012 - PRLog -- ATLANTA, Ga., August 24, 2012 -- The list of multiple shootings just keeps growing. Today brought news of 19 wounded in a series of overnight shootings in Chicago, and two killed and at least eight wounded this morning outside the Empire State Building in NYC. To most people, the timing of these acts may seem random, but the Socionomics Institute published a study yesterday that suggests such shootings are in fact regulated by the social mood. Alan Hall, a researcher at the Georgia-based think tank and the author of the study, said, “Most people think random, multiple-victim shootings make people fearful, but new data suggest that a fearful society is more likely to suffer multiple-shooting violence.”

In the chart below, published yesterday in The Socionomist, the green areas indicate positive trends in the social mood—waves of optimism and pessimism best reflected in the stock market—and the brown areas indicate negative trends in the social mood. Note how closely the shooting data follow the trends in the stock market. Shooting casualties peaked just a month after stocks bottomed in 2009, and bottomed just a month after stocks peaked in 2011. Socionomic theory posits that unconscious social mood drives both data series.

For copies of the study or to arrange an interview with Alan Hall, contact Alexandra Lienhard 770-536-0309, alexandral@socionomics.net.