Consider the following (edited) excerpt from a James Thurber New Yorker piece: "Suddenly someone began to run.It may be that he had simply remembered… an engagement to meet his wife, for which he was now frightfully late.Whatever it was, he ran east on Broad Street.Somebody else began to run, perhaps a newsboy in high spirits… Another man broke into a trot… A loud mumble gradually crystallized into the dread word 'dam.' 'The dam has broke!' The fear was put into words by a little old lady in an electric car, or by a traffic cop, or by a small boy: Nobody knows who… Two thousand people were abruptly in full flight…" This literary excerpt illustrates the phenomenon known as

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The excerpt describes how the sudden running of one person led to others joining in, and eventually, a whole group of people are in "full flight." This is an example of the contagion effect, where the actions or emotions of one person influence those of others in a group.

Consider the Following (Edited) Excerpt from a James Thurber New