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When everyone wants to get out the door at the same time - as is happening now around the globe in this vicious stock market sell-off - things can get pretty darn bloody. You can feel the doom and gloom and it's just a reinforcing mechanism until everyone throws in the towel, as seems to be happening now:

The technical term for it is "negative feedback loop." The rest of us just call it a panic.

How else to explain yet another plunge in the stock market Tuesday that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to its lowest level in five years -- particularly in the absence of another nasty surprise?

If anything, the markets should have been buoyed by the Federal Reserve saying it would shore up another troubled corner of finance by lending money directly to companies. Stocks did open higher, but then quickly tumbled as rumors swirled about the viability of big financial firms like Morgan Stanley and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Indeed, the brain-stem instinct of "flight" - one half of the "fight-or-flight" instinct - is kicking in:

Fear is an immensely powerful force, perhaps more so than greed, said Andrew W. Lo, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied investor behavior.

Scientists who have studied the brain function have found that the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear, responds faster than the parts of the brain that handle cognitive functions, he said.

"Fear is a much stronger motivational force," Mr. Lo added. "The loss of $1,000 has a much bigger impact than the gain of a $1,000."

Read the entire fascinating article, and if you have investments, now is the absolute worst time to sell them (if you don't have to). And if you have some extra cash, it just might be a good time to start buying from all those poor souls who are being forced to sell - by their inner animal fleeing fear...

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