Fear of mice avoid a mouse, showing there may be some basis for this belief. It is not known why elephants should react in this way, though there are several theories. Regardless, elephantine murophobia remains the basis of various jokes and metaphors. The classical board game Dou Shou Qi has the Rat kill an Elephant: as multiple editions of the rule book mentions that the Rat would crawl into the Elephant's ears to gnaw into its brain: but this is considered to be a folk tale. Gertrude of Nivelles is the patron saint of murophobia, and is also invoked against rats and mice
Culture of fear Culture of fear Popularized by the American sociologist Barry Glassner, culture of fear (or climate of fear) is the concept that people may incite fear in the general public to achieve political or workplace goals through emotional bias. A largely unrelated concept in sociology is the "fear culture" on the Guilt-Shame-Fear spectrum of cultures. Ashforth discussed potentially destructive sides of leadership and identified what he referred to as petty tyrants: leaders who exercise a tyrannical style of management, resulting in a climate of fear in the workplace. Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and