Mass psychogenic illness
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Hitler understands how to raise this instinct to the power of a collective psychosis. He knows that the hate-lust is more easily inflamed in the presence of a visible and tangible enemy. That is why he has incited the Nazi fury against the Jews."--Mark My Words ! (1978) by Mark Goulden "Orson Welles first gained wide American notoriety on the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast of H. G. Wells's novel of the same name. Adapted to sound like an actual news broadcast, it caused panic and even mass hysteria. Welles and his biographers subsequently claimed he was exposing the gullibility of American audiences in the tense preamble to the Second World War."--Sholem Stein |
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Mass hysteria, also called collective hysteria, mass psychogenic illness, or collective obsessional behavior, is the sociopsychological phenomenon of the manifestation of the same or similar hysterical symptoms by more than one person. A common manifestation of mass hysteria occurs when a group of people believe they are suffering from a similar disease or ailment.
Characteristics
Mass hysteria typically begins when an individual becomes ill or hysterical during a period of stress. After this initial individual shows symptoms, others begin to manifest similar symptoms, typically nausea, muscle weakness, fits or headache.
The features of mass hysteria include no plausible cause found, ambiguous symptoms, rapid escalation of cases - often spread by line of sight - and rapid remission of symptoms. Demographically, cases are higher in females and those with greater use of medical services. Other factors that contribute to the severity of the symptoms and spread are protective clothing worn by emergency services and mistaken or misleading investigations.
Sightings of religious miracles are often attributed to mass hysteria.
Specific examples
In 2009 in Fort Worth, Texas, 34 people were sent to the hospital after they complained about having symptoms when they mistakenly thought they had been exposed to carbon monoxide.
In 2008 in Tanzania, about 20 female school pupils began to faint in a schoolroom, collapsing to the floor and losing consciousness, while others after witnessing this sobbed, yelled and ran around the school. A local education officer was quoted in news reports saying that such events are "very common here".
- Dancing mania (e.g. Dancing Plague of 1518)
- Dennō Senshi Porygon
- Fan death
- Halifax Slasher
- London Monster
- Mad Gasser of Mattoon
- Morangos com Açúcar
- New Delhi monkeyman
- Penis panic
- Salem witch trials
- Spring Heeled Jack
- Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic
- The War of The Worlds, a radio broadcast that caused mass hysteria
- Villejuif leaflet, mass panic after false rumours of carcinogens in common foods
- Day care sex abuse hysteria
See also
- Bandwagon effect
- Body-centred countertransference
- Collective behavior
- Collective effervescence
- Conversion disorder
- Culture-bound syndrome
- Crowd psychology
- Day-care sex-abuse hysteria
- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
- Fears
- Folie à deux (from the French for "a madness shared by two")
- Group behaviour
- Herd behavior
- Hypochondriasis
- Hysterical contagion
- Mass psychogenic illness
- Mean world syndrome
- Moral panic
- Psychochemical weaponry
- Witch-hunt
Historic cases:
- Mad Gasser of Mattoon
- Halifax Slasher
- Spring Heeled Jack
- Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic
- Hollinwell incident
