Mass hysteria: An epidemic of the thoughts?

An outbreak of deadly dancing matches amongst members of the identical group, males instantly gripped by the sickening concern of dropping their genital organs, and youngsters having mysterious signs after watching an episode of their favourite TV sequence — these are all situations of what we regularly seek advice from as “mass hysteria.”
overhead shot of crowd
What’s mass hysteria, and the way does it manifest? We examine.
“They danced collectively, ceaselessly, for hours or days, and in wild delirium, the dancers collapsed and fell to the bottom exhausted, groaning and sighing as if within the agonies of loss of life. When recuperated, they […] resumed their convulsive actions.”

It is a description of the epidemic of “dancing plague” or “dancing mania” as given by Benjamin Lee Gordon in Medieval and Renaissance Medication.

These occasions had been spontaneous outbursts of uncontrollable dancing motions that gripped folks in communities throughout Europe within the Center Ages.

These affected would typically reportedly be unable to cease dancing till they had been so worn out and exhausted that they died. These occasions are usually cited as a number of the first recognized situations of what would come to be known as “mass hysteria.”

Mass hysteria is a phrase that’s used so typically and so imprecisely to seek advice from something from giving in to vogue fads to collaborating in riots and raves that it has change into one thing of a fluid idea, synonymous with something with a destructive connotation that entails the participation of a giant group of individuals.

Nevertheless, although generally contested as a helpful, legitimate idea, mass hysteria — in its extra restrictive sense — lives on the intersection of psychology and sociology.

As such, it has obtained some rigorous consideration from specialists through the years.

What’s mass hysteria?
With the intention to present a clearer definition of mass hysteria, to stipulate it as an occasion of potential scientific curiosity, and to distance it from any unduly destructive connotations, researchers have really suggested referring to the phenomenon as “collective obsessional conduct.”

Specialists who’ve taken an curiosity on this phenomenon say that it is a sort of “psychogenic sickness” — that’s, a situation that begins within the thoughts, reasonably than within the physique. Physiological signs, nonetheless, are sometimes not illusory however very a lot actual.

Mass hysteria can be described as a “conversion dysfunction,” during which a particular person has physiological signs affecting the nervous system within the absence of a bodily explanation for sickness, and which can seem in response to psychological misery.

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As a result of mass hysteria, or collective obsessional conduct, can take so many alternative kinds, it is rather troublesome to offer a transparent definition for it, or to characterize it with confidence.

In a seminal article he revealed on this matter, Prof. Simon Wessley — from King’s Faculty London in the UK — additionally notes that mass hysteria has been used to explain such “[a] extensive number of crazes, panics, and irregular group beliefs” that defining it’s significantly difficult.

Nonetheless, he means that in characterizing a phenomenon for example of mass hysteria, we must always intention to information ourselves by 5 ideas:

that “it’s an outbreak of irregular sickness conduct that can not be defined by bodily illness”
that “it impacts individuals who wouldn’t usually behave on this vogue”
that “it excludes signs intentionally provoked in teams gathered for that function,” corresponding to when somebody deliberately gathers a gaggle of folks and convinces them that they’re collectively experiencing a psychological or physiological symptom
that “it excludes collective manifestations used to acquire a state of satisfaction unavailable singly, corresponding to fads, crazes, and riots”
that “the hyperlink between the [individuals experiencing collective obsessional behavior] should not be coincidental,” which means, as an illustration, that they’re all a part of the identical close-knit group
Prof. Wessley additionally believes that mass hysteria shouldn’t be confused with “ethical panic.” It is a sociological idea that refers back to the phenomenon of lots of individuals changing into distressed a couple of perceived — often unreal or exaggerated — menace portrayed in catastrophizing phrases by the media.

Several types of mass hysteria?
In his article, Prof. Wessley goes even additional, arguing that — based mostly on the situations of mass hysteria documented in specialised literature — this phenomenon really refers to 2 “syndromes” with considerably totally different traits.

He calls these two sorts of collective obsessional conduct “mass nervousness hysteria” and “mass motor hysteria.”

The primary type, he says, is marked by physiological signs per these skilled within the case of tension. These can embody: belly ache, chest tightness, dizziness, fainting, complications, hyperventilation, nausea, and coronary heart palpitations.

The second form of mass hysteria, then again, is characterised by seizure-like occasions (pseudoseizures), obvious partial paralysis (pseudoparesis), or different signs that alter an individual’s motor perform in a particular manner.

Are ladies most affected?
Medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew has reviewed a number of the most distinguished circumstances of mass hysteria in his e-book Little Inexperienced Males, Meowing Nuns and Head-Searching Panics.

lady with damaged mirror
Are ladies extra more likely to be affected by collective obsessional conduct?
His analysis appears to point one factor: that situations of mass hysteria are most prominently skilled by teams of girls.

However why would that be the case? And does it imply that ladies are by some means “hardwired” to fall prey to such mass “epidemics?” Some researchers argue that ladies could also be extra uncovered to collective obsessional conduct as a result of they’re usually uncovered to extra tense conditions.

Bodily signs of illness might present a nonconfrontational manner out of an awesome scenario. Bartholomew notes, for instance, that in a tense and even abusive work context, mass hysteria and its accompanying signs can present a way of placing up resistance and forging a manner out.

Equally, Christian Hempelmann — from Texas A&M College-Commerce — who has taken an curiosity in mass hysteria, means that these group manifestations are efficient and nonconfrontational.

“The way in which […] to get out of [an oppressive situation] is to indicate signs of illness and to be allowed to not need to endure the scenario any longer,” he believes.

Nevertheless, the phrase “hysteria” itself is fraught with issues and has a “bumpy,” extremely controversial historical past. It’s derived from the Greek phrase “hystera,” which means “uterus,” thereby attaching the situation particularly to ladies.

Makes use of of the phrase have traditionally been so imprecise, and the time period has gained such destructive connotations — used to explain any violent outburst of emotion — that it was “retired” by the American Psychiatric Affiliation in 1952.

“Hysteria” is not used to explain any existent psychological situation, and extra particular phrases are as a substitute employed to seek advice from a wide selection of situations that fell, previously, below the massive umbrella of this identify.

As a consequence of this, any claims that mass hysteria may very well be a phenomenon that applies most prominently to ladies turns into questionable, particularly contemplating the heterogeneous nature of such occasions and the way troublesome it’s to categorize them.

Current situations of mass hysteria
Although occurrences of mass hysteria have been documented all through historical past, they don’t appear to have change into much less widespread with the passage of time and the arrival of expertise that helps the speedy flux of data.

Plenty of intriguing occasions involving collective experiences of psychological and physiological signs have been known as situations of mass hysteria over the previous 50 years or so. And a number of the most up-to-date occurrences have even been tied to the perils of social media.

Laughter epidemics and penis panics
In 1962, in a village in Tanganyika — now Tanzania — a woman at a boarding faculty instantly began laughing…and was unable to cease. Her laughing match shortly produced a “laughing epidemic” amongst her schoolmates, which turned of such magnitude that the college needed to be shut down.

youngsters laughing
A ‘laughing epidemic’ that began in a faculty in 1962 ‘ultimately unfold to the bigger inhabitants.’
Upon sending all the women residence, the epidemic unfold to the broader group, and it solely started to fade after 2 years from the beginning of the outbreak.

Notoriously, in Singapore in 1967, a whole lot of males turned satisfied that consuming pork meat taken from a sequence of vaccinated pigs would lead to penis shrinkage or disappearance, and doubtlessly loss of life.

This “penis panic,” or “koro,” required a concerted effort from the nation’s authorities to teach the male inhabitants about their genital organs to persuade them that their conviction was not, and couldn’t, be true.

In autumn 2001, youngsters in elementary and center faculties throughout the United States skilled an odd symptom: their pores and skin would escape in rashes, however solely whereas they had been at school. At residence, their signs would promptly disappear.

Within the media, this phenomenon was linked to the affect of the tragic occasions of September 11, and the kids’s signs had been taken as a mass psychosomatic response to the emotions related to trauma that permeated the U.S. on the time.

The affect of mass media and social media?
Extra lately, in 2006, youngsters in Portugal began to current to hospital with dizziness, rashes, and respiratory difficulties.

telephone illustrating social media idea
These days, social media might contribute to the unfold of collective obsessional conduct.
After the docs might discover no bodily trigger for these signs, some investigative work discovered an intriguing parallel: these had been the identical signs that had been skilled by a personality in a well-liked cleaning soap opera for younger folks, Strawberries With Sugar (Morangos com Açúcar, in Portugese).

Because of this the phenomenon got here to be generally known as the “strawberries with sugar virus.”

Lastly, essentially the most contemporary occasion of alleged mass hysteria passed off as lately as 2012, when teenage women from the small city of LeRoy, NY, began to exhibit signs just like these seen in Tourette’s syndrome — corresponding to uncontrollable jerks of the limbs and verbal outbreaks — although the docs had been unable to discover a clear trigger for them.

This epidemic began when a woman posted a video of herself on YouTube, during which she documented an episode of such signs. Till lately, this woman had proven no signal of Tourette’s.

The video went viral, and plenty of extra teenage women began to show the identical signs. A teenage boy and a 36-year-old lady had been additionally “contaminated.”

When the girl defined that she began having these signs after she discovered of the woman’s story on Fb, this led to hypothesis about social media’s potential function in advancing mass hysteria within the current day.

So, is mass hysteria an epidemic of the thoughts, resulting in signs in the physique, which is unfold by way of social contact? This query continues to be below debate, but when it’s so, the arrival of social media is a possible automobile for the unfold of such “viruses.”

In any case, situations of reported mass hysteria do spotlight one consideration: that it’s simply as necessary to protect our internal well-being as it’s to take care of our bodily well being.

And the messages we ingest — via what we learn, watch, or hear — might have an effect on our well-being in unsuspected methods.