Mass hysteria

“Mass formation psychosis” is a term that was used on the Joe Rogan podcast by a formerly respected medical researcher, Robert Malone, M.D. He used it to describe what was happening in the United States and elsewhere in terms of people’s overwhelming acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccination. What is mass formation psychosis? What does the research literature say about this disorder? What is Mass Formation Psychosis? Mass formation psychosis is not a scientific term found in the research literature. In fact, putting the term into Scopus or PubMed research databases returns zero results. It is very surprising to find zero search results for any scientific term in these research databases. That suggests that Malone was using a phrase that isn’t typically used by scientists, or at least it isn’t very well-researched. “Mass formation” suggests it is a large-scale event. Much like “mob psychology,” a pop psychology term to describe the behavior of crowds in specific, limited-time environments. Mass formation isn’t a term typically used in psychology or sociology today. Psychosis is when a person’s thoughts or how they perceive the world are abnormal in so much as the person may have difficulty understanding what is real and what is not. Psychosis is extremely rare, experienced usually by people with schizophrenia. Most people don’t experience psychosis (or anything like it) in their lifetime. Putting these two together and we get what is more commonly referred to as mass psychogen...

Search Cancel • TOPICS • • • • • • • • • • • OPINION • • • • • • • • • PODCASTS • • • • RESOURCES • • • • • • STAT+ • Exclusive analysis of biotech, pharma, and the life sciences • • • Topics • • • • • • Columns • • • • Tools • • • • Events • • Team • • • • Account • • • • • More • • • Follow Us • • • • • • • • • • • • • • How are angry mobs storming the Capitol and Facebook driving our daughters to bulimia related? Both were propelled by mass hysteria, a powerful force that drives human behavior. As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, I have studied how social contagion and the use of technology affect humans’ brains and behavior since the late 1970s. So I was concerned when whistleblower Francis Haugen exposed Facebook’s awareness of the mental health consequences of its algorithms on users. I instantly feared for my own daughter, as I’m sure many others did too. I first studied the health effects of social contagion as a psychiatry resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. I saw a news report about 34 children in a school in Norwood, Mass., a Boston suburb, being rushed to the hospital after sudden onset of dizziness, hyperventilation, headache, and nausea. The My subsequent studies of Related: Rates of depression and anxiety climbed across the globe in 2020, analysis finds The current social media business model that fuels controversy, fear, negativity, divisiveness, and disinformation boosts ad sales and revenues. But it also escalates psychological problem...

On September 23, 2022, 12-year-old Esmeralda walked out of the girls' bathroom at her middle school in Tapachula, Mexico, and fainted. Her best friend Diala came out behind her and also fainted. Over the next hour, nine other girls and one boy at the Federal 1 public secondary school would spontaneously collapse in their classrooms, in the bathroom, and in the school's courtyard. Another 22 students would report other unusual symptoms like vomiting and headaches. Esmeralda's mom, Gladys, got a text message from her niece, Esmeralda's cousin, telling her to come to the school immediately. She found Esmeralda lying on the pavement in the school's central courtyard, unable to speak or stand. Diala was slumped beside her. A cluster of other sick children lay on their backs. "Esmeralda fainted and started convulsing on the ground," Diala said later. "I didn't expect to faint too, but then I woke up on the ground. I couldn't breathe right, it was really fast, and my eyes were red." Several of the affected students reported smelling something smoky — Esmeralda said it reminded her of the smell of leaves burning up in the mountains — leading to suspicion marijuana was involved. But drug tests later came up negative. Several students also remembered seeing a powder in the bathroom that had a distinct, mustard-like hue. School administrators later turned up a sandwich bag with chicken soup base and a toxicology report came up clean for drugs. At the hospital, doctors concluded Esmer...

Mass hysteria, or collective delusion outbreaks, are more common than people realize. Most are familiar with some of history’s most dramatic mass hysterias, such as the one surrounding the Salem Witch Trials, but other outbreaks have come and gone, without garnering as much attention or causing as much harm as that of Salem. An example of a more prosaic mass hysteria incident occurred in 2012 when a student in Leroy high school in upstate New York Mass hysterias are sociogenic, mental illnesses that propagate and spread rapidly within a community, with psychological symptoms sometimes coming out and manifesting themselves as physical conditions. They often are caused by longstanding stresses and fears within a community, with symptoms slowly building up and emerging over a prolonged period of time, ranging from weeks to months. They usually explode in a rapidly contagious outbreak that engulfs the community or a large portion thereof, before subsiding over a period of weeks or months. Engraving of three women suffering from the 1518 Strasbourg Dance Craze. Wikimedia While most outbreaks of mass hysteria are more or less harmless, there have been quite a few throughout history that was far more bizarre. Indeed, many outbreaks proved just as dramatic or deadly as the one presaging the Salem Witch Trials, or even more so in their pernicious impact. Following are twelve of history’s most remarkable outbreaks of mass hysteria. A medieval convent. ThoughtCo The Cat Nuns of Franc...

An outbreak of fatal dancing fits among members of the same community, men suddenly gripped by the sickening fear of losing their genital organs, and teenagers having mysterious symptoms after watching an episode of their favorite TV series — these are all instances of what we often refer to as “mass hysteria.” Share on Pinterest What is mass hysteria, and how does it manifest? We investigate. “They danced together, ceaselessly, for hours or days, and in wild delirium, the dancers collapsed and fell to the ground exhausted, groaning and sighing as if in the agonies of death. When recuperated, they […] resumed their convulsive movements.” This is a description of the epidemic of “dancing plague” or “dancing mania” as given by Benjamin Lee Gordon in Medieval and Renaissance Medicine. These events were spontaneous outbursts of uncontrollable dancing motions that gripped people in communities across Europe in the Middle Ages. Those affected would often reportedly be unable to stop dancing until they were so worn out and exhausted that they died. These events are typically cited as some of the first known instances of what would come to be referred to as “mass hysteria.” Mass hysteria is a phrase that is used so often and so imprecisely to refer to anything from giving in to fashion fads to participating in riots and raves that it has become something of a fluid concept, synonymous with anything with a negative connotation that involves the participation of a large group of peo...

Key Takeaways • Mass psychogenic illness, also known as mass hysteria, is when a group of people manifest physical symptoms from imagined threats. • History is littered with outbreaks of mass hysteria. • Recently, alleged cases of Tourette's syndrome appeared all over the world. Was it real or mass psychogenic illness? While the term is often avoided for fear of ridiculing something more serious, mass psychogenic illness (MPI) — also known as mass sociogenic illness (MSI) or mass hysteria — is a real occurrence that can cause a variety of physical symptoms to manifest in groups of people despite the lack of any physical cause. Often compared to conversion disorder, in which emotional issues are “converted” into physical problems, MPI tends to occur among people who share anxieties, fears, and a sense of community. In the right group of people, it can spread like a virus. A curious case of the condition related to TikTok videos shows both how imagined conditions can spread and how our modern media landscape presents new problems never even dreamt of in a time before the internet. TikTok tics In 2019, a strange slew of new Tourette’s cases made its way into hospitals all over the world. Oddly, these were suddenly occurring in children well over the age of six, the age of typical onset. Most peculiar of all, many of the patients were exhibiting identical symptoms and tics. While many cases of Tourette’s are similar, these symptoms were precisely the same. As it turned out, th...

Medical condition Mass psychogenic illness Other names Mass hysteria, epidemic hysteria, mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder Headache, dizziness, nausea, abdominal pain, cough, fatigue, sore throat Childhood or adolescence, intense media coverage Actual diseases, mass delusions, Mass psychogenic illness ( MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria, involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for contagion. Causes [ ] MPI is distinct from other types of collective • symptoms that have no plausible organic basis; • symptoms that are transient and benign; • symptoms with rapid onset and recovery; • occurrence in a segregated group; • the presence of extraordinary anxiety; • symptoms that are spread via sight, sound or oral communication; • a spread that moves down the age scale, beginning with older or higher-status people; • a preponderance of female participants. British psychiatrist Simon Wessely distinguishes between two forms of MPI: • Mass anxiety hysteria "consists of episodes of acute anxiety, occurring mainly in schoolchildren. Prior tension is absent and the rapid spread is by visual contact." • Mass motor hysteria "consists of abnormalities in motor behaviour. It occurs in any age group and prior tension is present. Initial cases can be identified and the spread is gradual. ... [T]he outbreak may be prolonged." While his definition is sometime...

Some psychologists believe mass hysteria is a form of groupthink. In cases of mass hysteria, the group members all develop a common fear that often spirals into a panic. Signs of Mass Hysteria This phenomenon affects groups of people, so many group members tend to exhibit these symptoms. Mass hysteria tends to be characterized by: Social Pressure Social pressure may also play a part in feeling symptoms related to mass hysteria. When many people are exhibiting similar symptoms, people may either feel consciously or unconsciously pressured to also exhibit those same symptoms. Fearing that others are sick can cause people to pay too much attention to physical sensations, which may then be attributed to mass illness. It's believed that groupthink increases as group cohesiveness increases, which may help explain the psychological phenomenon of mass hysteria. Stress, social pressure, and environmental triggers also play a role. Impact of Mass Hysteria The group members feed off each other's emotional reactions, causing the panic to escalate. The Salem witch trials and the panic over the Mass hysteria can also create feelings of psychological distress. It can be extremely upsetting for people experiencing unexplained symptoms, particularly when no underlying causes can be found. However, it is also essential not to dismiss symptoms as a sign of mass psychogenic illness without seeking environmental or pathogenic origins adequately. Some researchers have suggested that collective ...

• العربية • Беларуская • Català • Deutsch • Español • Esperanto • Euskara • فارسی • Français • Hrvatski • Bahasa Indonesia • Italiano • עברית • Magyar • Nederlands • 日本語 • Norsk bokmål • Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча • Polski • Português • Русский • Simple English • Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски • Suomi • ไทย • Tiếng Việt See also: In sociology and psychology, A common type of mass hysteria occurs when a group of people believes that they have a similar epidemic hysteria. Middle Ages • According to an account which was written by an author in 1784, a nun who lived in a German • In The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, an 1844 collection of works written by 1500–1800 • • • • • • 1800–1950 • • • "Writing Tremor Epidemic" (1892, 1904) – The right hand of a 10-year-old girl in Groß Tinz began trembling, which developed into full-body seizures that spread to 19 other students. A similar epidemic affected 20 in • • "Trembling Disease" (1905–06) – An estimated 237 children were impacted between October 1905 and May 1906 in • • • Bellevue, Louisiana (1939) – A girl developed a leg twitch at the annual homecoming high school dance. Attacks worsened and spread to friends over the next several weeks. • • • Tokyo, Japan (1947) - On May 29, 1947, the United States armed forces radio station in Tokyo (WVTR) broadcast a "news bulletin" that a 20-ft sea monster was spotted in Tokyo Bay and travelling inland. • 1950−2000 • • • • • Blackburn faintings (1965) – In October 1965, several girls at a girls'...