In psychology collective hysteria is the name given to a phenomenon of the manifestation of the same hysterical symptoms by more than one person. It normally begins when an individual shows a hysteric manifestation in front of others who "contagiously" acquire the same symptoms. Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. ...

Examples include cases of accidents in which people act "irrationally", screaming, running in the wrong direction, etc; cases in which a person who is suspected of a crime is caught by a group and one of the members throws a stone or gives the first kick, and the rest join the action; etc.

Writer Jerome Clark--while recognizing that mass panic can undoubtedly be genuine and widespread--argues that mass hysteria can be “a classic blame-the-victim strategy” in cases where authorities or experts can find no explanation for puzzling or frightening events.

See also

• Hysteria
• War of the Worlds
• New Delhi monkeyman
• Satanic ritual abuse
• Salem witch trials
• folie à deux
• The Mad Gasser of Mattoon
• Stock market bubble, Stock market crash
• craze
• panic

Hysteria is a state of mind, one of unmanageable fear or emotional excesses. ... On October 30, 1938, as a Halloween special, Orson Welles performed a live radio adaptation of H. G. Wells classic novel The War of the Worlds, which famously frightened many in the audience into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. ... Police artists impression of the Monkey Man of New Delhi The Monkey Man of New Delhi was a phenomenon that surfaced in New Delhi in 2001. ... Satanic ritual abuse, or SRA, refers to the belief that an organized network of Satanists engages in brainwashing and abusing victims, especially children, throughout the United States or, in fact, the world. ... 1876 illustration of the courtroom The Salem witch trials of colonial America resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in 1692 in Massachusetts, the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan paranoia which led to the deaths of at least twenty-five people and the... Mattoon is a city located in Coles County, Illinois. ... A stock market bubble is a type of economic bubble in which an exaggerated bull market where the value of stocks listed on a stock exchange rise dramatically upon a wave of public enthusiasm. ... A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic loss of value of shares of stock in corporations. ... Herd behaviour is the term used to describe situations in which the individuals of any particular group react coherently. ... Panic is a sudden terror which dominates thinking and often affects groups of people. ...

Sources

• Jerome Clark, ‘’Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena’’, Visible Ink Press, 1993.

External links

• Mass Hysteria (http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/depress/antidprs.html)