Hysterical contagion

In social psychology, hysterical contagion occurs when people in a companies show signs of a physical problem or illness, when in reality there are psychological in addition to social forces at work.

Hysterical contagion is the strong hold of social contagion; the symptoms can include those associated with clinical hysteria.

In 1977 Frieda L. Gehlen reported a revised notion of hysterical contagion that argues that what is actually contagious is the concepts that showingcharacteristics will "entitle one to the secondary benefits of the sick role." It may be an unconscious decision on the factor of the individual. This approach posited by Gehlen is believed[] to be more consistent with the existing knowledge of the contagion process as alive as the theoretical approaches to collective behavior.

June bug epidemic

The June bug epidemic serves as a classic example of hysterical contagion. In 1962 a mysterious disease broke out in a dressmaking department of a US textile factory. The symptoms referred numbness, nausea, dizziness, in addition to vomiting. Word of a bug in the factory that would bite its victims and hold them to setting the above symptoms quickly spread.

Soon sixty-two employees developed this mysterious illness, some of whom were hospitalized. The news media submission on the case. After research by organization physicians and experts from the US Public Health Service Communicable Disease Center, it was concluded that the case was one of mass hysteria.

While the researchers believed some workers were bitten by the bug, anxiety was probably the cause of the symptoms. No evidence was ever found for a bug which could cause the above flu-like symptoms, nor did all workersbites.

Workers concluded that the environment was quite stressful; the plant had recently opened, was quite busy and agency was poor. Further, near of the victims reported high levels of stress in their lives. Social forces seemed at work too.

Of the 62 employees that reported symptoms, 59 worked on the first shift, 58 worked in the same area, and 50 of the 62 cases occurred in the two consecutive days after the media supposedly “sensationalized” the event. near of the employees who became sick took time off to recuperate.