Mass hysteria—other names include collective hysteria, group hysteria, or collective obsessional behavior—is the spontaneous manifestation of the same or similar hysterical physical 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. Sometimes referred to as mass psychogenic illness or epidemic hysteria.
Read more about Mass Hysteria: Characteristics
Famous quotes containing the words mass and/or hysteria:
“If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest aesthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it.”
—Ouida [Marie Louise De La Ramée] (1839–1908)
“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive ... and impoverished.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)