In May of 2004 a suspicious passenger in Vancouver British Columbia stepped off a bus, firing a cryptic warning at the driver and leaving behind mysterious pellets and a bad odor. Moments later the bus driver began vomiting. Soon other passengers became nauseous. Even the paramedics treating the driver became sick.[i] Several people were eventually quarantined and hospitalized.
Did the sinister passenger poison them or was it something more benign? The pellets turned out to be a mixture of mud, thyme and acorns. The noxious odor was probably evidence of too few baths. Why then, if the apparent triggers were harmless, were the physical symptoms so nauseatingly real?
Forty-two children in the town of Bornem Belgium became mysteriously ill one day and were hospitalized after drinking Coca-Cola. As news of the sickness spread, so did its symptoms. Within two days eight more children became sick in the town of Bruges. Soon thirteen more in Harelbeke fell ill, followed by another forty-two in Lochristi. Over a span of seven days, more than one hundred children from neighboring towns were sent to the hospital complaining of nausea, dizziness and headaches.
Was bad soda really to blame? An investigation turned up a probable culprit. The carbon dioxide used to carbonate the cola was contaminated with sulfur compounds. But the contaminants were present in minuscule amounts—a thousand times less than the levels that cause illness. At seventeen parts per billion they could produce the smell of rotten eggs, but nothing more. More perplexing was the fact that only half of the kids who got sick had drunk any Coke!
The contagion menacing schools in Belgium and and buses in Canada is mass hysteria. “It’s quite simple,” according to Simon Wessely, a psychiatrist who teaches at King’s College School of Medicine in London, “Someone sees a neighbor fall ill and becomes convinced that he is being contaminated by some unseen evil—in the past this was demons and spirits; nowadays it tends to be toxins and gases—and his fear makes him anxious. His anxiety makes him dizzy and nauseous. He begins to hyperventilate. He collapses. Other people hear the same allegations, see the “victim” faint, and they begin to get anxious themselves. They feel nauseous. They hyperventilate. They collapse, and before you know it everyone in the room is hyperventilating and collapsing. These symptoms, Wessely stresses, are perfectly genuine. It’s just that they are manifestations of a threat that is wholly imagined.”[ii]
Such illness isn’t only in a person’s mind, but it does start there. Every case is some form of conversion hysteria. Conversion Hysteria refers to physical complaints for which there are no identifiable organic basis. A person’s fears are converted into genuine physical symptoms—their thoughts and emotions transformed into actions and reactions.
No matter what the triggering event, certain characteristics are common to all such outbreaks. And those commonalities have interesting implications to the spread of both emotions, and promotions. Build them into your marketing campaigns and you incrase the odds people with "catch" your marketing message from the people in their social sphere.
The Smaller the Group the Bigger the Impact
When large groups are stricken by psychogenic illness, between 8-10% of the total population is affected. However, in smaller populations, the percentage leaps to between 30% - 50%! [iii] An outbreak among one thousand schoolgirls in Belgium might produce 100 victims (10%), whereas hysteria on a bus in Vancouver with twenty-four riders could easily generate a dozen sufferers (50%). The connectedness of smaller groups seems to enhance the spread of symptoms. The percentage of affected people in someone's social network, not the absolute number, has the greatest bearing on whether they will also succumb to an illness, a trend, or a recommendation they buy your product.
Women and Children First
Women, especially young women, are most often victims. Throughout history 60 to 90 percent of the victims of psychogenic illness have been female.[iv] This is due in part to the physical differences between men and women. Subtle variations in brain structures like the amygdale, anterior commissure, and hypothalamus make women more emotionally expressive and perceptive than men. They are, therefore, more sensitive to the fears and feelings of other group members and more likely to affirm those feelings by conforming to the behaviors of the group.[v] This conformity extends to feeling fear, becoming upset, and even to dizziness and fainting.
To Know Me is to Copy Me
Victims of mass hysteria often know each other or are part of the same circle of friends. Seeing a friend become sick is the single best predictor that someone will develop symptoms.[vi] It seems people are most likely to take suggestions from friends, even when their friend is unintentionally suggesting they feel sick. You have similarities with your friends. You share common interests and activities. It’s not simply that you like each other. You are like each other. The more you believe you are alike, the greater your chance of catching their illness, or, for that matter, acting on their product endorsement or restaurant recommendation.
Seeing is Believing
Site and sound play an important role in the spread of hysterias. Symptoms spread by line-of-site. Seeing a victim collapse is a strong predictor that others will acquire the symptoms. For this reason, the most effective way to stop the spread of a mass psychogenic illness is to simply separate the affected persons from the rest of the group. Mass marketing reaches people in isolation. Fifty percent of Americans watch TV entirely alone. By separating people from others mass media prevent the spread of your message! Conversely, the best way to encourage the spread of your marketing message is to encourage the creation of groups and make sure people bearing your message are in them.
Want your message to spread like mass hysteria? Stop reaching people in isolation through mass media and deliver your message to smaller groups of similar people (preferably women) and encourage them to watch how their peers react.
Spread the fire. GS
[i] Mass Hysteria Caused Illness on Bus, Expert Says, CBC News, May 28, 2004
[ii] Is the Belgian Coco-Cola Hysteria the Real Thing? By Malcolm Gladwell, Dept. of Straight Thinking, July 12, 1999
[iii] A Case of Mass Hysteria or Toxic Fumes? : Considerations for University Administrators, Engs, Ruth C., NASPA Journal, 33(3):192-201, Spring 1996
[iv] A Case of Mass Hysteria or Toxic Fumes? : Considerations for University Administrators, Engs, Ruth C., NASPA Journal, 33(3):192-201, Spring 1996
[v] Hysteria, From: Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, Clinical Neuroscience by Joseph, R. Ph.D., www.brain-mind.com/Hysteria.html
[vi] A Case of Mass Hysteria or Toxic Fumes? : Considerations for University Administrators, Engs, Ruth C., NASPA Journal, 33(3):192-201, Spring 1996
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