MASS PSYCHOGENIC ILLNESS IN ORGANIZATIONS - OVERVIEW

Published and unpublished reports of mass psychogenic illness, defined as the collective occurrence of physical symptoms and related beliefs among two or more persons in the absence of an identifiable pathogen, are reviewed with particular emphasis on organizational occurrences. A number of factors (e.g. boredom, sex‐role identification, interpersonal conflict, physical stress) are identified as potential precipitating conditions, and the contagion of symptoms is discussed in terms of the convergence–contagion dichotomy in collective behaviour suggested by Milgram & Toch (1969). 1979 The British Psychological Society