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mass hysteria  Mass hysteria (a.k.a. collective obsessive
behavior or collective hysteria) refers to the expression of
strong, inappropriate emotional or physical responsessuch as
irrational fears or hopes, or sicknessby groups of people to
beliefs based on suggestions, misunderstood facts, imagined
stimuli, communal reinforcement, or blindly following a false
authority  Recent examples of mass hysteria include the Satanic
ritual abuse panic, fear of alien abduction, fear of electro-
magnetic radiation, milk-drinking statues in India, the monkey-
man of New Delhi, the hospitalization of 30 people exposed to a
perfume they thought was carbon monoxide, and koro (shook yang)
in Singapore.  Other examples usually given of mass hysteria
include the Salem witch-hunt craze, St. John's (or St. Vitus)
dance, the Dutch tulip craze of the seventeenth century, and the
panic that allegedly ensued from the ra