We've all become familiar with viral After reading this, see our leaflet contagion. ‘The transgender craze’ for how this concept relates to the surge This briefing explains the concept of in transgenderism in recent social contagion. years.
Defining social contagion Beliefs, feelings and behaviours spread quickly. At times this examples of social contagions can be contagious. We all know can seem almost inexplicable. and how they spread, including people whose enthusiasm is But psychological or other how Christians should infectious. But harmful and manipulative techniques, understand this phenomenon. irrational things can also spread whether used deliberately or not, from person to person. This is can convince people to believe or often called ‘social contagion’. behave irrationally. It covers many things, from the Many social contagions rapid spread of anorexia and are now being spread through self-harm among young people online pseudo-communities. to outbreaks of mass hysteria. These can play a decisive role Even some medical symptoms in manipulating people. They have been found to be socially pressure others to engage in contagious. damaging activities and so spread Often ‘contagions’ can appear the contagion. to come out of nowhere and This briefing looks at
THE WERTHER EFFECT
The ‘Werther Effect’ is an in the 18th century. The novel example of what are known is about a young man, Werther, today as social contagions. It caught up in a love triangle. refers to copycat suicides, often Tragically, he eventually kills following a highly publicised case. himself. The term comes from a As the book's popularity grew series of suicides across across Europe, some readers shot Europe after the themselves with the same kind of publication of pistol Werther used in the novel. Johann Wolfgang von The Sorrows One woman even threw herself Goethe and of Young into a river clutching a copy of the his book The Werther book.1 Sorrows of Young Werther Social contagion and mass hysteria
There are many accounts of ‘mass hysteria’ and ‘collective delusions’ in history. These dramatic cases show how they can spread between people.
THE 1518 ‘DANCING PLAGUE’ TANGANYIKA ‘LAUGHTER In July 1518, Mrs Troffea began to dance in the streets of Strasbourg. During the next few days, more than 30 others EPIDEMIC’ joined her dancing. Mystified physicians concluded that ‘overheated blood’ In 1962, three students was the cause. Town councillors built a stage and even at a school in Kashasha, employed musicians, hoping that the afflicted might ‘dance Tanganyika (now off’ the sickness. This only made matters worse, and around Tanzania), suddenly 400 others joined the mania. Reports say some danced until experienced attacks of they died of exhaustion. laughter and crying, each This is only one example of the medieval ‘dancing plagues’ lasting several hours. that historians now believe were caused by hysterical This occurred for up to contagions.2 16 days. The symptoms spread to another 92 pupils, eventually forcing the school to close. Returning home, the children brought the contagion back to their local villages. Within a few months, one village saw 217 people affected and more schools were shut. When the school re-opened the ‘laughter epidemic’ re-emerged. PANIC IN SCHOOLS Some estimate around 1,000 people were A surprising number of mass affected. Pupils claimed affected and 14 schools hysteria cases take place in to have been chased by a shut over a two and a schools. bearded man dressed in half year period.5 Most In 2016, several children black.3 attribute this to hysterical at Elsa Perea Flores School That same year a spate contagion. in Peru began fainting, of similar outbreaks took screaming, experiencing place in schools in Malaysia. seizures and frothing at the Officials struggled to handle mouth. This spread the situation, and many to around schools were forced to close. 80 pupils, One observer said: “It with many was mass hysteria season hospitalised, and cases were happening and even non-stop, spreading from teachers one school to another”.4 being Social contagion and problem behaviour
Academics describe self-harm – and other behaviours like drug-taking and eating disorders – as ‘socially contagious’. For many, these behaviours are ‘coping strategies’ that try to address underlying struggles. While coping strategies can sometimes alleviate stress, the 'relief' is short-lived and they do not address the underlying issues. Harmful behaviour must be repeated for any relief to continue.
Group settings reinforce and help spread these addictive behaviours in several ways.
‘CO-RUMINATION’ IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY
This is where a group of A problem behaviour can to the vulnerable. Group friends keep dwelling on come to define a social members who consider their shared anxieties. group and its members. A leaving the lifestyle Through continual subculture is born. Some face rejection from the discussion and speculation online communities centre community. They may even they can dramatically on self-harm or eating feel the behaviour defines intensify each other’s disorders. They foster a who they are. One person distress. The sense of deep sense of identity and describes “being a mess” as companionship means purport to offer shelter their “entire identity”. group members spur one another on in problem behaviour. Studies show co- rumination leads to higher levels of anxiety.6
PEER PRESSURE AND SOCIAL STATUS
Research shows that various forms, including status and approval from the problem behaviours like through ‘advice’, blackmail group. Socially rejected people drug-taking, self-harm and or rumours. Going further are particularly vulnerable eating disorders spread in the problem behaviour because they are more likely through group pressure. is celebrated and leads to to cluster in groups promoting This pressure can come in individuals gaining social these harmful behaviours.7 Case-study: Anorexia
Anorexia contagions have been observed provoke each other to lose more weight, since the 1980s. Shockingly, they spread even encourage sharing ‘progress’, express anger within peer groups at residential clinics. Here, towards outsiders and share in each other’s anorexia is viewed as a social identity, with pain. Attempted interventions are often seen others pressured to imitate. Deanne Jade, as attacking the identity.9 In the words of one founder of the National Centre for Eating sufferer: Disorders, says: “I had an illness; I had something few “…I ask myself if an eating disorder unit others had; I was special. The anorexia is the best place for an impressionable gave me an identity and made me an young girl to be… As any inpatient will individual.”10 tell you, a specialist unit is the best place Accessing the pro-Ana community on social to learn how to be really, really good at media is easy. A quick search reveals a stream anorexia… Some patients have reported of shocking content. One study found that bullying and intimidation by the hard- merely viewing pro-Ana websites made people core cases…”8 see themselves as heavier, reporting a greater likelihood of thinking about their weight.11 Some websites depict anorexia as a Some sites offer advice on how to trick goddess called Ana; an authoritative voice doctors or carers into thinking you haven’t giving direction and identity. Others look been starving yourself.12 Networks like professional, offering diet tips, weight-loss pills Instagram and Tumblr have tried to restrict and laxatives. The online ‘pro-Ana’ community such content, but the material is still rife and embraces anorexia as a lifestyle choice. They draws in vulnerable people.13
Tips for hiding anorexia
“Leave dirty dishes around the house (example: pour a little milk in a bowl...)”
“Wear nail polish to hide the discolouring in your nails from lack of nutrients.” The power of suggestion
Some popular entertainers spectacularly reveal the mind’s vulnerability to suggestion.Derren Brown persuades his subjects to sit in cold water as though it were a warm bath or drink vinegar like orange juice. He has even convinced some that he was invisible.14 In tests for new medicines, many sick people can experience genuine benefits from taking a new pill. That’s why placebos are always given to one group and the genuine drug to another in order to test its effectiveness. The nocebo effect is the opposite: the suggestion that someone will suffer negative symptoms leads to the symptoms themselves. The nocebo effect can spread by social contagion.
THE NOCEBO EFFECT
In one experiment, nocebo expert Fabrizio suffer the worst headaches. Benedetti took a group of students into the Analysis of the students’ saliva revealed a Alps. He suggested to one of them that thin change in processes which also occurs in air could produce migraines. This rumour cases of altitude headache.15 Benedetti said: reportedly spread to more than a quarter of “The brain biochemistry changed in the the group and those who heard it began to ‘socially infected’ individuals”.16
Of course, suggestion requires a suggestible subject. But it might only take a little twinge of pain, or some small abnormality, to make someone suggestible and get them to think: “maybe I am unwell”. Even more people are likely to be taken in by the suggestion if they then begin to show symptoms of some kind.
We can see four parts to this: Many cases of mass hysteria involve the power of 1. The person is open to suggestion: suggestion. A rumoured gas attack led 35 people to experience 2. The suggestion is made fainting, headaches and nausea. The reality: someone had that they have or soon sprayed a harmless cleaning product.17 will have a particular condition. Reports of a virus saw more than sixty factory workers experience 3. The idea takes root, numbness, dizziness and producing psychosomatic vomiting. The reality: no virus was found. The US Public symptoms. Health Service said the cause was hysterical contagion.18
4. ‘Social contagion’ results. Worry about ‘electro-sensitivity’ led sufferers to experience The more people that sickness and insomnia. The reality: sufferers were just exhibit symptoms, the as likely to feel the same way when exposed to sham more convincing the transmitters that don’t emit any electromagnetic waves.19 suggestion becomes. A biblical view of social contagion
In a fallen world it is no surprise that people can Drug-taking, self-harm and eating disorders behave irrationally or inexplicably. The Bible are sad products of a society that has points out how absurd it is to bow down to an undermined the family and spurned biblical idol made of half a log, while the other half is morality. Many, including young people, struggle burned (Isaiah 44:13-20). with poor mental health, feel directionless and Many examples of irrational group or mob lack identity. behaviour are found in Scripture. The hundreds Christians want to see people protected of prophets of Baal cut themselves “until their from dangerous contagions that entrap rather blood flowed” to try to provoke an answer from than help them. It is our calling to “shine like a non-existent deity (1 Kings 18). God’s own stars” and “hold out the word of life” (Philippians people, delivered from slavery by a miraculous 2:15-16). In Christ, people can escape display of God’s power, are nonetheless ready self-hatred and find divine direction, total to choose a leader to take them back to Egypt restoration and everlasting love. when difficulty comes (Numbers 14:4). The recent explosion in gender confusion Romans 1 is clear that people intentionally and transgender ideology is one area that suppress what they know deep down about desperately needs this Christian response. The God — his existence, power and nature. Nothing NHS Gender Identity Development Service has could be more irrational than exchanging the seen a more than 3,000 per cent increase in truth of gracious loving God for a lie! referrals in the last decade; 75 per cent of those The only true source of meaning and identity on the waiting list are female. is lost if people ignore God. They are left Our separate publication,‘The fruitlessly trying to find purpose in other things. transgender craze’ argues that This search becomes ever more detached from these unusually rapid trends are reality as society moves further from biblical being driven by a social contagion, standards — the exchanging of truth for lies like some of the examples found increases. in this briefing.
References available at christian.org.uk/Socialcontagion-ref
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