I heard about this book from an article on SOTT arguing that the rise of gender dysphoria (especially among teenaged girls) is a social contagion. Like cases of bulimia, multiple personality disorder, the more awareness there is of the condition, the more people 'get' it. Strange Contagion is about these and related phenomena, focusing on the suicide clusters at Gunn High in Palo Alto. I found the journalistic narrative style very annoying, but there are some really interesting tidbits of science interspersed as Kravetz relates his research journey to discover what was happening with the Palo Alto students, and how it could be fixed or at least mitigated. Also annoying is the lack of footnotes, or even chapter-specific references - just a bibliography, but aside from a few main authors mentioned in the text, there's no way to find the sources for a particular bit of research aside from just scanning through the list of sources.
The phenomena covered in the book make a good supplement to the section on hysteria in Ponerology, and are good examples of Dabrowski's second factor. What follow are some of the pieces he puts together in the book and some representative quotes.
He divides the different phenomena into three categories: infectious ideas, emotions and behaviors.
Media play a large role in spreading specific contagions, e.g. suicide clusters. For example, in 1984 an Austrian businessman committed suicide, sparking a cluster that lasted for almost a year - five suicides per week. Once newspapers started removing any mention of further suicides, the number of copycat suicides dropped 80%. Coverage should "not make [suicide] look viable or attractive to susceptible people." He doesn't mention it, but this should apply to coverage of terror attacks, terrorism in general, and mass shootings, too. But simply cutting back on media coverage doesn't solve the problem. The contagions still exist - there are still precipitating events and pre-existing susceptibilities.
Social contagions seem to spread by the mechanism of "unconscious attunement" (this would be sympathy as opposed to empathy in Dabrowski's terminology):
Ideas, feelings and behaviors flow within personal networks, e.g. "happiness connects people by up to three degrees of separation" and PTSD "cascades across no fewer than three generations" (I think Lobaczewski's paranoid characteropathy is related to this).
Bulimia combines the elements: ideas (body image, perfectionism), behavior (starvation, nutrient depletion), feelings (helplessness, hopelessness, anxiety, depression). After first being identified in 1980, bulimia spread like wildfire (e.g., affecting 15% of all-female student groups, e.g. sororities, sports teams, etc.). It wasn't just a case of existing cases coming to light - the actual number of cases skyrocketed. There is "a near-perfect link between mass media and eating disorder symptoms." The incidence on Fiji shot up after the introduction of Western TV shows.
"The more we make people aware of the problem, the more we expose others to it." But the cure seems to be similar to the cause: "unconsciously registering subtle cues" - observation and unconscious mirroring. Group sessions help bulimia sufferers:
But paradoxically, such groups are also "primary spreading agents" for the same reason. Exposure to really bad cases allows "participants to catch more sever eating disorder symptoms, dangerous behavioral modeling, and harmful attitudes toward treatment":
Cases shot up again in 1992, when Princess Diana went public about her own struggle with bulimia.
Different contagions affect different groups in varying degrees:
There's a good section on hysteria, where Kravetz connects "paranoia and anxieties with periods of rapid social and economic changes." In 19th century Europe, 20% of French people were sent to institutions for hysteria. "Hysteria [according to Bernheim] takes on the qualities of a social contagion, with the ability to manifest and spread over populations by way of mere suggestion."
He quotes an interesting study where researchers took the sweat of new skydivers and got subjects to inhale the nebulized fear-sweat:
Next he tackles the satanic ritual abuse hysteria of the 80s, which involved recanted accusations, unreliable witnesses, interpersonal disputes, etc.
"Sometimes going after the source of hysteria is the very thing that perpetuates it." He references the laughing illness in Tanzania in the early 60s. To show they were tackling the problem seriously, authorities shut down the schools where it was occurring. That just made things worse and the phenomenon spread. "Hysteria in particular spreads by the way we witness authority figures responding to it." The solution is obviously not to get caught up in the hysteria in the first place: "With no evidence to believe symptoms are real, they will completely vanish. Evidence supersedes fear." So it doesn't help when authorities try to solve things (e.g., by sending FBI/CIA/DHS to a small town worried about being attacked by al-Qaeda - doing so just confirms that their fears are justified, and makes them worse). In the same way, creating a supportive environment (as in the case of school suicide clusters) may just reinforce the thoughts that the children are in danger, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Next comes placebos and nocebos, a pretty standard account. But he points out that nocebos are stronger than placebos, and can produce a variety of painful symptoms.
That's just the first third or so from the book. More to come soon.
The phenomena covered in the book make a good supplement to the section on hysteria in Ponerology, and are good examples of Dabrowski's second factor. What follow are some of the pieces he puts together in the book and some representative quotes.
He divides the different phenomena into three categories: infectious ideas, emotions and behaviors.
Under the right circumstances, corralled within perfect conditions, thoughts spread, catch, activate, and - through certain people - proliferate to others. Like biological viruses, which begin to amass abilities, interact with our bodies, and replicate along the way, thoughts begin with random cues, gestures that harm nothing, and interact with the psychological characteristics of the host.
Kids wind up adopting the prevailing standards of those around them, an impetuous, unwelcome, and indiscriminating imitation, a mirroring of blind impulse. The more people there are who mirror a behavior within a particularly insular and dense community, the more these prominent features catch.
Media play a large role in spreading specific contagions, e.g. suicide clusters. For example, in 1984 an Austrian businessman committed suicide, sparking a cluster that lasted for almost a year - five suicides per week. Once newspapers started removing any mention of further suicides, the number of copycat suicides dropped 80%. Coverage should "not make [suicide] look viable or attractive to susceptible people." He doesn't mention it, but this should apply to coverage of terror attacks, terrorism in general, and mass shootings, too. But simply cutting back on media coverage doesn't solve the problem. The contagions still exist - there are still precipitating events and pre-existing susceptibilities.
Social contagions seem to spread by the mechanism of "unconscious attunement" (this would be sympathy as opposed to empathy in Dabrowski's terminology):
...social contagions are perfect emulations of others' thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. It's the difference between empathizing with a friend's feelings of joy, and actually experiencing the same sensation... we have no idea we've caught these experiences, or that they are running our lives in the background like a computer's operating system.
...peer effect and interpersonal influence spread kindness, alcohol addiction, loneliness, and even political mobilization.
Ideas, feelings and behaviors flow within personal networks, e.g. "happiness connects people by up to three degrees of separation" and PTSD "cascades across no fewer than three generations" (I think Lobaczewski's paranoid characteropathy is related to this).
Bulimia combines the elements: ideas (body image, perfectionism), behavior (starvation, nutrient depletion), feelings (helplessness, hopelessness, anxiety, depression). After first being identified in 1980, bulimia spread like wildfire (e.g., affecting 15% of all-female student groups, e.g. sororities, sports teams, etc.). It wasn't just a case of existing cases coming to light - the actual number of cases skyrocketed. There is "a near-perfect link between mass media and eating disorder symptoms." The incidence on Fiji shot up after the introduction of Western TV shows.
"The more we make people aware of the problem, the more we expose others to it." But the cure seems to be similar to the cause: "unconsciously registering subtle cues" - observation and unconscious mirroring. Group sessions help bulimia sufferers:
There was something about being in the presence of others who were trying to eat healthfully and also engaging in nourishing activities that began influencing healthy behaviors ... These tightly knit, highly influential social networks fostered ... motivation for positive behavior changes and stoked ... stamina ...
But paradoxically, such groups are also "primary spreading agents" for the same reason. Exposure to really bad cases allows "participants to catch more sever eating disorder symptoms, dangerous behavioral modeling, and harmful attitudes toward treatment":
...sitting within close range of others exposes people to the worst cases and leads patients to unintentionally contend for the worst symptoms. Treatment ... can do more damage than good by allowing the harsher and crueler strains to jump to new hosts.
Cases shot up again in 1992, when Princess Diana went public about her own struggle with bulimia.
Different contagions affect different groups in varying degrees:
Contagious weight gain spreads faster among women than men ... whereas gender matters little with social contagions like emotional burnout.
There's a good section on hysteria, where Kravetz connects "paranoia and anxieties with periods of rapid social and economic changes." In 19th century Europe, 20% of French people were sent to institutions for hysteria. "Hysteria [according to Bernheim] takes on the qualities of a social contagion, with the ability to manifest and spread over populations by way of mere suggestion."
He quotes an interesting study where researchers took the sweat of new skydivers and got subjects to inhale the nebulized fear-sweat:
The areas of the brain associated with fear, the hypothalamus and the amygdala, lit up when the volunteers unknowingly inhaled the fear-based sweat, indicating to the university lab "that there may be a hidden biological component to human social dynamics.
Next he tackles the satanic ritual abuse hysteria of the 80s, which involved recanted accusations, unreliable witnesses, interpersonal disputes, etc.
"Sometimes going after the source of hysteria is the very thing that perpetuates it." He references the laughing illness in Tanzania in the early 60s. To show they were tackling the problem seriously, authorities shut down the schools where it was occurring. That just made things worse and the phenomenon spread. "Hysteria in particular spreads by the way we witness authority figures responding to it." The solution is obviously not to get caught up in the hysteria in the first place: "With no evidence to believe symptoms are real, they will completely vanish. Evidence supersedes fear." So it doesn't help when authorities try to solve things (e.g., by sending FBI/CIA/DHS to a small town worried about being attacked by al-Qaeda - doing so just confirms that their fears are justified, and makes them worse). In the same way, creating a supportive environment (as in the case of school suicide clusters) may just reinforce the thoughts that the children are in danger, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Next comes placebos and nocebos, a pretty standard account. But he points out that nocebos are stronger than placebos, and can produce a variety of painful symptoms.
That's just the first third or so from the book. More to come soon.