Reuters’ fact-checkers claim that there is “no evidence of pandemic ‘mass formation psychosis,'” effectively playing the role of detectives who investigate themselves in a criminal investigation.
The publication consulted with experts who deny any evidence showing that groups of people are suffering from any form of pandemic-related psychosis.
According to the Reuters report, which was published on January 8, the term “mass formation psychosis” is “not an academic term recognized in the field of psychology, nor is there evidence of any such phenomenon occurring in the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple experts in crowd psychology have told Reuters.”
The term, which is synonymous with “mass hysteria” and “mass psychosis,” rose in popularity following the appearance of Dr. Robert Malone on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Malone, one of the co-creators of mRNA vaccines, described “mass formation psychosis” as a phenomenon in which a highly educated population can go “barking mad” from sheer hysteria.
Malone cited the rise in anti-Semitism in 1920s and 30s Germany compared to the present-day response to the pandemic — particularly regarding why people comply with public health measures like masking up even in the absence of concrete scientific proof of its efficacy.
Malone suggested that this condition occurs when a society “becomes decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense… And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis.”
“They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere… They will follow that person – it doesn’t matter whether they lie to them or whatever, the data are irrelevant,” he added.
On Joe Rogan, Dr Robert Malone suggests we are living through a mass formation psychosis.
He explains how and why this could happen, and its effects.
He draws analogy to 1920s/30s Germany “they had a highly intelligent, highly educated population, and they went barking mad” pic.twitter.com/wZpfMsyEZZ
— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) January 1, 2022
Following Malone’s appearance on the podcast, online searches for the phrase “mass formation psychosis” spiked, as seen in Google’s worldwide trends.
The term also took off on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, where it is being used to describe people who exhibit irrational behaviour in response to the pandemic – such as videos where individuals harass others for not wearing a mask in public.
Mask Nazis are mass produced at the mass formation psychosis factory. pic.twitter.com/J4JNzzaaVU
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) January 3, 2022
I'm not a scientist but I'm pretty sure healthy people spending hours in line to get a virus test is mass formation psychosis in action.
— thebradfordfile (@thebradfordfile) January 2, 2022
Experts who spoke to Reuters deny that any such condition is afflicting the public.
As per Reuters:
Reuters also spoke to Steven Reicher, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews, who has studied crowd psychology for more than 40 years. He described the concept of a “mass psychosis” as “more metaphor than science, more ideology than fact.”
“It arises out of mass society theories and crowd psychology theories which developed in the 19th century, and which reflected a fear of the masses,” he said. “The claim was that people in the mass lose their sense of identity and their ability to reason, they regress to an inferior mental state where they are manipulable by unscrupulous leaders.
“It has been totally discredited by contemporary work on groups and crowds.”
The article continues with more quotes from other experts who deny that there is any group pathology in play and that the claim is unsupported by credible evidence.
Reuters’ verdict is that the claim is “missing context,” that the term is “not recognized among academics,” and that “modern research into crowd psychology has shown that crowds do not behave in mindless or non-individualistic ways.”
The woke mob would beg to differ.
