Illness as an Emergent Norm or Doing What Comes Naturally

The sudden occurrence of outbreaks of sociogenic illness has only recently begun to receive scientific attention. Few reports have been published in the literature despite the apparent relatively high prevalence of such events. This chapter is an attempt to use social psychological factors and theory to understand such occurrences and to provide a set of theoretical explanations which can be generalized to other such events. To this end, labeling theory, emergent norms and coping theories are used. Examples from a variety of such events are used to integrate the explanation.