Regarding urban African American youth, variables from multiple domains (e.g., personal background, school achievement, family-peer orientations, psychogenic orientations, health attitudes, and behaviors) have been shown to influence smoking initiation (Brunswick and Messeri 1984).
That history is somewhat unusual for mass psychogenic illness, which is not generally thought to target people with a particular psychological background.
Bourne is eventually diagnosed with psychogenic amnesia.
"There is a psychogenic aspect to this," he said.
Mass psychogenic illness produces real, not sham, physiological effects.
(See also psychogenic amnesia in memory abnormality; memory).
But there are also several documented cases of rash as a psychogenic symptom.
"It's not psychogenic; it's an organic disease of the brain.
Sometimes a psychogenic diagnosis is difficult to make even when people on the scene suspect it.
Mass psychogenic illness should always be suspected when it selectively affects adolescent schoolgirls.
