Robert E. Bartholomew

The Sociologist ✧ Specialising in Mass Hysteria & Social Panics

PhD - Medical Sociology

Honorary Senior Lecturer
Department of Psychological Medicine
University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand

Research Fellow
Center for Inquiry
Amherst, New York

Research Interests

Cultural relativism; Ethnographic diversity and human tolerance; Southeast Asian ‘psychiatric’ disorders (amok, latah, koro, spirit possession); History of psychiatry; Mass psychogenic illness and conversion disorder; History of Māori racial discrimination in New Zealand; Post-partum psychosis; Gender studies; Deception by anthropological informants; Collective behaviour (rumour, gossip, fads, crazes, manias, moral panics, stampedes, urban legends, community threat panics, riots, ‘cults,’ social movements, folie a deux); History of witchcraft; False Memory Syndrome; Social delusions; Media hoaxes and the history of tabloid journalism; Critical thinking; Psychology of ghosts and hauntings; Contested medical conditions and claims (Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Personality Disorder, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Sick Building Syndrome, Repetition Strain Injury, Facilitated Communication, Morgellons Disease); Mass media influence on society; Fantasy-prone personality; Human perceptual fallibility; Conformity dynamics; Pseudoscience; Cryptozoology (community ‘monster’ panics) Social history of Unidentified Flying Objects in the United States; Social history of the Loch Ness and Lake Champlain ‘Monsters’; Islam in Malaysia; Medicalization of deviance (the inappropriate placement of medical labels onto unfamiliar or unpopular non-western behaviours); Psychological impact of chemical and biological terrorism scares; New England folklore; Malaysian folklore and supernatural beliefs (Jinn, toyol, hantu, Bunian); History of minority religious movements; and Human rights and social justice among Indigenous peoples.

Future projects