Note 65 — Chapter II · Catastrophe and Social Psychology

M. Dide, a French psychologist, regards “the hypnosis produced by emotional shock—and this occurs not only in war but in other great catastrophies as well—as genetically a defence reaction, like natural sleep whose function according to him is primarily prophylactic against exhaustion and fatigue, ... it is comparable to the so-called death-shamming of animals.” (Dide, M., Les émotions et la guerre (Paris, 1918), Review of, Psychological Bulletin, vol. xv, no. 12, Dec., 1918, p. 441.)