The definition and classification of Koro.

Attempts at defining and classifying Koro have been undertaken by various researchers over at least the last fifty years without any consensus emerging to date. The occurrence of Koro, not only in different parts of the world but also in association with varied morbidities, has of late diluted its primary identity as a culture-bound syndrome. Further, the DSM-IIIR and ICD-10 provisions to include culture-bound syndromes like Koro are open to various diagnostic options. Consideration was given to have it included in DSM-IV. One of the fundamental problems inherent in such attempts is the semantic confusion Koro generates in its basic phenomenological analysis. The present paper deals with some of these issues based on historical analysis of world Koro literature, and with comments on the future research agendum.

The social psychology of 'epidemic' koro.

The few isolated reports of individual koro exhibit a symptomatology indicative of major psychiatric conditions (ie. psychosis or affective disorder), and appear unrelated to collective episodes which involve social, cultural, cognitive and physiological factors in the diffusion of koro-related beliefs. Yet, koro 'epidemics' continue to be viewed as exemplifying mass psychopathology or irrationality. An examination of the similarities between koro 'outbreaks' and a sub-category of behaviour which has been loosely labeled as 'mass hysteria', suggests an alternative, non-psychopathological explanation. In reclassifying 'epidemic' koro as a collective misperception rather than a culture-bound syndrome, it is argued that koro is a rational attempt at problem-solving which involves conformity dynamics, perceptual fallibility and the local acceptance of koro-associated folk realities, which are capable of explaining such episodes as normal within any given population.