The Toyota Recalls - A Mass Delusion?

Numerous incidents of delusional thinking have occurred in the past, including the Salem Witch Trials, The War of the Worlds radio broadcast by Orson Welles, the Incredible Monkey Man Panic...

Floor mat problem? (Photo: archie99.wordpress.com)

(SALEM, Ore.) - I won't bore you with all the details of the much-publicized Toyota recalls, you've had a year to absorb them. After intense scrutiny of the gas pedals, the floor mats, and exhaustive tests of the electronics, a much more sinister cause is being suspected - a mass delusion.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Photo by Bob Pearce: smh.com.au

No less than Steve Wozniak of Apple fame had fanned the flames of electronic interference caused by cell phones or some as-yet undetermined source, but after months of testing it was no cigar.

At least one electronics engineer claimed interference couldn't be the cause because cell phones generate AC and car electronics are DC.

Well, it's not that simple - and shame on the engineer I'm quoting for saying so. Electronic pulses that are used in digital electronics like the new-age throttle controls are composed of the addition of the odd harmonics of the fundamental frequency of a sine wave, and a pulse contains a high-frequency AC component in the rise and fall time of the pulse. Also, in rare instances, AC can be rectified to DC by certain materials. So the interference theory may yield an answer at some point.

I'm sorry you had to endure that last paragraph, but somebody had to say it. The dynamics of mass delusions are an accepted category of psychology, and is also known as collective behavior or crowd psychology. Wikipedia has some excellent information on the subject. Briefly, in stressful situations involving large numbers of people, the mind fixates on certain aspects that are amplified beyond normal perceptions by their collective presence. It may involve an actual crowd of people, or a group connected by the mass media, as in the case of the Toyota recalls. The large number of Toyota vehicles on the road, including many makes and models, would make the owners a prime potential source of delusional thinking.

When testifying before the House, Toyota officials were pressed for a definitive answer as to whether the recall nightmare was over. Their answer: "Not totally." After initially dismissing the alarming reports of racing throttles, Toyota responded with a barrage of recalls and possible fixes after several deaths occurred. But the true nature of the phenomenon remains controversial.

Numerous incidents of delusional thinking have occurred in the past, including the Salem Witch Trials, The War of the Worlds radio broadcast by Orson Welles, the Incredible Monkey Man Panic, the Fan Deaths, the Halifax Slasher, and the infamous Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. No doubt other such panics have occurred which were never properly identified.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/23/toyota-recalls-wont-total_n_473775.html
http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/Government-looks-into-cell-phones-as-cause-of/d84EfEzJ7k6dgFjUoRljnw.cspx
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123341958
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/12/2010/01/toyota_recall_updated.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria

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