Rumors have a way of slipping under our mental defenses before we think to question them. The best ones sidestep common sense entirely. “Think of the lawsuits parents filed over subliminal messages in heavy metal songs,” says Martin Bourgeois, a rumor researcher at Florida Gulf Coast University. “People believed Judas Priest was planting messages to make teenagers commit suicide; no one thought to ask, ‘Why would a rock band want its audience dead?’”
Most of us don’t like to think of ourselves as gullible. But we’re especially likely to accept as true—and do our best to spread—tales that have several specific characteristics that take aim at our best defenses.
At its core, a rumor is just an unverified scrap of information we pass among ourselves to make sense of the world. In one case study conducted at Ohio University by psychologist Mark Pezzo, students had heard that someone on campus had died of meningitis. The story spread because the anxious students were trying to find out what was going on: “Is the rumor true?” “How do you get meningitis?” “I heard that everyone on campus will need to have a painful spinal tap, did you hear that?” In the marketplace of misinformation, fit rumors survive and spread like epidemics, while unfit rumors die quick deaths. So what separates the fit from the unfit? What, in short, are the laws of effective rumors?
Psychology Today (Thanks SuZi)
What happened to tthe possible 9th law then?
well i listened to ozzy osbourne from like 12yrs old to this day and i don’t think its affected me. Not sure about judas preach.
8 and half law?…
rule number nine: if you start adding/changing bits of text in page titles people start rumors of hidden agendas?
Rumours could have been true .. but quite often people know only half of it or dont recall correctly or completely and that’s the kick off of a new story .. It’s as with being in a large circle with people and one whispers a sentence or small tale in someone’s ear on his/her left and that one whispers that word to the next one to the left etc .. the last one says out loud the word to the one who started … quite often it is changed.
Knowing these things, having experienced it, it is good to question stuff you hear till you hear it from the person it concerns him-/herself (if no one else it attached to the story otherwise you need to hear all people involved .. and mix them to get sort of an accurate story).
The truth can be unbelieveable, whereas the lie can be more easy to believe
Phillis
Rumour is spelt rumour in this country. You listen to too much American radio.
ta!
- I’m a half Yankie (sorry) and the article is American. I will endeavor to observe the Queen’s English more often – Phillis
I hate rumours, esp if they’re about yourself and are total rubbish!
It’s just a case of chinese whispers…..the more whispers, the bigger the rumour.
LC x
I second that Claire
Everyone embellishes it a little bit each time so they seem the most interesting.
I suppose a rumour doesn’t have to be about people does it?
We should start one on here see how far round the net we can get it.
x
(something nice of course. If there is such a thing as a nice rumour
)
Even though I’ve given up looking for clues etc just want to point out that that’s another twins picture.
x
My partner enjoys spreading ridiculous rumours in a hope that one day he will hear them from someone else. Last time we visited London, we were walking past a group of drinkers outside a bar when he piped up, in a slightly louder than normal voice ‘and thats why Paddington Bear is a racist’.
We got fed up with a mate bragging about where she lived, so we started calling where we live Stoho, New York style. She fell for it and pretty soon it got introduced into conversation. Oh how we laughed, evil-ly. Pit muffins is another word I’m ‘rumouring’ into the English language currently; extraneous flesh which hangs out either side of a lady’s bra in the armpit region. Think it’ll catch on?
‘Why would a rock band want its audience dead?’”
Isn’t that also a Bill Hicks quote?