Faith Middleton Show: The World Of Rumors

The Power of rumor, It's not all Facebook and TMZ.

In The Watercooler Effect, psychologist Nicholas DiFonzo explores the anatomy of rumors and probes how they flourish at the world's "watercoolers."

Are rumors the same as gossip?  Are rumors mostly problematic, or just part of humans being humans?

To Rumor is Human
Why are rumors such a regular part of peoples’ experience? What is it about being human that sets the stage for rumor activity? The answers can be found in two fundamental features of human nature. First, people are social and relational entities. There is something especially “we” about our encounter with existence, even for the solitary loners among us. John Donne’s memorable poetic phrase “No man is an island” suggests this sentiment. Like most creatures we seem to be designed for social interaction. We talk together, eat together, work together, we trade, barter, and bicker. A large part of what it means to be human is to communicate with one another. We also view ourselves in relation to other persons—a man may be a father, a friend, or a follower. As psychologist Susan T. Fiske put it, we are fundamentally social beings.

Second, humans have a deeply rooted motivation to make sense of the world. From ancient times men and women have been conceived as rational embodied entities; flesh and blood creatures in which reside the faculties of sensing, perceiving, thinking, deciding, believing, and choosing. In other words we are sense-making beings. To make sense is to give meaning to our sensations, to put a context around them so that they gain significance and fit into an understanding that coheres. It means looking at the picture side rather than the tangled underside of a woven tapestry. To make sense is to put our experiences into perspective so that they can be understood, known about, navigated, and predicted. Without the ability to make sense, our world would be a “blooming, buzzing confusion.” Making sense of the world makes sense.

So, we are fundamentally social beings and we possess an irrepressible instinct to make sense of the world. Put these ideas together and we get shared sensemaking: We make sense of life together. Rumor is perhaps the quintessential shared sensemaking activity. It may indeed be the predominant means by which we make sense of the world together.

(Excerpt from The Watercooler Effect                                                                                                     Courtesy Penguin Group)