Rumors never die—so stop them before they start
September 13, 2007 by Miki Saxon
Have you ever tried to quash a rumor or disabuse a friend about a cultural or political myth?
An article detailing fascinating new research shines a light on why it’s so difficult—and why it’s better not to try.
“The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.”
When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.
Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC.”
Rumors/myths in the workplace sap productivity, destroy morale, send attrition rates skyrocketing and make it more difficult to attract new talent. They can damage individuals, hurt your stock or scare off investors.
Whether you lead/manage/run a company/department/team this is disquieting information. 40 percent is not an insignificant number, it’s a number that needs to be addressed.
But there seems to be little that you can do.
“Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth…The psychologist acknowledged that such a statement might not be entirely accurate — issuing a denial or keeping silent are sometimes the only real options.
So is silence the best way to deal with myths? Unfortunately, the answer to that question also seems to be no.
Another recent study found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true, said Peter Kim, an organizational psychologist at the University of Southern California.”
Not encouraging.
In business, one thing you can do is stop rumors before they start by using extremely open communications. Don’t duck, don’t play word games and never lie, tell your people what’s going on—before they read it on the Net
Obviously negative rumours are detrimental to a leader’s (or anyone’s) mission. But if it’s not too energy-draining, wouldn’t it be better sometimes to just ignore it? On the whole I understand the research. I just wonder if giving rumors more attention than they deserve doesn’t give them more importance than they deserve, and therefore give them more “power”. Interesting research.
I thought the same thing, at least in some instances, but after reading the research I honestly don’t know. One could assume that small ones could be ignored, but unfortunately small ones frequently turn into big ones. That said, you still have to pick your battles.
Obviously, since humans talk, there will always be some rumors circulating. But on subjects of consequence, it seem to me that extremely open communications is the way to reduce their impact, at least partially. If you could reduce the 40% to 20% it would be worth.