Perception is reality.
That's not just a cynical bumper sticker. There's real science behind it now.
Hearing a rumor can make you not only think it might be true, and believe it -- hearing a rumor can actually implant false memories that it actually happened to you.
Psychologists Gabrielle Principe at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania ran an experiment with school children and rumors.
Principe and the researchers divided up children into four groups:
- 25 percent of the children experienced an event
- 25 percent overheard adults talking about rumors of that event
- 25 percent heard about the rumor from fellow classmates
- 25 percent were a control group that heard and saw nothing unusual at all
Two weeks later, the two groups of children who merely heard the rumor were just as likely to report that they witnessed and experienced that event as the children who actually did.
This is the power of rumors.
Not that they get to you believe that something might be true, or that you think it's true.
Rumors can make you believe you saw it happen.
This is useful to know, because our natural reaction is to think a witness to an event would have a much stronger memory than somebody than heard a rumor of that event. Putting such a witness forward to the press and public would perfect for rebutting the rumor, right? If rumors actually plant false memories, it won't be effective at all.
You have to attack rumors in other ways.