The Watercooler Effect

It was one week ago today that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. The news rebutted nasty speculation that Palin’s five-month-old son is actually her grandchild.

Political campaigns are fertile ground for rumors - remember the Obama-is-a-Muslim emails? - but beyond damaging reputations, unverifiable rumors can destroy livelihoods, destabilize markets, bolster sterotypes and drive wedges into communities. If we consider that Saddam Hussein spread rumors about having WMDs to intimidate his enemies, hearsay can even contribute to disaster on an international scale.

The 24-hour news cycle and widespread access to the Internet now fuel idle watercooler conversation and spread unverifiable information like wildfire. How and why rumors spread, and why it’s so difficult to squelch them is the subject of a new book, The Watercooler Effect, by Nicholas DiFonzo. He’s professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and he joins Word of Mouth from WXXI in Rochester.