Psychology of Rumors
Every company and organization, at some time or other, faces a crisis that includes rumors. How one deals with rumors, especially in the critical early phases of a crisis, can determine the outcome of the crisis.
Most crisis communications management is pattern recognition, and rumors follow predictable patterns. In fact, there's a formula that describes how rumors work and that provides a very useful tool for understanding how to kill false rumors and how to diminish the damage caused by true or partially true rumors.
Psychologists Gordon Allport and Leo Postman elaborate how the two factors of importance and ambiguity work together in their theory of psychology of rumors:
THE BASIC LAW OF RUMOR
The two essential conditions of importance and ambiguity seem to be related to rumor transmission in a roughly quantitative manner. A formula for the intensity of rumor might be written as follows:
R ~ i x a
In words this formula means that the amount of rumor in circulation will vary with the importance of the subject to the individuals concerned times the ambiguity of the evidence pertaining to the topic at issue. The relation between importance and ambiguity is not additive but multiplicative, for if either importance or ambiguity is zero, there is no rumor. Ambiguity alone does not sustain rumor. Nor does importance.
Here are some ways to think about the model quantitatively. Again, note the elements of the Allport and Postman Model of Rumor Dynamics:
R ~ i x a, where:
R is the reach, intensity, duration, and reliance on a rumor; i is the importance of the rumor to the hearer or reader, if true; and a is the level of ambiguity or uncertainty surrounding the rumor.
In other words, the reach, intensity, duration, and reliance on a rumor is roughly equivalent to the importance one attaches to the rumor if true, multiplied by ambiguity surrounding the rumor, especially surrounding its denial. Note that simply denying a rumor does not eliminate ambiguity; it may even increase it. Rather, eliminating ambiguity requires giving affirmative factual reasons for not relying on the rumor.
Corporate managements, however, have little appreciation for the seemingly arbitrary and somewhat confusing deadlines under which journalists work.
Fortunately, there is a formula that helps management overcome its natural reticence and to disclose quickly. It's a rough generalization, and in some ways an oversimplification. But it helps to clarify in corporate minds the necessity of acting quickly. It's the Rule of 45 Minutes, 6 Hours, 3 Days, and Two Weeks... Essentially, it's a reality-based observation of the news cycle and points at which one can influence the cycle.
45 Minutes: Within the first 45 minutes, give or take, of a news cycle you have maximum influence on the outcome of a story. If a rumor prompts a reporter to begin working on a story, the first 45 minutes are critical. During this time, only a small number of people, and possibly only one reporter, knows about the rumor and is working on a story.
6 Hours: Once a story crosses a wire service, is broadcast on television or radio, or appears on the internet, it is, at least for the moment, out of your control. It may still be possible eventually to control the rumor and even to kill the story. But now it will much more difficult. And it takes much longer. As a general rule, once a story is broadcast you can expect to have at least six hours of negative coverage.
3 Days: Once a story hits the daily newspapers, you can expect it to be alive for several days. During the day the story appears there is likely to be television and radio commentary about the story, as well as gossip among your customers, employees, and competitors.
2 Weeks: After the daily newspapers have had their run, there is still a further news cycle that includes weekly and semi-monthly magazines, industry trade publications, weekend newspaper wrap-up sections, and the Sunday morning talk shows. If a story has been alive for three days in the daily press it is unlikely to escape some notice from the weeklies and semi-monthlies. During this period you can still invoke the R ~ i x a formula to kill the rumor and prevent its further spread. But by then you will have suffered several weeks of negative coverage and reputation harm.
All of this suggests that it is a fundamental mistake for corporations to make decisions about crisis communications on their own routine timelines. They need to recognize that however arbitrary and at times irrational news media deadlines may seem, companies can control their own destinies better if they can kill rumors as early in a news cycle as possible.
Successfully employing both the R ~ i x a formula and the Rule of 45 Minutes, 6 Hours, 3 Days, and Two Weeks... can help prevent reputational damage and keep the company focused on its own agenda. Failure to recognize the power of these two formulas puts the company at the mercy of the rumor mill, gossip mongers, and the irrational-seeming dynamics of the news media.
Source: https://www.krisennavigator.de/Killing-Rumors-A-50-Year-Old-Mathematical-Formula-Is-Key-Tool-in-Managing.491.0.html
Effective dissemination of information builds on some key conditions:
1. Transparency of information flow.
2. Freedom of press and public information-FREE OF CENSORSHIP of any kind-let the people and the informed be judges.
3. Neutrality of information, if not, at least neutrality of the channels, platforms and media. Is it too hard to find it nowadays?
4. No insider privileged access-this is especially important for investment and share trading. Market efficiency is also important. But do we really find a market that is efficient? No since we have share trading market. Do we able to eliminate insiders who have privilege access? Not since, we do at the best have disclosure system. But these disclosure mechanisms are on self-declaration basis. And that’s how scandalous news of failure to honor the disclosure obligations come in.
5. Market maturity-you do NEED to assume recipients of the information are matured AND rational in evaluation of information AS WELL AS making calm and informed decisions. Again, hard. The more immature the recipients or players or actors or actresses in the market, the more likely they believe in myths, rumors, gossips and anything that are inflammatory in nature to stir up any irrational actions. Well, that’s how a market crash; and that is how a society breaks into riots. That’s even how a place nourishes extremism of all sorts, prejudice, bias, hate, misunderstandings of all sorts.
6. Integrity of data-of course, you need to have something creditable as ‘data’ and ‘information’ from the beginning. If it is unable to validate or verify whether a piece of news is reliable as information, how can you tell whether it is just rumors?
From a psychological perspective, human beings are NEVER rational, calm creatures. We are social animals. The good sides of this is we form bonds and intimacy and personal relations. The bad sides of it is we are NEVER neutral. We are tied to our bonds, our loyalty as group ‘accepted’ ‘norms’. Sometimes these bonds and loyalty make us survive better as a specie or as a group, in other times, these bonds drag us into hysterical behaviors, flamed responses, blind herds and hives group behaviors and even wars. For example, the two World Wars were all sorts of deeply entangled political alliances that could not sort out balance of powers.
Some people said rumors are invisible weapons that kill brutally without visible blood. What do you think?
