A rumor is an unsubstantiated story or claim that spreads from person to person in a community without verification. It may be false, but it can also have attitudinal effects, such as sullying a company’s reputation (“Corporation x contributes to the Church of Satan”) or fomenting hatred among groups (“Rumors that Police Department y beat an indigenous Australian to death with their bicycles caused rioting in Sydney”). Alternatively, rumors can have behavioral impacts, such as reducing sales (“Rumors about a bug that will erase your hard drive have already reduced computer sales”) or preventing people from volunteering for disaster relief (“Rumors that the water in New Orleans is toxic kept many people from participating in rescue operations after Hurricane Katrina”).
Some people tell rumors to enhance their relationships, e.g., “I heard that your university is excellent.” Others do so to improve their self-esteem, e.g., by putting other groups down so they can appear superior. Such rumor-telling is often considered deceitful, although there are exceptions.
Researchers distinguish between rumors and gossip, in which the former involves statements about public matters, and the latter concerns private and trivial matters. They have found that rumors tend to be more likely to be factual than gossip, but they are not always. The truth of a rumor depends on several factors, such as the nature of the story, the source of the information, and whether the story is repeated.
In addition to the aforementioned factors, the accuracy of rumors is affected by social network mechanisms. In a field study of soldiers in World War II, the ability to check on the veracity of a rumor increases its accuracy; and rumors spread serially with interaction between each teller-listener pair are more accurate than those that do not. Rumors are also more accurate when they agree with group axioms and ideas.
Other variables in rumor accuracy include the teller’s motivations, the subject matter of the rumor, and how it is presented. People who are more anxious, or in an anxiety-lifting situation, tend to create rumors to relieve their insecurities. In a study of a workplace, employees in a high-stress environment were more likely to start and perpetuate rumors than those in a low-stress environment.
Managers need to understand the nuances of rumor to manage them effectively. A rumor can have significant impacts on organizational behavior, such as reducing morale, trust in management, job satisfaction, productivity, and intention to leave. It is also important to distinguish between a rumor and a lie, since the two can have very different consequences. The effectiveness of rumor control is therefore crucial to the success of any organization. The best way to do this is to have a plan for dealing with inconclusive rumor investigations. This could include creating widely-trusted neutral intermediaries who systematically contact parties involved in the rumor to gather further information and attempt to verify its accuracy. The final step is to share the information with the rest of the workforce.