AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR

BY GORDON W. ALLPORT AND LEO POSTMAN

At old as human society itself, ramon have at Harvard University, present answers to
flourished in wan and depressions, in peace some of these question!. They seek to state
and prosperity. Why do they exist? What the basic law of rumor. Such factors as pro-

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motives do they satisfy? Can they be scien- jection, distortion, and self-justification are
tifically understood, and possibly controlled? discussed, and illustrated with case material.
Gordon W. Allport, Professor of Psychology The study is based in part on the authors'
in the Department of Social Relations, and forthcoming book, entitled The Psychology of
Leo Postman, Instructor of Psychology, both Rumor.

JA-UMOR became a problem of grave national concern in the frenzied

years 1942 and 1943. At that time a high official in the Office of War
Information gave a reason for rumor and a recipe for its control that
were partially—but only partially—correct. "Rumor," he said, "flies in
the absence of news. Therefore, we must give the people the most
accurate possible news, promptly and completely."
It is true that rumor thrives on lack of news. The almost total
absence of fear-inspired rumors in Britain during the darkest days of
the Blitz was due to the people's conviction that the government was
giving full and accurate news of the destruction and that they, there-
fore, \new the worst. When people are sure they know the worst, they
are unlikely to darken the picture further by inventing unnecessary
bogies to explain their anxieties to themselves.
At the same time, it would not be hard to prove that rumor also flies
thickest when news is most plentiful. There were few rumors about
our desperate losses at Pearl Harbor until the papers themselves had
published an official report on the disaster. Although there were scat-
tered rumors of Hitler's death before the papers told of the assassina-
tion attempt in the summer of 1944, there were many more immediately
afterward. The deluge of peace rumors in late April and early May,
1945, coincided with the open discussion of the approaching collapse
of Germany in the press. Similarly, a flood of rumors swamped the
country during the final hours before V-J Day. Premature stories of
the war's end spread faster than they could be officially denied. One of
the odd episodes in the history of rumor was the fact that, within a
few hours after the release of the news of President Roosevelt's sudden
on April 16, 1945, tales spread regarding the death of many
 502 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
notable persons, including General Marshall, Bing Crosby, and Mayor
La Guardia. If public events are not newsworthy, they are unlikely to
breed rumors, and under certain circumstances the more prominence
the press gives the news—especially momentous news—the more nu-
merous and serious are the rumored distortions this news will undergo.
The OWI official made his error in assuming that rumor is a purely

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intellectual commodity, something one substitutes, jaute de mieux, for
reliable information. He overlooked the fact that when events of great
importance occur, the individual never stops at a mere acceptance of
the event. His life is deeply affected. In his mind the emotional over-
tones of the event breed all sorts of fantasies. He seeks explanations
and imagines remote consequences.
And yet the official did state, inexactly and too simply, a part of
the formula for rumor-spreading and rumor-control. Rumor travels
when events have importance in the lives of individuals and when the
news received about them is either lacking or subjectively ambiguous.
The ambiguity may arise from the fact that the news is not clearly
reported, or from the fact that conflicting versions of the news have
reached the individual, or from his incapacity to comprehend the news
he receives.
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 plain words this formula means that the amount of rumor in circu-
lation 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 addi-
tive but multiplicative, for if either importance or ambiguity is zero,
there is no rumor. For instance, an American citizen is not likely to
spread rumors concernmg the market price for camels in Afghanistan
because the subject has no importance for him, ambiguous though it
certainly is. He is not disposed to spread gossip concerning the doings
of the people in Swaziland, because he doesn't care about them. Am-
biguity alone does not launch or sustain rumor.
Nor does importance. Although an automobile accident in which
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 503
I lose my leg is of calamitous significance to me, I am not susceptible
to rumors concerning the extent of my injury because I know the facts.
If I receive a legacy and know the amount involved, I am resistant to
rumors that exaggerate its amount. Officers in the higher echelons of
the army were less susceptible to rumor than was GI Joe, not because
coming events were less important to them, but because, as a rule, the

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plans and strategies were better known to them. Where there is no
ambiguity, there can be no rumor.
MOTIVES IN RUMOR-MONGERING

When we say that rumor does not circulate unless the topic has im-
portance for the individual who hears and spreads the story, we are
calling attention to the motivational factor in rumor. Any human need
may provide the motive power to rumor. Sex interest accounts for
much of gossip and most of scandal; anxiety is the power behind the
macabre and threatening tales we so often hear; hope and desire under-
lie pipedream rumors; hate sustains accusatory tales and slander.
It is important to note here the complex purpose that rumor serves.
The aggressive rumor, for example, by permitting one to slap at the
thing one hates, relieves a primary emotional urge. But at the same
time—in the same breath—it serves to justify one in feeling as he does
about the situation, and to explain to himself and to others why he
feels that way. Thus rumor rationalizes while it relieves.
But to justify our emotional urges and render them reasonable
is not the only kind of rationalization. Quite apart from the pressure
of particular emotions, we continually seek to extract meaning from
our environment There is, so to speak, intellectual pressure along
with the emotional. To find a plausible reason for a confused situation
is itself a motive; and this pursuit of a "good closure" (even without
the personal factor) helps account for the vitality of many rumors. We
want to know the why, how, and wherefore of the world that sur-
rounds us. Our minds protest against chaos. From childhood we are
asking why, why? This "effort after meaning" is broader than our
impulsive tendency to rationalize and justify our immediate emotional
state. Curiosity rumors result. A stranger whose business is unknown
to the small town where he takes up residence will breed many legends
designed to explain to curious minds why he has come to town. An
odd-looking excavation in a city inspires fanciful explanations of its
504 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
purpose. The atomic bomb, but slightly understood by the public,
engenders much effort after meaning.

PROJECTION

When a person's emotional state is reflected, unknown to himself,

in his interpretation of his environment, we speak of projection. He is

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failing to employ exclusively impartial and objective evidence in his
explanations of the reality surrounding him.
In dreams everyone projects. Only after we awaken do we recog-
nize that our private wishes, fears, or revengeful desires have been
responsible for what came to pass in our dream-imaginations. The
child asleep dreams of finding mountains of candy; the inferior youth
asleep triumphs on the athletic field; the apprehensive mother dreams
of the death of her child.
Daydreams too are projective. Relaxed on a couch, our minds pic-
ture events that actualize our hopes, desires, fears. We find ourselves
in fantasy successful, satisfied, or sometimes defeated and ruined, all
according to our temperament or type of emotion that is for the time
being steering the associational train of thought.
Rumor is akin to the daydream at second hand. If the story we
hear gives a fancied interpretation of reality that conforms to our
secret lives, we tend to believe and transmit it.

A GENERALIZATION OF THE RUMOR FORMULA

We may summarize our discussion thus far in the following way:

Rumor is set in motion and continues to travel in a homogeneous
social medium by virtue of the strong interests of the individuals in-
volved in the transmission. The powerful influence of these interests
requires the rumor to serve largely as a rationalizing agent: explaining,
justifying, and providing meaning for the emotional interest at work.
At times the relationship between the interest and the rumor is so
intimate that we must describe the rumor simply as a projection of an
altogether subjective emotional condition.

THE BASIC COURSE OF DISTORTION

It is a notable fact that the same pattern of distortion is found in

both the changes which an individual's perceptions and memories
suffer in the course of time, and in the transformations a talc under-
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 505
goes as it travels from person to person. This pattern of change in both
social and individual memory has three aspects: leveling, sharpening,
and assimilation.
As a rumor travels, it tends to grow shorter, more concise, more
easily grasped and told. In successive versions, more and more of the
original details are leveled out, fewer words are used and fewer items

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are mentioned. In our laboratory experiments on rumor we found that
the number of details retained declines most sharply at the beginning
of a series of reproductions. The number continues to decline, more
slowly, in each successive version. The trend is the same as is typically
found in individual retention, but "social memory" accomplishes as
much leveling within a few minutes as individual memory accom-
plishes in weeks of time.
As leveling of details proceeds, the remaining details are neces-
sarily sharpened. Sharpening refers to the selective perception, reten-
tion, and reporting of a few details from the originally larger context.
Although sharpening, like leveling, occurs in every series of reproduc-
tions, the same items are not always emphasized. Much depends on
the constitution of the group in which the tale is transmitted. Those
items will be selected for sharpening which are of particular interest
to the reporters. There are, however, some determinants of sharpening
which are virtually universal: for example, items distinguished by
unusual size, and by striking, attention-getting phrases.
What is it that leads to the obliteration of some details and the
pointing-up of others? And what accounts for all transpositions, im-
portations, and other falsifications that mark the course of rumor ? The
answer is to be found in the process of assimilation which has to do
with the powerful attractive force exerted upon rumor by habits, inter-
ests, and sentiments existing in the listener's mind. In the telling and
retelling of a story, for example, there is marked assimilation to the
principal theme. Items become sharpened or leveled to fit the leading
motif of the story, and they become consistent with this motif in such
a way as to make the resultant story more coherent, plausible, and
well-rounded. Assimilation often conforms to expectation. Things are
perceived and remembered the way they usually are. Most important
of all, assimilation expresses itself in changes and falsifications that
reflect the agent's deeply rooted emotions, attitudes and prejudices.
Leveling, sharpening, and assimilation, even though distinguished
506 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
for purposes of analysis, are not independent mechanisms. They func-
tion simultaneously, and reflect the singular subjectifying process that
results in the autism and falsification that are so characteristic of rumor.
THE FUSION OF THEMES IN RUMOR

To enumerate the emotions which launch and sustain rumors is

a difficult task because the motivational pattern is always complex and

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often runs very deep. One scheme of classification, however, based on
the dominant type of motivational tension reflected in rumors, was
attempted during the war.1 The analysis of 1000 wartime stories cur-
rent in 1942 indicated that nearly all seemed to express either hostility,
fear, or wish. To sort rumors in terms of their motivational main-
springs was probably much easier in wartime than in peacetime. But
even in wartime the hate-fear-wish trichotomy is much oversimplified.
Actually a fear rumor (e.g., concerning an enemy atrocity) may have
elements of sexual interest, of adventure, and feelings of moral superi-
ority, to sustain it. The complex of motives to which a rumor is assimi-
lated is a personal matter, and to find out why a given individual falls
for a certain story would require a clinical study of that individual.
Because of the diversity of motivational blends that may nourish a
given rumor, any psychological classification will be inevitably over-
simplified and crude.
Thus we must not expect to find any one rumor correlated with
only a single emotion or with only a single cognitive tendency. Assimi-
lation does not work on a unit basis. Even an apparently simple story
may serve as explanation, justification and relief for a mixture of
feelings.
ANTI-NEGRO RUMORS

Fusion of hatreds, of fear, guilt, and economic bewilderment is

found in the curious tales of the "Eleanor Clubs" circulating in large
numbers in southern states in 1943. The theme of these stories was that
large numbers of Negro women, especially domestic servants, were
banded together under the spiritual sponsorship of Eleanor Roosevelt,
their purpose being rebellion against the existing social order. Here
the most obvious fusion is of antagonism against New Deal liberalism
and traditional anti-Negro feeling. But the complex of motives goes
even deeper.
1
Robert H. Knapp, "A P«ychology of Rumor," Public Opinion Quarterly, 1944, 8, 12-37.
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 507
There were many versions of the rumors pertaining to the Eleanor
Clubs, which sometimes were called "Daughters of Eleanor," "Eleanor
Angel Clubs," "Sisters of Eleanor," "Royal House of Eleanor."1 These
fanciful titles represent, of course, assimilation to stereotype concerning
the religiosity of the Negro or his supposed flair for pompous institu-
tional names. It was widely told that the motto of these groups was,

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"A white woman in every kitchen in a year." A typical Eleanor story
runs as follows: "A white woman was away for a while, and when she
returned she found her colored maid sitting at her dresser combing
her hair with her comb." Another represented the Negro servant as
bathing in her employer's bathtub or as entertaining her friends in the
parlor. One rumor had it that a white lady called her cook to come
and prepare dinner for her guests. The cook turned the tables by de-
manding that her mistress be at her home by eight o'clock Sunday
morning to fix breakfast for the cook's guests. One Negress was
reported to have offered to pay a white woman ta wash her clothes.
Occasionally the stories hinted at coming violence, charging that the
clubs were saving icepicks and butcher knives for a rebellion.
All of these versions, besides reflecting anti-Roosevelt and anti-
Negro feeling, show a distinct fear of inversion of status. The colored
people are represented not merely as nursing resentment beneath the
surface, but as being on the verge of revolt They threaten to take over,
to reverse the social scale. Why? Because the white rumor-spreaders
find their feelings of economic and social insecurity to some extent
explained and relieved by these stories. Suffering a vague anxiety, they
justify their jitters by pointing to Negro aggression, and derive a mel-
ancholy consolation from alerting one another to the menace.
But we must probe still further. A rumor of inversion of status
admits in a circuitous way that a relationship other than the status quo
between the races is conceivable. And according to the American creed,
the status quo, being essentially unjust, should not be permanent: Every
American, as Myrdal points out, believes in and aspires to something
higher than the present plane of race relations.' At heart he agrees with
Patrick Henry, the slave owner, who as long ago as 1772 wrote, "I will
not, I cannot, justify it." At the same time most whites permit them-
* H. W. Odum, Race and Rumors of Race: Challenge to American Crisis. University o£ North
Carolina Pros, 1943.
8
G. Myrdal, An American Dilemma. Harper Brotherj, 1944.
508 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
selves only a squint-eyed insight into their moral dilemma. A century
and a half after Patrick Henry the conflict still persists. Were whites
to face the issue squarely, they would be torn asunder by their con-
flicting loyalties: to the American creed and to their convenient belief
in white supremacy.
Rather than face this pointed and irreconcilable conflict between

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two cherished loyalties, many white people twist and squirm and
rationalize. The guilt-evasion rumor is eagerly seized upon as a means
of escape. If, as the Eleanor Club stories hold, the Negro is overly-
aggressive, illegally plotting, vulgarly menacing, then he has no right
to equal status. He must expect no more consideration than we give
to trespassers, marauders, blackmailers. He must be kept in his place.
Suppose there are instances of injustice, do not our patience and indul-
gence more than make it up to him? After all, he is only an unruly
child (as the Eleanor stories show) and must be treated as such—kindly
but firmly. By this devious mental maneuvering the bigot is able to
escape his feelings of guilt
Guilt-evasion is likewise detectable in innumerable rumors detail-
ing incidents of the Negro's criminal and disloyal tendencies. One
wartime story had it that Negroes were not being drafted as rapidly
as whites because authorities were afraid to let them get their hands
on guns. Even humorous yarns concerning Negro stupidity, gullibility,
laziness, have the same functional significance; so too the myriad tales
of Negro sexual aggression. All of these tend to allay the white man's
sense of guilt, for what can we do with a black man who is disloyal,
criminal, clownish, stupid, menacing, and immoral—except to keep
him in his place just as we are now doing ? The ideal of equality may
be all right in theory, but it was never meant to apply to criminals,
imbeciles, or black men.
The ultimate ally of anti-Negro prejudice is the sex rumor. Ne-
groes are repeatedly represented as plotting to cross the color line and
commit the sin of miscegenation. The stories invariably concern the
relations between Negro men and white women, not the far more
frequent liaisons of white man and Negress. There arc stories of rape
and attempted rape, or less lurid versions representing Negroes as ap-
proaching white women, following them on the streets, trying to hold
their hands, and so on. One wartime story told that Negroes who were
not drafted (the disloyalty theme) were saying to the white men who
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 509
left for the war that Negroes would "take care" of the white women
back home (the sex theme). Though especially common in the south,
Negro sex rumors are frequent also in the north. In a New England
city, known for its relatively peaceful race relations, a local story circu-
lated to "explain" why the washroom in a certain restaurant had been
boarded up. The reason alleged (wholly fictitious) was that two

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NegToes had taken a white woman into that particular washroom and
raped her.
The motivational current here runs deep. All matters pertaining
to sex in the American Puritan tradition are likely to have a high emo-
tional charge, and for this reason to spill over easily into other regions
of strong passion. Sex, as a proposition for topical interest, is a never
failing target for rumor. Like the matter of status it is also a source of
heavy guilt-feeling. To blame ourselves for our sexual sins (as for our
sins against the American creed) is never agreeable. Better by far blame
someone else for his real or imagined lapses. The resemblance between
the sex and the minority-group rumor is close: projection in the interest
of guilt-evasion being common to both. This resemblance facilitates
fusion. Why not escape guilt by heaping blame for sexual lapses upon
the very same persons who threaten our social position ?
Deep inside, many people feel secure neither in their status nor in
their economic future, nor in their own sexual morality. All of these
matters are intimate and central in their lives. Such intense and pivotal
interests cannot well be kept separate. A threat to one is a threat to the
others. Hence the Negro scapegoat is seen not only as being arrogant
socially, but as pressing upon us vocationally, and as being sexually
more potent and less inhibited than we. In him we perceive all the
grabbing, climbing, lewd behavior that we might indulge in if we
let ourselves go. He is the sinner. Even if we are not blameless, yet his
misdeeds (as recounted in rumor) are more overt and worse than ours.
Hence why should we feel guilt at our peccadillos?
While all this rationalizing is going on, we may, perversely
enough, find the Negro's "animal" qualities darkly fascinating. If so,
we must severely repress this satanic attraction, and through "reaction
formation" (i.e., by turning against the fascination that we disapprove
of), fight the devil even harder.4 We do so by adopting the most sacred
* H. V. McLean, Tiychodynimic Facton in Racial Relation*," Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Scitnce, 1946, 144, 159-166.
5io PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
of taboos, undeviating opposition to racial amalgamation. The very
thought fills us with horror (or does it?). Were it violated, the way
would be opened for a collapse of all our moral and economic stand-
ards. I would admit defeat at the hands of the black and evil stranger
whom in my unconscious I regard in part as my own unhallowed
alter ego.

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Complicated as this analysis of anti-Negro rumors is, it does not
exaggerate the intricacy of the emotional and cognitive fusions that
account for their appeal. It seems to be the rule for people to personify
the forces of evil, and to center them in some visibly different, near-
lying, minority group. The commonest, but by no means the only,
"demons" today are the Communists, the Jews, and the Negroes. Since
the blame ascribed to them is certainly in excess of their just deserts
we technically call them "scapegoats."
CASE STUDIES IN RUMOR

We invite the reader to examine selected samples of rumor-dis-

course. The fact that some of the samples seem out-of-date is itself a
demonstration of the ephemeral quality of rumor. "Propositions for
belief are likely to be short-lived simply because the panorama of
human interest changes rapidly. Much may be learned, however, from
a study of standard examples drawn from varied social atmospheres,
even if some of them are dated.
The analysis of any given talc cannot be as perfect as we should
like for the reason that the precise psychological and social conditions
under -which a rumor is told arc known only in part and often through
inference alone. Further, no single story can be expected to illustrate
all the principles of rumor, although the basic formula should be de-
tectable in every case.
CASE ONE. Immediately following the San Francisco earthquake,
April 18,1906, the wildest rumors were afloat in the city. Four of these,
as recounted by Jo Chamberlain in the Baltimore Sunday Sun (March
31, 1946), follow:
(a) That a tidal wave had engulfed New York City at the same
time as the San Francisco quake
(b) That Chicago had slid into Lake Michigan
(c) That the quake had loosed the animals in the zoo, and that
these were eating refugees in Golden Gate Park
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 511
(d) That men were found with women's fingers in their pockets,
not having time to take the rings off. In these stories the
ghouls were always strung up to the nearest lamp post.
Comment. The suspicious reader may wonder whether rumors
recounted forty years after their circulation may not have suffered
considerable additional sharpening and other distortion in the interim.

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An example, perhaps, might be the word "always" in Rumor (d). It
would certainly be difficult to prove that this ghoulish story invariably
was accompanied by the denouement of summary justice. It is true,
however, that the rumors circulating after the catastrophe were re-
corded at the time and we may assume, for purposes of our analysis,
that they did not differ greatly from those listed above.
1. One obvious principle illustrated in this series is the fecundity
of rumor. Prodigious importance and vast ambiguity conspired in the
manufacture of one wild story after another, many of which were
merely slight variations of others. The chain of associations is simple:
one big city has been destroyed, why not others ? The fecundity makes
for sharpening through a multiplication of catastrophes.
2. The disturbed population is trying to gauge the importance of
the event as one phase of its effort after meaning. Metaphorically they
were saying "things just couldn't be more horrible." Having lost home
and perhaps loved ones, the feelings of anxiety and desolation are un-
derlined by adding the ravages of wild beasts, or ghouls, and the de-
struction of an additional metropolis or two. Through these embellish-
ments the sense of total disaster is metaphorically conveyed.
3. In their effort after meaning people likewise drew many infer-
ences, some plausible. Among the more reasonable of the inferences is
the possibility that the quake in Rumor (c) might have liberated
animals from the zoo. Whether there was a kernel of truth in this
statement we do not now know, but even if shattered cages permitted
some animals to escape, it is likely that in the telling many qualifying
phrases were leveled out. The extent of the stampede was sharpened,
and it seems probable that condensation brings in the gruesome fate
of the refugees. Animals were in Golden Gate Park; refugees were in
Golden Gate Park. The latter are "condensed" into the maws of the
former. Imagination (in rumor as in dreams) often unifies discrete
events, drawing simplicity out of multiplicity and a specious order out
of confusion.
512 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
4. The hanging of the ghouls in Rumor (d) represents a moral-
ized closure and a fantasied revenge. The vast frustrations engendered
by the catastrophe had no personal cause. The despoiler of the dead
was the only accessible scapegoat in a cataclysm brought on by an Act
of God.
5. Panic-rumors such as these correspond to the final stage of

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riot-rumors. Nothing is too wild to be believed provided it somehow
explains or relieves the current excitement. But unlike riot-rumors the
tales nourished by panic do not have preceding stages of build-up,
unless, of course, the panic itself is a gradual development—a rather
unusual situation.
6. There is no evidence here for rumor-chains. The catastrophe
forged so complete a unity of interest that we can well imagine a sur-
vivor telling these stories to a complete stranger. We cannot, however,
imagine a citizen of New York or of Chicago believing the tales of
destruction of his own city. Dwellers in each metropolis had their own
secure standards of evidence, making such tales impossible. It is doubtful
too that the press published any of the rumors that could be so readily
checked. Yet many of the unverifiable stories were published on hearsay
evidence alone and were believed widely throughout the country until
the quake was no longer a subject of topical interest.
7. One can easily imagine prestige accruing to the teller of such
horror stories. The whole nation was in a state of agitation and eager
for news of any kind. As soon as the outlines of the catastrophe became
known, details to fill in the picture were greedily grasped, and a
neighbor who supplied latest bits of "news" was welcomed and eagerly
listened to.
CASE TWO. The following story circulated during the visit of Madame
Chiang Kai-shek to America in 1943. The scene of the incident was
usually said to be Baltimore. One day, the story goes, a gentleman
entered a jewelry store and asked for a $500 watch. The jeweler did not
carry such expensive stock, but finally managed to find several high-
grade timepieces for his customer to choose from. The purchaser select-
ed in all $7000 worth of watches and jewelry. When asked by the pro-
prietor how they were to be paid for, the customer replied that he was
Madame Chiang's secretary and requested that his purchase be charged
to Chinese lend-lease.
Comment. This was typical of the World War II wedge-driving
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 513
rumors, whose effect was to divide the United States from its allies. It
was such stories that gave government officials grave concern. (Of the
same stamp was the tale that the Russians were using lend-leasc butter
to grease their guns with, and that the British were using the aid to
purchase in the United States nylon stockings and other scarce and
luxurious articles, thus depriving our own citizens of the coveted goods.)

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1. Evidence shows that we can expect such stories to circulate only
among a limited rumor-public. The Madame Chiang scandal would
appeal to people possessing a pre-existing grudge against China or, more
probably, against the Democratic Administration in Washington. '
2. Like hostility rumors generally, this one is a product of frustra-
tion, much of the resulting aggression being displaced. Wartime short-
ages were annoying and high taxes aggravating. If short goods are
going abroad and tax revenue is being squandered recklessly by a prod-
igal Administration, why should we not feel annoyed? Oh, of course,
we are willing to make sacrifices for the war—but, after all, it is not the
war we are complaining about, it is the scandalous inefficiency of that
radical set of long-haired professors and "that man" in Washington.
The rumor represents a subtle fusion of antipathies and frustrations, and
serves to explain and justify our political animosities.
3. The motivation may also entail guilt-evasion. During the war-
time boom many people indulged in luxuries which they could not
afford in peacetime and which were hardly compatible with the wartime
emphasis upon self-sacrifice and the purchase of war-bonds. But our
petty extravagances could easily be forgotten and forgiven in the face
of die blatant self-indulgence of one of the most prominent wartime
personages, wantonly wasting our national funds in the purchase of
fabulous luxuries.
4. There may be an element of assimilation to the widely current
belief in the waste and corruption of high officials in China. But this
factor, if present, is minor since the victims of the animus are more ap-
parently the American than die Chinese officials.
5. We find the use of concreteness to lend plausibility to the story.
The precise amounts—$500 and $7000—are mentioned. Part of the
rationalizing process is to surround the item with the pseudo-authority
of detail.
6. Although the locale of this story was not always given as Balti-
more, yet we know that when a scene is set, the label conferred upon
514 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
the incident (especially if the label introduces the story and thus benefits
from the primacy effect) tends to remain unchanged.
7. Had the story been told without introducing the name of
Madame Chiang its essential function would have been unchanged.
But to specify a well known individual is a common device for per-
sonalizing a rumor and for assimilating it to common and conventional

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subject-matter, of current interest
GUIDE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF RUMOR

The reader is now invited to make his own analysis of additional

cases, selected if he chooses from the following section entitled "Addi-
tional Cases for Analysis," or if he prefers from his own daily intake of
rumor. In undertaking his analyses he may find the following guiding
questions helpful. Each question is based on an established principle of
rumor. Needless to say, not all of the questions are applicable to all
samples of rumor.
1. Is the story a proposition for belief of topical reference ?
2. Do teller and listener lack secure standards of evidence for its
verification ?
3. Are ambiguity and importance both present? Which factor is
more prominent?
4. In what way does the rumor reflect an effort after meaning ?
5. Does it offer an economical and simplified explanation of a
confusing environmental or emotional situation ?
6. Does it explain some inner tension?
7. Is the tension primarily emotional or non-emotional?
8. Is the tension anxiety, hostility, wish, guilt, curiosity, or some
other state of mind ?
9. Does it justify the existence in the teller of an otherwise unac-
ceptable emotion?
10. What makes the story important to the teller ?
11. In what sense does the telling of the rumor confer relief ?
12. What elements of rationalization are present ?
13. Does it contain possibilities of projection?
14. Does it resemble a daydream ? If so, how ?
15. May it serve the function of guilt-evasion ?
16. Does it reflect displaced aggression ?
17. In telling it, is the teller likely to acquire prestige ?
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 515
18. Might it be told to please a friend or confer a favor ?
19. Might it serve in phatic communication ?
20. Can one detect the kernel of truth from which it probably
developed ?
21. Is it a home-stretch rumor ?
22. Might there have been errors in the initial perception ?

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23. What might have been the course of the creative embedding ?
24. Is it likely that it contains elaboration; if so, of what type ?
25. Does it probably suffer from a distortion of names, dates, num-
bers, time ?
26. Does its label or locale persist?
27. Is there likely to have been a complete shift of theme ?
28. Is there evidence of conventionalization ? moralization ?
29. What cultural assimilations does it seem to reflect?
30. Does it partake of the character of a legend?
31. Could it conceivably contain a reversal to truth ?
32. Does it contain tendency-wit ?
33. Do the conditions underlying its circulation illustrate the
fecundity of rumor ?
34. What may have become leveled out?
35. Have oddities or perseverative wording persisted in the telling ?
36. Has there been sharpening through multiplication?
37. Have movement, size, familiar symbols, played a part in
sharpening ?
38. Has there been concretization or personalization?
39. What closure tendencies may be illustrated?
40. Does it deal with current events ?
41. Does it contemporize past events?
42. Primarily does it seem to reflect relatively more intellectual, or
relatively more emotional, assimilative tendencies?
43. Are all details assimilated to the principal theme ?
44. May condensation of items have occurred ?
45. Is there evidence of good-continuation ?
46. In what way is assimilation to expectancy shown?
47. Is there assimilation to linguistic habits ?
48. Has there been assimilation to occupational, class, racial, or
other forms of self-interest?
49. Is there assimilation to prejudice ?
516 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, WINTER 1946-47
50. Is it conceivable that any part rests on verbal misunder-
standing?
51. What is the expressive (metaphorical) signification of the
rumor?
52. Does it perhaps represent a fusion of passions or antipathies?
53. Does it probably travel in a rumor-chain ? What is its public ?

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Why?
54. Are people suggestible to this particular tale because their
minds are "unstuck" or "overstuck?"
55. Could it be classified as a bogey, wedge-driver, pipe dream ?
56. Could it be part of a whispering campaign ?
57. What relation, if any, does it bear to news ? to the press ?
58. Is the story labelled rumor or fact, or ascribed to an authori-
tative source ? With what effect ?
59. What might be the best way to refute it ?
60. Does it perhaps represent a stage in crisis (riot) rumor-
spreading ?
ADDITIONAL CASES FOR ANALYSIS
The reader may wish to try his hand at analyzing the following
"originals":
CASE THREE. Twenty-four hours before a sizable contingent of
Navy men were to receive their honorable discharges from the service, a
rumor spread among them that the Commanding Officer had an-
nounced that they must wait two weeks longer for their discharges
until the ship they were working on had been de-commissioned.
CASE FOUR. The Russians, it is said, "nationalize their women."
CASE FIVE. Every few years a story reappears to the effect that a
sea-serpent has been seen in Loch Ness, Scotland.
CASE six. In the early days of the war it was rumored that the
Philippine Islands (also the Panama Canal) had been attacked by the
Japanese a whole week before the Pearl Harbor assault, but that the
news of this attack had been withheld from the public.
CASE SEVEN. Before taking off on a combat mission, many squadrons
were plagued with rumors to the effect that their equipment was in
some way defective, that the target was almost inaccessible because of
anti-aircraft protection, that the enemy had recently perfected a new
and dreadful defense weapon that would almost certainly be employed
against the squadron.
 AN ANALYSIS OF RUMOR 517
CASE EIGHT. Workers in a New England manufacturing town dur-
ing the darkest days of the depression in the 1930's believed that the rich
were running over the children of the poor in their elegant cars and
never caring; also that the whole depression was some sort of plot
by the upper classes to cut the wages of the workers.

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