Chapter 30 from this pub may help: http://www.mediafire.com/?72jcqzgztye
How to Stop a Rumour Before Your
Reputation Pays a Price
Would you like to defend yourself without getting defensive?
Would you like to turn around false accusations and use
them to your advantage? Now you'll be able to stop a rumour
dead in its tracks, and gain leverage with this sure-fire
psychological tactic.
Rumours thrive in secrecy and anonymity. This means that
gossip survives because by its very nature it's told in "secrecy."
If you expose the source then the well dries up. The gossiper,
in most cases, is not likely to spread rumours once she is
exposed.
This study illustrates the effectiveness of this tactic—how
physical anonymity lessens inhibitions. Zimbardo (1970)
dressed New York University women all in white coats and
hoods. They were asked to give "electric shocks" to a woman.
(Of course the shocks weren't real, but the participants
believed that they were.) They pressed the shock button twice
as long as did another group of women who were not
masked and were wearing clearly visible name tags.
It's also easier to do harm to those whom we do not see as
real people, and to those whom we do not physically see as
well. In war, dropping a bomb on a city can carry less
psychological trauma for a pilot than shooting a single man at
point-blank range can carry for a soldier. Several parallel
experiments show us just this: When we are removed from
the person—when we do not see him and he is far away,
physically—we are more willing to inflict physical pain. This
also holds true for inflicting psychological pain, as in the case of
making slanderous statements. Notice that there are two
separate psychological criteria. One is that of sight—can we
see this person—and second is that of proximity—how near is
this person physically to us.
These studies, and many like it, depict three separate
strategies for halting gossip. First, go to the source or to
anyone responsible for the rumours and identify that person.
Let her know you are aware of who she is and what she is
doing. Second, you want to humanize yourself to this person
as well. Let her know that there is a real person behind the
rumours. Third, do this in person, when at all possible. The
actual proximity—the closeness—makes a big difference.
Okay, so this works fine when you know the source, but what
if you don't? What if there's just some rumour floating around
and you don't know how it got started or by whom? Or for that
matter, what if you do know the person and she just doesn't
care about what she's doing to you and the damage done to
your reputation by these rumours? For these instances, the
following psychological strategy is an incredibly effective
method of damage control.
There are essentially two characteristics of a rumour that
dictate whether or not it spreads like wildfire or simply fizzles
out. The reason rumours spread is that they are interesting
and that they sound believable. It's been said that a partial
truth is more dangerous than a total lie. That is because
nobody gossips about what is obviously false and blatantly
stupid, but with a grain of truth, it becomes plausible and that
is what makes it interesting to talk about it.
But you can use this to your advantage. Instead of trying to
deny, defend, or minimize the rumour, which can make
people believe it more, simply spread a more outrageous
rumour that overshadows that one, but incorporates it as well.
For instance, let's say that a rumour going around is that
you've been stealing from the company. Denying it can just
make you "appear" guilty. Instead, you should spread the
rumour that you used the "stolen money" to support your
thirty-six adopted children or you used it to buy a seat on the
space shuttle. Now this newer more salacious rumour is
harder to believe and casts doubt about the accuracy of any
of it. Most people will dismiss it as false if it doesn't sound
plausible. They would have no reason to pick it apart to find
the grains of truth if the whole thing just sounds made up. This
is because rumours are seen in black and white as either true
or false. Since there is rarely material evidence in a rumour,
each person decides whether or not it makes sense. So the
more outrageous it is the less sense it makes and the less
interesting it actually becomes. The rumour gets diluted in
a stream of obvious untruths, buried under an avalanche of
nonsense. Nobody knows what to believe about whom.
So if going to the source doesn't work, simply extend the
current rumour to include completely outrageous information
and the whole thing will just be seen as silly.
