The Watercooler Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors [Hardcover]

Ph.D., Nicholas DiFonzo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2008

A deeply revealing look at why we spread rumors, why we believe them, and how they affect our behavior.

During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, rumors were flying about stranded residents shooting rescue workers. In New York City, the Brooklyn Bottling Group’s business was devastated by false rumors that its soda contained sterilizers.

Psychologist Nicholas DiFonzo has studied hearsay for more than fifteen years, and in this book he shows that the process that gave rise to these troubling rumors is fundamentally the same as a tete-a`-tete around the company watercooler.

Why are rumors a ubiquitous aspect of the human experience— whether they’re about plots to wipe out the urban poor through sterilizers or a company’s plan to downsize? Armed with entertaining examples from all spheres of life, DiFonzo asserts that rumors are a window into both individual and group psychology.

DiFonzo ultimately argues that rumors stem from our deeply rooted motivation to make sense of the world. As social beings, when confronted with an ambiguous or threatening situation, our response is to talk to one another—whether at the dinner table, on the Web, or around the watercooler.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

DiFonzo, a professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology whose work on rumors was featured in the New York Times Magazine's 2006 Year in Ideas issue, uncovers some surprising facts about rumors: what they are and why we spread them, listen to them and believe them. Drawing on a host of studies, DiFonzo illustrates how rumors are a fundamental phenomenon of social beings. Rumors are created by people who are in unclear or confusing situations and want desperately to find an explanation. There are different varieties of rumors: they can express something much wished for (year-end bonuses), while others are a form of propaganda. Rumors can be a remarkably efficient way of spreading information: a study of military gossip during WWII found that the grapevine passed information just as accurately as—and more quickly than—official channels. But gossip drives wedges between people as often as it binds them. Viral rumors, spread repeatedly by e-mail, can gain credibility from repetition, and such repetition can turn a rumor into a self-fulfilling prophecy: banks fail, stocks tank. DiFonzo's clear explanations and entertaining examples make for thoughtful reading. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“A brilliant and scintillating exploration of a neglected topic—the willingness of people to report and spread apparent news, even when it is based on very little information. The Watercooler Effect is one of the most interesting nonfiction books of this year.”
—Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University and author of Discover Your Inner Economist.

“The Watercooler Effect is a fresh look at informal communication, and how information spreads rapidly within and among the diverse groups of people that collectively make up our society. An absorbing and compelling book.”
—Daniel J. Levitin, professor of psychology at McGill University and author of The World in Six Songs and This Is Your Brain on Music

“Nicholas DiFonzo is one of the world’s experts on why rumors spread. If you’ve ever wondered where rumors come from or whether some new rumor is true, this book will fascinate you.”
—Chip Heath, coauthor of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: Avery; 1st edition (September 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583333258
• ISBN-13: 978-1583333259
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,340,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful journey into discovering truth, August 23, 2011

By 

TrafficMaven - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Watercooler Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors (Hardcover)

DiFonzo takes the reader on a journey through historic account of rumor driven events that tested an age old method of transferring information among social groups. Truth, we learn is unmasked as events and information are sifted and compared and sense can be made.
The Watercooler Effect: An Indispensable Guide to Understanding and Harnessing the Power of Rumors

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent discourse on rumor, September 17, 2008

By 

Betty-Anne Olton "sangreal" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Watercooler Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors (Hardcover)

Nicholas Di Fonzo's The Watercooler Effect, while not my usual fare, turned out to be quite interesting. It is a thorough study of rumors, complete with the results of research that has gone into people's fondness for rumor and its continued preponderance.

I was particularly fascinated with the clear differentiation between what is rumor and what is merely gossip, and the different ways in which the two are disseminated.

Prior to reading this book, I had never considered that rumors could have real value. They help to explain the unexplainable, they provide sources of information in situations of fear and they can be used to pass on information which people should have, but which can't be seen to come from a particular source. The concept of rumor management also had me thinking.

Why people continue to pass on rumors without checking on the background facts (especially now with the proliferation of the Internet) is something I still don't understand. I did appreciate the sources given for fact-checking of the rumors and urban legends that come our way every day via our email.

The examples provided throughout the book, along with the results of the studies done went a long way toward helping me understand the concepts involved. I would have preferred some more detail and cohesion to the examples however. They sometimes felt a little disjointed and truncated.

Far from a dry, boring report however, this book was wonderfully readable and very interesting and I think that anyone who wants a layman's understanding about how rumors and gossip drive our daily interactions would enjoy reading it.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very timely, during election season, September 16, 2008

By 

LisaLynne (Kent, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Watercooler Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors (Hardcover)

The Watercooler Effect is a very timely piece of work. It is, after all, election season. My inbox has been overflowing with forwarded bits of political "information," most of it nonsense. I'd always believed this was primarily designed to sway my vote one way or another, but it turns out there may be other forces at work.

I was most interested in this book because of my interest in political rumors, and it is interesting to consider them in the light of some of the information presented here. For example, people spread political gossip not just to sway your vote, but also to reinforce their own status within the group; according to DiFonzo, "people are are not always primarily interested in the truth when they speak together, but rather to find ways to affiliate and bond with one another."

Another interesting issue is that of fact-checking. I have often wondered why people who forward those viral emails don't take a minute or two to check their facts. After all, who wants to look foolish, forwarding a hoax? Apparently, that is part of the answer: people don't check their facts because they don't want to embarass the person who sent them the rumor. (That has never stopped me, for the record. I am in favor of embarassing mass-forwarders whenever I can.) No excuse, in my opinion, for some of the dreck that gets passed around.

Generally speaking, this is an interesting and timely book, but you won't find any startling revelations here. There are some interesting anecdotes and a lot of common sense information, including some techniques for managing the rumor mill that might be useful for those readers forced to deal with office politics.