Who Hears What from Whom and with What Effect

Abstract

This experiment explored whether subjects, high and low in anxiety, would transmit a rumor that was believable or not believable when the rumor was told to them by a peer as opposed to an authority figure. We found that the rumor was more frequently repeated when the story was believable than unbelievable. 7he highly anxious subjects repeated the rumor more often than did the less anxious subjects only when the source was a peer.