Shifting glances. Innuendoes, even if some seem dropped. We forget the company’s internal network, we only communicate on a system unearthed by the accountant’s brother-in-law, a developer in his spare time. And when the manager arrives out of breath at the meeting, he who is always on time, the thumbs on the keyboards panic. We saw him talking with the boss. He hasn’t had any coffee, even though he consumes liters of it. “It’s a sign.” He is pale. No, redhead. “I was sure, they will sell us!” scream several small inner voices. Even the “hello” and the smile sound false. “I have news to tell you.” Here we are. Eight pairs of eyes scrutinize him. “To the heart and mind/Ignorance is kind/There’s no comfort in the truth/Pain is all that you’ll find”, sang George Michael, in despair Careless Whisper. “Sorry, I’m a little late.” We’re close to a heart attack. “We welcome reinforcement.” The rumor dies immediately, struck down by the truth. The truth. We are in the 25% of rumors that convey fear – more than 66% are linked to hatred between people or social groups and 2% to desires, according to the conclusions of psychologist Robert H. Knapp (“A Psychology of Rumor”, review Public Opinion Quarterly, Oxford University Press, 1944). The content of rumors today remains completely comparable to this census, indicates Patrick Scharnitzky, doctor in social psychology (“The social function of rumor”, Migrations Society No. 109, Ciemi, 2007).
The denial trap
What is rumor? A brief statement that mutates (reduction, emphasis, distortion) during the chain of transmission and its assimilation, according to researchers Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman (The Psychology of Rumor, Henry Holt & Company, 1947). Nothing trivial: “To the extent that rumors operate on the basis of fear, they are all the more prolific and robust when they appear in a sociocultural context that is itself anxiety-provoking,” explains Patrick Scharnitzky. The company can be this paranoid universe where expressions like: “Things are not what they seem.” (Véronique Campion-Vincent, The Paranoid Society. Conspiracy theories, threats and uncertainties, Payot, 2005.) When fables spread, the manager must take control. Forget the strategy of denial, often ineffective, because the latter “circulates much less well and less quickly than the rumor itself”. Even if it is true, the denial is less sensational and castigates those in the conspiracy machine: they were wrong and sometimes lied. Furthermore, the denial is not always disseminated at the right time: too early, it arouses suspicion and, too late, it has difficulty demolishing the solid “heard”, anchored like a credo. Finally, it does not prove that the gossip is false: what if the manager talked about the new colleague to hide the sale that is taking shape? “To know a rumor is to be the holder of sensational information that others do not know, and it is thereby a way of occupying the position of prophet, holder of a certain social power”, underlines Patrick Scharnitzky. Identifying the oracle and speaking to it individually is a first step.
Good use of gossip
The second is to take inspiration from primates. In Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language (Harvard University Press, 1998), the anthropologist Robin Dunbar demonstrates that, through delousing, apes build their networks, like humans in gossip mode. The “gossip theory” (“gossip”) produces social cohesion and alleviates social conflicts. The “evolutionary leap” of the latest gossip in his circle mobilizes more people than the grooming of primates, face to face. There is therefore something good about getting information from the band and tuning in daily to “carpet radio” with “above all, keep it to yourself…”, since the coherence of the group is reinforced… even if the manipulators hold the antenna brilliantly. Faced with conspiracy theorists, the manager can create counter-rumors in storytelling style, a technique that communicators abuse. Or adopt the allegory option of Plato’s cave to awaken those who have succumbed to the charm of gossip: “If now we tear him from his cave in spite of himself, and drag him, along the rough and steep path, until ‘in the light of the sun, will this violence not excite his complaints and his anger? […] It is only little by little that his eyes will be able to get used to this upper region. […]. In the end he will be able, I think, not only to see the sun in the waters and wherever its image is reflected, but to contemplate it in himself in its true place.The Republic, 4th century BC.)