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INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES
Emotional Selection in Memes: The Case of Urban Legends
Chip Heath
Stanford UniversityChris Bell and Emily Steinberg
Duke University
This article explores how much memes like urban legends succeed on the basis of informational selection
(i.e.,
truth or a moral lesson) and emotional selection (i.e., the ability to evoke emotions like anger, fear,
or disgust). The article focuses on disgust because its elicitors have been precisely described. In Study 1,
with controls for informational factors like truth, people were more willing to pass along stories that
elicited stronger disgust. Study 2 randomly sampled legends and created versions that varied in disgust;
people preferred to pass along versions that produced the highest level of disgust. Study 3 coded legends
for specific story motifs that produce disgust (e.g., ingestion of
a
contaminated substance) and found that
legends that contained more disgust motifs were distributed more widely on urban legend Web sites. The
conclusion discusses implications of emotional selection for the social marketplace of ideas.
What determines which ideas succeed in the social environment
as people exchange information and stories with others? In a
famous Supreme Court opinion, Oliver Wendell Holmes described
how ideas succeed or fail using the metaphor of the economic
marketplace: "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to
get itself accepted in the competition of the market" (Abrams v.
United States, 1919). Holmes's metaphor of the "marketplace of
ideas"
embodies two key assumptions—(a) that ideas compete,
and (b) that they compete on the basis of their truthfulness.
Biologist Richard Dawkins (1976) has proposed a biological met-
aphor that also assumes that ideas compete but that does not
assume they compete solely based on truth. Dawkins pictured
culture as being composed of many individual units (the cultural
analogue of genes) that undergo variation, selection, and retention.
As a label for this cultural gene equivalent, he proposed the term
meme. Dawkins's memes do not compete solely on truth—con-
sider annoying commercial jingles or a chain letter that threatens
doom if it is not reproduced and spread (Dawkins, 1976). In this
article we follow Dawkins in explaining how ideas propagate
using a variation-selection-retention approach, so to acknowledge
our theoretical approach and unit of analysis, we often use the term
meme for ideas that propagate in the social environment.1
Chip Heath, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University; Chris
Bell and Emily Steinberg, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
For helpful comments on drafts of this article we thank Jan Brunvand,
Geoff Fong, Sylvia Grider, Jon Haidt, Derek Koehler, George Loewen-
stein, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ralph Rosnow, and seminar participants at
Carnegie Mellon University, the University of California, Berkeley, and
the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chip
Heath, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 518 Memorial
Drive, Stanford, California 94305. Electronic mail may be sent to
heath_chip@gsb.stanford.edu.
From an anecdotal perspective, the ideas that survive the com-
petition of the marketplace often seem more like Dawkins's (1976)
examples of chain letters than like the insightful political com-
mentary envisioned by Holmes. Consider the rumor, popular in the
1970s, that McDonalds extended its hamburger meat by adding
ground earthworms. Alternatively, consider the fears that surface
every Halloween about the dangers of Halloween trick or treating.
In a Newsweek article published right before Halloween in 1975, a
reporter warned, "If this year's Halloween follows form, a few
children will return home with something more than an upset
tummy: In recent years, several children have died and hundreds
have narrowly escaped injury from razor blades, sewing needles,
and shards of glass purposefully put into their goodies by adults"
(quoted in Best, 1990, p. 132). An ABC News poll in 1985 showed
that 60% of parents were worried that their children might become
victims (cited in Best, 1990). However, when Joel Best (1990)
studied every reported incident since 1958, he found "a few
incidents where children received minor cuts from sharp objects in
their candy bags, but the vast majority of reports turned out to be
old-fashioned hoaxes, sometimes enacted by young pranksters,
other times by parents hoping to make money in lawsuits or
insurance scams" (Glassner, 1999, p. 30; see Best, 1990). Counter
to the stories about tainted candy, the only conclusion that might
be drawn from social science research is not "don't take candy
from strangers" but perhaps "take candy from strangers, just not
from your parents."
The stories about earthworms in hamburgers and booby-trapped
Halloween candy are both popular "urban" or "contemporary
1 The General Discussion contains more detail on why we feel this term
is useful.
Journal of Personality ami Social Psychology, 2001. Vol. 81, No. 6. 1028-1041
Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association. Inc. 0O22-3514/Ol/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//O022-3514.81.6.1028
1028
EMOTIONAL SELECTION IN MEMES1029
legends"2—stories that are told as true by people in modern
society. Why are these contemporary legends successful, and what
do they tell us about the memes that are selected in the social
environment? Researchers have frequently assumed that legends
succeed because they provide insightful social commentary about
the cultural or economic context (e.g., Brunvand, 1981; Fine,
1992;
for an alternative, Freudian approach, see Dundes, 1971).
However, we suggest that in many situations, the most important
feature of the social environment is not shared culture but shared
psychology. We propose that memes such as the ones above
undergo a kind of emotional selection—they are selected and
retained in the social environment in part based on their ability to
tap emotions that are common across individuals. Furthermore,
when memes are selected based on their ability to provoke emo-
tion, the memes that survive emotional selection in the market-
place of ideas may not always be those that are most truthful.
How Are Ideas Selected?
In this article, we study contemporary legends as an example of
the memes that succeed in the social environment. Contemporary
legends are an interesting topic because they have aroused wide
attention on the part of the research community (Brunvand, 1981;
D6gh, 1971; Dundes, 1971; Fine, 1980, 1992; Hall, 1965) and the
public (e.g., the many Internet Web sites that analyze and debunk
contemporary legends). Not only are legends prominent in the
social environment, they have achieved their prominence because
people often regard them as true. Folklorists distinguish legends
(which are told as true) from other genres of oral tradition, such as
fairy tales, that are told solely for their entertainment value (Brun-
vand, 1981). Thus, contemporary legends provide a particularly
interesting test of whether ideas win out in the marketplace be-
cause of their perceived "truth."
In this article, we also draw on the psychological literature on
rumors. Like legends, rumors are memes that propagate in a social
environment as true statements to be believed. In general, legends
have a somewhat more complex plot structure than rumors do, but
scholars who have researched rumors and legends often analyze
the same kinds of stories (Allport & Postman, 1947; Brunvand,
1999;
Mullen, 1972; Rosnow & Fine, 1976). Because there is a
larger literature on the psychology of rumor, it seems useful to use
this literature as the starting point for an analysis of related memes.
Why do people transmit memes to others? The previous litera-
ture has implicitly or explicitly evoked two kinds of explanations
for legends and rumors: informational and emotional. Before we
present our emotional selection hypothesis, we describe previous
informational and emotional approaches.
Informational
Clearly, one reason that memes survive in the social environ-
ment is that they provide information—they are true or plausible
and contain useful, practical information or a social moral. Such
informational reasons are virtually always acknowledged by schol-
ars of rumors or legends, whether they approach rumors and
legends from the perspective of psychology (Allport & Postman,
1947;
Rosnow, 1980), sociology (Rosnow & Fine, 1976; Shibu-
tani,
1966), or folklore (Brunvand, 1981). For example, rumors
spread because people desire "to understand and simplify compli-
cated events" (Allport & Postman, 1947, p. 5). According to
sociologist Shibutani (1966), rumors develop when there is "an
unsatisfied demand for news," and they disappear when "demand
for news drops or supply becomes adequate" (p. 164). Even
folklorists, who are clearly sensitive to the entertainment value of
stories, have argued that legends provide information: "People tell
legends and other folk listen to them, not only because of their
inherent plot interest but because they seem to convey true, worth-
while, and relevant information" (Brunvand, 1981, p. 11).
Emotional
Although researchers have frequently acknowledged the infor-
mational value of rumors and legends, they have also acknowl-
edged that rumors and legends have an important emotional com-
ponent. However, previous researchers have primarily emphasized
vague, diffuse emotions (e.g., anxiety) that arise from a clear
exogenous event such as a crisis or catastrophe.
For example, Rosnow (1980), after reviewing the psychological
literature on rumors up to 1980, postulated an "essential" emo-
tional aspect of rumors that arises from "wants, needs or expecta-
tions stimulated by events that are anxiety producing" (i.e., "pro-
duced by apprehension about an impending, potentially negative
outcome"; p. 587). In a well-known sociological account of ru-
mors,
Shibutani (1966) devoted a chapter to a kind of emotional
selection that occurs when "collective excitement is extreme," as
in "aggressive mobs, suicidal infantry charges, stampedes at bar-
gaining counters, bank runs" (p. 95). Allport and Postman (1947)
assumed that rumors succeed because they allow people to project
their preexisting emotional state on a plausible target in a
Freudian-style process (p. 43). Others have argued that rumors
reduce dissonance by justifying or rationalizing a preexisting emo-
tional state produced by a disaster or war (Festinger, 1957; see
Koenig, 1985, p. 33).
These emotional explanations share three general characteris-
tics:
(a) They involve relatively negative emotions, (b) they in-
volve diffuse emotions (e.g., "anxiety," or "apprehension about an
impending, potentially negative outcome"), and (c) they generally
assume that rumors spread because they tap into a preexisting
emotional state prompted by an exogenous event such as a war,
riot, or natural disaster. In the next section, we argue that previous
emotional explanations of rumors or legends are limited in all three
ways,
and we describe how the emotional selection hypothesis
addresses these limitations.
Emotional Selection
In this article, we propose that memes succeed in part because
of emotional selection. We propose that memes are shaped in a
process of variation, selection, and retention and that they are
frequently selected and retained because they evoke an emotional
reaction that is shared across people. The emotional selection
approach has three potential advantages over previous approaches
that emphasize informational selection or emotional selection
2 Many folklore scholars prefer the term contemporary legend over
urban legend because not all contemporary legends are "urban." In this
article we use the term contemporary legend in deference to this research
literature.
1030HEATH, BELL, AND STERNBERG
based on diffuse negative emotions: (a) It allows us to explain
memes that produce not only negative emotions but positive ones,
(b) it allows us to explain memes that not only respond to preex-
isting emotions but create new ones, and (c) it allows us to explain
why memes often involve not diffuse, generalized anxiety but
specific, identifiable emotions.
Not All Memes Evoke Negative Emotions (or Positive)
One somewhat obvious limitation of previous theories of rumors
and legends is that they typically focus on negative emotions even
though many rumors and legends involve positive emotions. For
example, consider the very successful chain letter that swamped
the Internet in 1997-1998. According to the letter, Bill Gates was
testing a new E-mail-tracing program, and if a group of people
forwarded the E-mail to reach 1,000 people, each person would
receive $1,000 from Bill Gates personally (Emery, n.d.; see Brun-
vand, 1981, for other legends of windfall gains). Alternatively,
consider the "pipe dreams" that occasionally circulate during war-
time,
which promise that the end of the war is just around the
corner (Knapp, 1944; Nkpa, 1975).
Because some rumors and legends are positive and some are
negative, it is desirable to have a theory of emotional selection that
can explain the success of both positive and negative memes.
However, most explanations tend to explain best either negative
emotions or positive emotions. For example, most previous expla-
nations of rumors and legends have focused only on negative
emotions such as anxiety (Allport & Postman, 1947; Festinger,
1957;
Koenig, 1985; Rosnow, 1980; Rosnow & Fine, 1976; Shibu-
tani,
1966). Other potential explanations could easily handle pos-
itive emotions—for example, the Bill Gates rumor is consistent
with the idea that people have positive illusions about themselves
and their world and that they believe the world is a kind and
generous place where good things happen to good people (Lerner,
1970;
Taylor & Brown, 1988; Weinstein, 1980)—however, these
explanations have difficulty explaining other rumors and legends
that feed negative emotions such as anxiety.
Emotional selection is consistent with the empirical results of
Heath (1996), who equated items of good and bad news for
"surprisingness" and asked people which items they would pass
along. In domains that were emotionally positive, people passed
along information that was exaggeratedly positive, and in domains
that were emotionally negative, people passed along information
that was exaggeratedly negative.
By proposing the idea of emotional selection, that memes are
selected and retained in the social system when they evoke an
emotional reaction that is widely shared across people, we allow
for both positive and negative memes, as long as the positive and
negative emotions are widely shared.
Not All Memes Require Preexisting Emotions
Perhaps the key limitation of previous emotional explanations is
that they assume that rumors merely feed on existing emotions.
According to Shibutani's (1966) description of emotional conta-
gion, people respond only to rumors "that are consistent with their
aroused dispositions" (p. 179). Allport and Postman (1947)
claimed that "rumor activates and confirms pre-existing attitudes
rather than forming new ones" (p. 182). The major problem with
this approach is that it artificially limits the emotional impact of
legends or rumors to situations that themselves provoke strong
emotions. Indeed, Koenig (1985) summarized the previous litera-
ture as focusing on the "Three C's—crisis, conflict, and catastro-
phe"
(p. 3).
The emphasis of the previous literature on the Three Cs contains
an important insight—that for social selection to occur, ideas must
tap into an emotional reaction that is consistent across people.
Indeed, one way to create strong, consistent emotional reactions is
to have people confront a common external crisis, conflict, or
catastrophe. However, this is not the only way. In fact, contem-
porary legends are a strong counterexample to the idea that for
people to respond consistently, they must be facing a common
external event. Contemporary legends succeed in day-to-day social
interactions that lack the heightened general emotion that is pro-
duced by crisis, conflict, or catastrophe (Brunvand, 1981, 1999).
Therefore, finding emotional selection in contemporary legends
might cast some doubt on the assumption that rumors need to tap
into preexisting emotion to propagate.
If we consider the social function of rumors and legends, it
becomes clear why they need not tap preexisting emotion. Indeed,
rumors and legends that create emotion may be extremely useful as
the basis for social exchange and social interaction. First, rumors
and legends that create emotion may be useful if people enjoy
consuming emotions. This kind of emotional consumption is quite
plausible for some emotions, particularly positive ones. For exam-
ple,
the Bill Gates chain letter may have strong exchange value
because the person who passes it along entitles his or her friends
to share a positive mood during an otherwise boring work day.
Although emotional consumption is very plausible for positive
emotions, it is also plausible for some negative emotions—people,
after all, choose to buy scary books and to attend scary movies.
Emotional selection predicts that when memes are selected for
emotional consumption, they are selected based on their ability to
evoke consistent emotions across people. The Bill Gates chain
letter taps into a common desire for good fortune, and a scary story
must tap into a common experience of fear.
Second, rumors and legends that create emotion may be useful
if people bond socially with others who are sharing the same
emotion. In this social bonding scenario, people may choose to
pass along rumors and legends that create emotion not because
they enjoy consuming the emotion directly but because the shared
emotion enhances their social interactions. For example, Schachter
(1959) enhanced people's interest in social affiliation by confront-
ing them with a fear-inducing stimulus. Social bonding may also
be produced by shared hostility toward an out-group member
(Sherif,
Harvey, White, Hood, &
Sherif,
1961) or by a shared
contempt for a violation of social norms (Haidt, in press; Keltner
& Haidt, 1999). Like emotional consumption, however, social
bonding implies that emotional selection works best when legends
and rumors produce emotions that are consistent across people. A
legend will not produce fear-induced affiliation if it is not scary to
most people, and a rumor will not produce shared hostility toward
an out-group member unless it reliably causes in-group members
to become angry.
We have argued that emotional selection could operate effec-
tively even when memes create emotions rather than simply re-
spond to preexisting emotions. Indeed, contemporary legends
seem to be a plausible candidate for such memes because they
EMOTIONAL SELECTION IN MEMES1031
transmit effectively in day-to-day interactions that do not involve
the preexisting emotions of crisis, conflict, or catastrophe.
Not All Memes Evoke Diffuse Emotions
Previous theories have emphasized fairly vague, diffuse emo-
tions such as anxiety. This, perhaps, is the central area in which our
theory of emotional selection differs from previous approaches.
Emotional selection predicts that ideas will be most likely to
survive if they tap into a consistent emotional process that is
shared across people. Although diffuse emotions such as anxiety
may not be sufficiently consistent across people to drive emotional
selection, emotional selection may occur for fear, anger, or disgust
because these emotions are likely to be shared consistently across
people (e.g., Ekman, 1982; Frijda, 1987; Izard, 1977).3
When memes are transmitted, consistent emotions are likely to
be emphasized throughout the variation, selection, and retention
process. For example, consider a situation in which a narrator is
telling a story to listeners to create a social bond against an
out-group. In terms of variation, narrators may consciously try to
increase the emotional force of the story by choosing details that
make the story more likely to provoke anger. Narrators may also
vary stories without conscious calculation—when they recall a
scary story or statistic, they may fill in poorly remembered details
in a way that recreates the emotional reaction they had when they
first heard it. In general, when rumors or legends transmit across
people, the aspects of those ideas that are selected and retained are
likely to be the ones that evoke consistent emotional reactions—
aspects of the emotional recipe for a specific emotion such as
anger or fear.
Emotional selection thus emphasizes specific, consistent emo-
tions,
and by doing so it highlights features of rumors and legends
that previous accounts of general anxiety would miss. For exam-
ple,
emotional selection predicts that there are genres of rumors
and legends that specialize in evoking specific, basic emotions.
This,
in fact, seems to be true. Consider fear. The Halloween
trick-or-treat case was discussed in The Culture of Fear by soci-
ologist Barry Glassner (1999). According to Glassner, Americans
fear the wrong things (e.g., drugs, minorities, killer kids, mutant
microbes, plane crashes, and road rage), and he provided numerous
examples of stories and factoids that make Americans fearful of
events that are relatively uncommon and unlikely. Emotional se-
lection for fear is also illustrated by contemporary legends (e.g.,
Brunvand, 1981, chapters 1 and 3), wartime rumors (e.g., "bo-
gies";
Allport & Postman, 1947; Knapp, 1944), and rumors after
natural disasters (Festinger, 1957; Prasad, 1935, 1950).
Alternatively, consider another basic emotion: anger. In a clas-
sification of rumors that circulated during World War II, Knapp
(1944) recognized that the single largest category consisted of
"wedge drivers" that produced anger toward various groups. There
were anti-Semitic, anti-Black, and anti-British rumors. One rumor
held that American Catholics were trying to avoid the draft. A
whole class of rumors held that public officials were using their
positions for personal benefit (e.g., by acquiring extra rationed
goods).
Similar rumors have circulated in every war (Jacobson,
1948,
chapter 8, pp. 286-454). Or consider the class of contem-
porary legends that make consumers angry by claiming that cor-
porations support various fringe groups—for instance, rumors that
Snapple supports the Ku Klux Klan and that Procter and Gamble
supports the Church of Satan (Eckhouse, 1993; Fine, 1992; Koe-
nig, 1985; Stewart, 1996). Anger rumors are also pervasive in riot
situations. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
warned that rumors "significantly aggravated tensions and disor-
ders in more than 65 percent of disorders studied by the Commis-
sion" (cited in Rosnow, 1980, p. 582). In 1943, during the Detroit
race riots between Black and White citizens, almost identical
rumors circulated within both groups: "One asserted that a black
baby had been thrown from the bridge by white sailors; another
that a white baby had been thrown from the bridge by blacks. A
white woman had been attacked at the bridge by blacks; white
sailors had insulted black girls; white girls had been accosted by
blacks while swimming" (Allport & Postman, 1947, p. 196; see
also Rosnow & Fine, 1976, p. 58).
The literature includes anecdotal accounts that are consistent
with emotional selection. Consider how anger rumors evolved
during the Detroit race riots: "Within minutes after fighting broke
out, rumors were spreading like a gasoline fire through the white
districts: first, it was that a white woman had been raped on the
park bridge; then it was that she had also been killed. With almost
each new telling the rumors took on new dimensions. Later it was
said that she had also had a baby in her arms at the time, which her
assailant had tossed from the bridge in the river to drown" (Jacob-
son, 1948, p. 57). In this situation, as the rumor evolved, it did so
in a way that seemed more and more likely to provoke people to
anger. A level-headed person might remain calm even when an
adult is assaulted but not when a crime has been committed against
a baby. Thus, emotional selection highlights features of rumors
and legends that are hidden by the traditional emphasis on gener-
alized anxiety. Instead of vague stories that provoke generalized
anxiety, we find rumors and legends that seem targeted to provoke
specific emotional reactions.
In short, in this section we have argued that previous theories of
legends and rumors (a) emphasized negative emotions, (b) re-
sponded to preexisting exogenous events, and (c) involved diffuse
emotions. We have provided examples that are inconsistent with
the first point, but our studies in this article focus on challenging
the latter two points. To show that legends and rumors are not
limited to preexisting exogenous events such as crisis, conflict, or
catastrophe, we study contemporary legends that are common in
day-to-day interactions and that do not evoke strong preexisting
anxieties. Furthermore, to show that emotional selection operates
to shape specific emotional reactions, we focus on one specific,
basic emotion and show that this specific emotion increases the
transmission of legends. The next section describes why we focus
on the specific emotion of disgust.
3 Emotional selection is not limited to basic emotions—for example,
love is not a basic emotion with a distinctive physiological pattern or facial
expression, but love stories may propagate successfully as long as they
evoke consistent responses across people. However, emotional selection
does require that a rumor or legend tap into an emotion that is consistent
across people, and memes that evoke basic emotions such as fear or disgust
may be easier to propagate than memes that evoke romantic love or
spiritual rapture.
1032HEATH, BELL, AND STERNBERG
Disgust as a Case Study
Although there is ample anecdotal evidence that emotional
selection may select memes that evoke basic emotions such as
anger and fear, in this article we explore emotional selection using
a somewhat less obvious and intuitive domain: the basic emotion
of disgust. There are a several reasons why disgust is a particularly
interesting domain in which to test emotional selection.
First, we wanted to focus on a negative emotion. Although the
previous literature on rumors and legends has found it difficult to
explain positive emotions, other current literatures in social psy-
chology can explain why people might consume memes that
promote positive emotions (Taylor & Brown, 1988; Weinstein,
1980).
Thus, evidence of emotional selection is likely to be less
interesting for positive emotions than for negative ones.
Second, compared with other negative emotions, it is less intu-
itive that people would consume and transmit stories that produce
disgust. Although it is obvious that some genres of stories are
designed to produce sadness (e.g., tearjerkers) or fear (e.g., ghost
stories, horror films), it is less obvious that the same principles
operate for disgust. Rumors and legends that evoke disgust have
been studied less often than have rumors and legends that evoke
anger or fear (for an exception, see research on legends about
contamination in consumer products; Dominowitz, 1979; Fine,
1980;
Koenig, 1985).
Third, disgust is one of the emotions that is most commonly
evoked by contemporary legends. In a pilot study, we randomly
selected 100 contemporary legends from the three largest Web
sites that specialize in contemporary legends (which together con-
tain over 1,000 legends). We asked five raters to identify the
emotions they experienced when they read particular stories.
Across raters, disgust was the most common negative emotion
listed by raters, with about 25% of the stories eliciting disgust.
Thus,
there is reason to believe that disgust is one emotion that
should be understood in emotional selection.
Finally, compared with other emotions, the theoretical structure
of disgust has been described in more detail. Research on emotions
has described the schemas associated with many emotions, but
typically the schemas are fairly abstract because researchers have
tried to choose the minimal set of dimensions (e.g., pleasantness,
anticipated effort, certainty) that allow them to discriminate among
various emotions (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Smith & Ells-
worth, 1985). Although disgust has been studied less often than
have other emotions, it has been studied by researchers who have
been interested in the evolutionary significance of disgust. As a
result, researchers have described disgust based on specific actions
that may have evolutionary implications (e.g., contact with bodily
substances, ingestion of a contaminated substance; Haidt, McCau-
ley, & Rozin, 1994; Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 1993; Rozin,
Lowery, & Ebert, 1994; for a historical-literary approach to dis-
gust, see Miller, 1997). Therefore, these researchers have de-
scribed disgust at a level of detail that allows us to select and
analyze contemporary legends that are based on fairly specific
story motifs.
In sum, in this article we attempt to show that ideas in the
marketplace undergo not only informational selection but also
emotional selection. We study contemporary legends because they
represent memes that have achieved success in the social environ-
ment as true information. In addition, they have succeeded in
social environments that are not characterized by high levels of
preexisting emotion. Counter to previous emotional explanations,
we assume that emotional selection operates to select memes that
strongly trigger specific emotions rather than generalized anxiety.
We have chosen to test emotional selection using the basic emo-
tion of disgust because it is a common negative emotion in con-
temporary legends and because the emotions literature is highly
specific about its elicitors.
Study 1
In this study, we collected a sample of potentially emotional
stories and investigated whether people would indicate that they
would be more willing to pass along stories that evoke stronger
levels of disgust.
We prepared to test emotional selection by collecting a large
sample of contemporary legends that contain one or more disgust-
ing motifs. Folklorists have traditionally been quite interested in
analyzing the motifs that arise in oral traditions. A motif is "the
smallest element in a tale having the power to persist in tradition"
(Thompson, 1946, p. 415). In fairy tales, motifs might include a
dragon, a magic potion, or the number three. In this study, we
selected legends that contained one or more of the specific motifs
that have been found to reliably elicit disgust (e.g., contact with
bodily substances, cutting or piercing of the skin; Haidt et al.,
1994;
Rozin et al., 1993; Rozin et al., 1994). We examined the
emotional selection hypothesis by testing whether people say they
would be willing to pass along legends that elicit greater levels of
disgust.
We compare the emotional selection hypothesis with an infor-
mational selection hypothesis that predicts that people will be
more likely to pass along information that is plausible and that
contains some useful, practical information or a moral lesson. We
also compare emotional selection with another hypothesis that we
might label an entertainment hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts
that people will value stories that produce favorable emotional
reactions (especially positive and neutral emotions, e.g., interest,
joy, or surprise). According to the entertainment hypothesis, sto-
ries succeed when they are able to evoke strong emotion, but only
because these stories are better crafted and more entertaining—the
plot is more interesting, the characters more believable, or the
ending more novel. In this study, we also included various mea-
sures of story characteristics so that we could control for these
factors and determine whether emotional reactions are just a proxy
for a well-told, entertaining story.
Method
In this study, we assess whether people say they would be more likely
to pass along stories that evoke more disgust. We compiled a database of
potentially disgusting stories by searching books and the Internet for stories
that contain particular disgusting motifs that have been identified by
emotions researchers. In our analyses, the unit of analysis is the story (not
the individual participant). We are not concerned with whether an individ-
ual participant would pass along a story that involves strong emotions.
Rather, we are interested in whether stories that evoke strong emotions are
more likely to be passed along and, thus, propagate in the social
environment.
Procedure. Participants (N = 63) rated the emotional content of stories
and their willingness to pass them along. They also rated a variety of
EMOTIONAL SELECTION
IN
MEMES1033
characteristics
of the
story (plot, characters, surprise ending)
and the
informational value
of the
story (whether
it was
true, whether
it was
plausible, and whether
it
provided
a
moral lesson or practical information).
Each story
was
rated
by 8 or
more participants.
The
analyses below
consider
the
average ratings across participants
on
each dimension.
Participants. Participants were Duke University undergraduate
stu-
dents
who
were recruited individually
to
rate various aspects
of
stories
in
exchange
for a
cash payment
of
$10.
Materials.
We
compiled
a
large database
of
disgusting legends
by
searching
the top 10
Internet sites
for
contemporary legends
as
well
as
several compilations
of
contemporary legends
by Jan
Brunvand
(see the
Appendix
for a
complete list
of
sources). We selected major Web sites
by
searching using the key words urban legends. To choose the Web sites
we
sampled, we considered the number
of
legends that were listed by each site
we located, and we considered the prominence of the Web sites on the basis
of whether they were cited
by
other Web sites that focused
on
contempo-
rary legends.
To select legends that might produce disgust,
we
included
all
legends
that incorporated
one or
more
of
seven motifs that have been found
to
produce disgust (Haidt
et al.,
1994):
for
example, unusual sexual activity
such
as
incest
or
bestiality; contact with bodily substances such
as
feces,
urine,
or
ejaculate; ingestion
of
an inappropriate substance such
as
rats
or
bodily substances. This procedure produced
a
database
of
76 contemporary
legends.
The
legends themselves were presented exactly
as
they appeared
on the Web sites, but we eliminated any commentary that accompanied the
legend
on
the Web site (e.g., comments about whether the legend was true
or false).
In the
materials
we
gave
to
participants,
we
never used
the
terminology legend
or
contemporary legends. Instead,
we
used
the
more
generic label stories.
Although our primary interest was disgust, we wanted our raters to think
carefully about
the
emotions elicited
by
each story,
so we
added some
stories
to our
experiment that
we
expected would produce other kinds
of
emotions. To the database
of
76 disgusting legends that we compiled using
the procedure described above,
we
added another
36
legends from
the
random sample
we
mention
in the
introduction,
to
produce
a
total
of 112
legends.
We
randomly divided these
112
legends into seven different
groups
of 16,
with
the
constraint that each rater
saw 10-11
disgusting
legends and
an
additional
5-6
legends from the random sample. Each rater
was assigned to one
of
the groups
of
16 legends. In total, each legend in our
sample was rated
by at
least
8
independent raters.
In
our analyses, we treat
the legend
as the
unit
of
analysis
and
average the ratings
of
all raters
who
read
a
particular legend.
Emotions. After they read each legend, raters indicated, using
a
7-point
scale,
how
much
the
story made them feel each
of
eight basic emotions:
interest, joy, anger, surprise, sadness, contempt, fear, and disgust
(1
=
very
little;
1 = a lot).
Combined, these emotions represent
the
most common
basic emotions that are generally listed by emotions theorists
(cf.
Ortony
et
al.,
1988, Table 2.1).4 Because
our
main focus
is
disgust,
we
also added
two additional emotion terms that
we
expected
to tap
lower
and
higher
levels
of
disgust:
distaste and revolted. We averaged the three disgust items
into
a
single disgust scale
(a = .97).
Informational characteristics. Raters indicated whether they thought
the story was true (i.e., actually occurred)
and
plausible (i.e., could occur),
whether
the
story contained practical information
or a
moral lesson,
and
whether
it
would make them change their behavior. These ratings
and the
other ratings
for
story characteristics were made
on a
7-point scale (1
=
strong no;
1=
strong
yes).
Story characteristics. Raters also rated whether
the
story
had a
rich
plot, whether
the
characters seemed real,
and
whether
the
actions
of the
characters were believable. These
are the
major factors that story writers
discuss
as the
foundation
for
good stories. Also, because surprise endings
have been identified
as a key
feature
of
contemporary legends (Brunvand,
1981),
we
asked participants whether they expected
the
story's ending.
Pass along. Participants also answered four questions
to
indicate
whether they would pass along
a
story, each on
a
7-point scale
(1
=
strong
no;
1-
strong yes). They first indicated whether they would pass along the
story
to
others, then they also indicated whether they would pass
it
along
as true, as an interesting story, and
if
someone else told
a
similar story.
The
four measures were highly related,
and
below
we
average them into
a
single measure
(a = .91).
Results
Table 1 summarizes the mean ratings of the 112 legends on
emotional, informational, and story characteristics. Overall, the
stories received moderate ratings on emotion—interest, surprise,
and disgust were all around the midpoint of the scale; anger,
sadness, and contempt were listed less often; and joy and fear were
listed most rarely. In terms of informational characteristics, the
ratings of whether a story actually occurred and could occur were
highly correlated (r = .89), so we averaged these into a measure of
plausibility (M = 3.6). Raters were more likely to think that a story
was plausible than to say that it provided practical information
(M = 2.8) or a moral (M = 2.6; ps < .001 by paired t test).
The last four columns of Table 1 present ordinary least squares
(OLS) regressions that predict the score of each story on the
pass-along measure based on informational and emotional factors
and story characteristics. The first three regressions suggest that
both informational and emotional selection are important. In Re-
gression 1, which considers only emotional factors, the emotion of
interest is important but disgust is not. Regression 3 suggests that
when informational factors are controlled, more disgusting stories
are more likely to be passed along.
The most complete regression, Regression 4, indicates that
stories were more likely to be passed along if they evoked reac-
tions of interest (/3 = .49, p < .01), surprise (/3 = .24, p < .05),
and disgust (/3 = .27, p < .05). In terms of informational charac-
teristics, stories were more likely to be passed along if they were
plausible (j3 = .34, p < .05). In terms of story characteristics,
stories were more likely to be passed along if their characters
seemed real (j8 = .30, p < .05) but less likely to be passed along
if they had rich, perhaps complex, plots (/3 = -
.24,
p < .05).
Discussion
In this study we explore emotional selection by comparing it
with informational selection and with an entertainment hypothesis
(i.e.,
story characteristics). Informational selection is clearly im-
portant. Stories were more likely to be passed along when people
said they were plausible (i.e., when raters said they were true or
that they could occur). Stories were not more likely to be passed
along when they contained practical information or a moral lesson.
Consistent with emotional selection, stories were more likely to
be passed along if they evoked more interest or surprise. However,
these observations are somewhat banal because they are also
consistent with the broader entertainment hypothesis that people
like stories that are entertaining. Thus, the most novel evidence for
4 We omitted two other emotions that we normally would have included
(i.e.,
shame
and
guilt) because
in the
pilot study that
we
describe
in the
introduction, our raters never reported experiencing these two emotions on
any
of
the random sample
of
legends.
1034HEATH, BELL, AND STERNBERG
Table 1
Study 1: Means and Standard Deviations of Ratings of Contemporary Legends (Emotional,
Informational, and Story Characteristics) and OLS Regressions to Predict Pass Along
Measures
Pass along
Emotional reaction
Disgust
Interest
Surprise
Joy
Anger
Sadness
Contempt
Fear
Informational factor
Plausibility
Story contains practical/useful information
Story contains a moral
Story would make me change my behavior
Story characteristic
Plot of the story was rich
Characters seemed real
Ending was expected
Characters' actions were believable
Adjusted R2
M
3.4
4.0
3.8
4.0
1.7
2.4
2.5
2.4
1.9
3.6
2.8
2.6
1.9
3.1
3.8
3.3
3.8
SD
0.8
1.5
0.8
1.0
0.7
1.0
1.0
0.9
0.7
1.1
0.9
0.9
0.6
0.8
0.9
1.0
1.0
1
.11
.67***
-.04
.00
.13
-.04
-.13
-.10
.37
OLS Regressions
2
.51***
-.04
.14
.13
.37
3
.26**
.46**
,16t
.00
-.09
.02
-.09
-.I7t
.46***
.02
.00
.18t
.58
4
.27**
.49**
.24*
.04
-.13
.07
-.09
-.13
.34*
.03
.02
.14
-.24*
.30*
.09
-.08
.60
Note. The unit of analysis is the contemporary legend (N = 112). Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions
predict the pass-along variable on the basis of the other variables in the table; the entries in these columns are
standardized betas from the regression.
tp<.10.
*p<.05. **p< .01.
***/><.001.
emotional selection is that stories were more likely to be passed
along if they evoked greater disgust. This finding is hard to
reconcile with entertainment or informational theories of selection.
Although we did not specifically test for the preexisting anxiety
hypothesis, our results provide some reason to doubt that emo-
tional selection requires preexisting anxiety. Some of the legends
in our sample might tap preexisting anxieties—for example, stories
of contaminated foods in fast-food restaurants—but others focus
on events that seem unlikely to do so. For example, the most
popular legend in the sample involved toad licking. According to
this legend, some people like to lick a particular kind of North
American toad because its skin secretes a chemical that produces
a psychoactive high.5 Another popular legend holds that Ozzy
Ozbourne, the heavy metal rock star, once bit the head off of a live
bat during a concert. Both legends were rated as highly disgusting
and were quite likely to be passed along. However, neither seems
likely to tap broad, preexisting anxieties. The disgusting activities
in both stories require voluntary effort and special supplies; thus,
they seem unlikely to feed anxieties about accidental toad licking
or bat chewing.
Study 2
Study
1
provides some evidence that emotional selection may be
at work in the propagation of contemporary legends. However,
because Study 1 uses a naturally occurring set of legends, it is
possible that some other factor was spuriously correlated with
disgust and that our analysis omitted this important factor.
In this study, we try to control for this possibility by selecting a
sample of legends and manipulating their capacity to evoke the
emotion of
disgust.
Emotional selection predicts that if
we
vary the
level of disgust evoked by a legend, people should be more willing
to pass along variants that are more disgusting.
In this study we also wanted to control for several alternative
interpretations of our main results on emotional selection. Study 1
shows that people were more likely to pass along legends that
aroused greater emotion, including more disgust. Is this truly
evidence that people pass along stories that evoke negative emo-
tions? Were people perhaps implicitly gloating over the misfortune
or humiliation of the characters in the story, or were they using the
story to feel better, by comparison, about their own circumstances?
By controlling for such factors, we improve our ability to interpret
any potential effects of emotional selection.
5 The idea of toad licking strikes some people as humorous as well as
disgusting, and when we presented these results in seminars, several people
questioned whether these urban legends were really like rumors (as we
assume in the introduction) or more like
jokes.
To test this possibility, we
used a procedure similar to the one used in Study 1 to have 60 new raters
rate the 112 legends on a 7-point scale (7 = very similar; 1 = not similar)
based on how similar they were to rumors (M = 4.6), gossip (M = 4.2),
jokes (M = 3.7), and news (M = 3.0). All differences between means are
significant at p < .01 by paired t test. Thus, these legends are more like
rumors than like other potential categories of social exchange. We thank
Ralph Rosnow for suggesting this procedure.
EMOTIONAL SELECTION IN MEMES1035
Method
Participants. Participants were 42 Duke University undergraduates
who participated for course credit.
Materials. The experiment was titled "Emotional Stories," and partic-
ipants were asked to read 12 stories and fill out an associated questionnaire.
In a between-subjects design, participants read 12 stories in a low-,
medium-, or high-disgust condition. To manipulate disgust in a way that
would allow our results to generalize, we randomly selected 12 legends
from the database of 76 disgusting legends that we compiled for Study 1.
We then manipulated disgust by altering the core motif that seemed to
make the story disgusting. For example, for a story in which a man ingested
a contaminated substance (the liquid from a soda that contained a dead rat
at the bottom), we altered the amount of ingesfion that took place to be
either more disgusting (the man ingested not only the liquid associated with
the dead rat but pieces of the dead rat itself) or less disgusting (the man did
not ingest anything because he spotted the rat after he smelled a bad odor).
See Table 2 for a description of stories and manipulations.
One problem we encountered in attempting to manipulate the stories was
that many of the core motifs were already about as disgusting as our limited
Table 2
Variations of Each Story for Low-, Medium-, and High-Disgust Conditions
StoryLowMediumHigh
Cat food mislabeled
as tuna
Toothbrushes
Rat in soda bottle
Infested hairdos
Hit and run
Scrotum self-repair
Wedding video
Dog's dinner
Young sister takes
mother literally,
castrates brother
Roaches in new
cactus houseplant
Decapitated
motorcycle rider
The movie star and
the gerbil
A person opened a can, prepared
to make tuna salad, and
noticed that the tuna smelled
funny.
Pictures in the roll of film feature
various views of the bellboy
cleaning his nails with the four
family toothbrushes.
Before he drank anything he saw
that there was a dead rat
inside.
There were rats crawling all over
the towel.
There was a bird imbedded in the
grill of his car.
The man suffered minor
abrasions on his scrotum and
testicles.
He forgot to erase from the tape
scenes of himself masturbating.
The waiter had told the chef to
prepare the dog for dinner. The
couple ran into the kitchen to
save poor Rosa just in time.
The girl pinched it. The mother
came home to find her son
crying and a cut on his penis.
There were ants having babies
inside the plant.
His arm is neatly cut off.
[A famous movie star] had a hot
dog removed from his anus.
A person opened a can, prepared
to make tuna salad, took a bite,
and spit the tuna out.a
Pictures in the roll of film feature
various views of the bellboy
with the four family
toothbrushes stuck in his
armpits.
About halfway through he saw
that there was a dead rat
inside."
There were rats crawling around
in her hair.
There was a dog imbedded in the
grill of his car.
The man suffered a torn scrotum
and lost one of his testicles.
There were scenes of himself in
sex acts with his plastic
dummy.
Eventually the waiter returned
carrying a dish. When the
couple removed the silver lid
they found Rosa.a
The girl cut it off. The mother
came home to find her son
crying and bleeding with no
penis.
There were cockroaches having
babies inside the plant."
He is neatly decapitated by the
steel sheet.a
[A famous movie star] had a
gerbil removed from his anus.3
A person opened a can, prepared
to make tuna salad, ate it, and
started to feel queasy.
Pictures in the roll of film feature
various views of the bellboy
with the four family
toothbrushes stuck up his
bootie.a
He swallowed something lumpy
and saw that there were pieces
of a dead rat inside.
She had been gnawed to death by
rats.a
There was an 8-year-old girl
imbedded in the grill of his
car."
The man suffered a torn scrotum
and lost one of his testicles,
but he calmly stapled his
scrotum back together and
resumed work before finally
visiting a doctor three days
later."
There were scenes of himself in
sex acts with a neighbor's bull
terrier named Ronnie.a
The couple enjoyed their
delicious meal. They
eventually realized that the
waiter had served them Rosa
for dinner.
The girl cut it off. The mother
came home to find her son had
bled to death with no penis.a
The plant exploded, and hundreds
of cockroaches flew out.
Apparently, the motion had
been caused by the
cockroaches having babies
inside the plant.
He is neatly decapitated by the
steel sheet, and the head
splatters on the windshield of
the car behind it, causing the
driver to hit a tree.
[A famous movie star] had a
diseased rat removed from his
anus.
" The story in this condition was the original version.
1036HEATH, BELL, AND STERNBERG
imaginations would allow us
to
make them. Overall,
for 6 of
the 12 stories
the original version
of
the story was
in the
high-disgust condition,
and for
the other
6
stories
the
original version
was in the
medium-disgust condi-
tion. Analyses
for
each
set of
stories produced similar results,
so the
analyses
and
results reported below represent
the
combined sets.
Emotions. After they read each legend, raters provided
the
same emo-
tions ratings provided
in
Study
1. The
alpha
for the
disgust scale
in
this
study
was .92.
Informational characteristics. Raters indicated whether they thought
the story actually occurred
and
whether
it
could occur.6
In
Table
3, we
report separate means
for
these two ratings, but
in
the regressions
in
Table
4
(as in
Study
1) we
combine these measures into
a
single measure
of
plausibility. Raters also indicated whether
the
story would make them
change their behavior. These ratings were made
on a
7-point scale (1
=
strong yes;
1=
strong
no).
Severity (gloating).
We
were also interested
in
whether people expe-
rienced the negative emotions
of
the story
as
positive (e.g.,
by
gloating).
We thus asked raters
to
assess how much
the
main characters
in the
story
suffered trauma, pain,
or
loss
of
dignity. These ratings were made
on a
7-point scale (1
=
very little;
1 - a
lot).
We
expected that
if
raters were
implicitly gloating, they would
be
more likely
to
pass along stories that
involved more trauma
or
loss
of
dignity.
Social comparison.
A
less extreme version
of
the gloating hypothesis
is that people simply feel more thankful about their
own
circumstances
when they hear about
the
misfortunes
of
others.
To
test
for
this kind
of
social comparison,
we
asked people whether each story made them feel
better about themselves
and
about their
own
circumstances
(1 =
strong
yes;
7=
strong
no).
Results
Manipulation checks. Table 3 separates, by condition, the
mean ratings of emotion, main character suffering, informational
Table 4
Study 2: Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression to Predict
Pass Along
Independent variables
Emotional reaction
Medium disgust
High disgust
Interest
Surprise
Joy
Anger
Sadness
Fear
Contempt
Informational
Plausibility
Change behavior
Severity (gloating)
Trauma
Pain
and
suffering
Loss
of
dignity
Social comparison
Feel better about self
Feel better about own
circumstances
Adjusted
R2
1:
Info
.05
.20***
.17***
14***
.49
Regression
2:
Emotions
.02
.16**
.11
.03
.16**
-.02
.00
.07
.12*
.49
3:
Info
and
emotions
.03
.18**
.11
.06
.15**
-.05
.04
.03
.09
.17***
.13***
.53
4:
All
variables
.02
.17***
.11*
.05
.15**
-.05
.01
.02
.09**
.17***
.14***
.09
.04
-.07
.05
.09
.53
Note.
The
table reports standardized betas from
OLS
regressions.
The
OLS regression also contained dummy variables
for
each participant that
are
not
reported
in the
table. Info
=
information.
*p<.05.
**p<.01.
***/>< .001.
Table 3
Study 2: Mean Responses for Each Degree of Disgust (Low,
Medium, High) and Ordinary Least Squares Regression to
Predict Pass Along
Measures
Pass along
Emotional reaction
Disgust
Interest
Surprise
Joy
Anger
Sadness
Fear
Contempt
Informational
Story actually occurred
Story could occur
Change behavior
Severity (gloating)
Trauma
Pain
and
suffering
Loss
of
dignity
Social comparison
Feel better about self
Feel better about own circumstances
Low
2.6a
4.2a
3.6
3.5a
1.9
2.1a
2.5a
2.1
2.5
3.5a
4.4a
1.6
4.8,
3.9,
3.8,
1.8
1.9
Medium
2.7,
4.6h
3.6
4.1h
2.0
2.2a
2.7a
2.0
2.5
3.0h
4-2ab
1.5
5.2b
4.2b
4.2b
1.9
2.2
High
3A
5.2,
3.7
4.6,
1.9
2.7b
3.1,
2.4
2.8
2.9b
3-7b
1.8
5.8,
5.0,
4.8,
1.8
2.0
features, and generalized worldview. We analyzed the data using
repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), with the 12
stories as the repeated measure within subjects and three levels of
disgust (low, medium, high) as the between-subjects variable.
Table 3 reports individual post hoc tests that compare each con-
dition with the others using Bonferroni fractions. Our manipulation
of disgust was successful—overall, the three conditions differed
significantly in disgust, F(2, 37) = 29.67, p < .001, and post hoc
comparisons suggest that each condition differed from the others.
Evidence of emotional selection. Our key prediction in this
study was that participants would be more willing to pass along
Note. Entries
in a
given row with different subscripts differ by
a
post hoc
test using Bonferroni comparisons. Responses were made
on a
7-point
scale.
6
In
addition
to the
generic measure
of
whether
a
story could occur
(as
in Study
1), we
also asked people whether they thought
the
events
in the
story could happen
to
them
or
to someone they know. We originally added
these measures because we wanted
to
rule out
a
hypothesis consistent with
preexisting anxiety—people might pass along stories that could occur
not
because the stories are informational but because people are anxious about
similar events happening
to
them.
The
preexisting anxiety hypothesis
should predict that people should
be
most likely
to
transmit stories that
could occur
to
them—not
to
someone they know
or a
generalized other.
The order of means shows that people were more likely
to
say
a
story could
occur
(M = 4.1)
than
to say it
could occur
to
someone they know
(M
= 3.0) or
that
it
could occur
to
them
(M =
2.3;
all
pairs differ
at p <
.001 by paired
t
test). These three measures were highly correlated and had
the same effect
on our
regressions,
so for
simplicity
we use the
same
measure
we
used
in
Study
1
(i.e.,
the
generic "could occur" item).
EMOTIONAL SELECTION IN MEMES1037
stories that were more disgusting. This was the case. The repeated
measures ANOVA suggests that the conditions differed signifi-
cantly, F(2, 37) = 5.40, p < .01. Post hoc tests indicate that the
high-disgust condition prompted the most transmission—partici-
pants were more willing to pass along stories in the high-disgust
condition than in the low- and medium-disgust conditions (ps <
.05),
but the low- and medium-disgust conditions did not differ
significantly.
The manipulation checks above confirm that we successfully
manipulated disgust; however, we also altered other factors. Thus,
to provide more direct evidence that disgust affects transmission,
we present a number of OLS regressions in Table 4 that indicate
that our manipulation of disgust increased people's willingness to
pass along a story even after we simultaneously controlled for
emotional, informational, and other factors (e.g., severity, social
comparison). The regressions take the participant-story as the unit
of analysis (resulting in 42 participants X 12 stories = 504 degrees
of freedom), but to control for the fact that each participant
contributed 12 observations to the analysis, we included dummy-
coded indicator variables to control for different means among
participants.
In Table 4, the first two rows show the additional impact of an
indicator variable that compares our medium- and high-disgust
manipulations with the low-disgust manipulation. The four col-
umns of the table show that the high-disgust version differed
significantly from the low-disgust version, and this effect remained
relatively consistent even as we controlled for informational fac-
tors,
other emotions, and other factors. Thus, there is consistent
evidence for emotional selection for disgust.
In addition to the evidence of emotional selection for disgust,
the regressions in Table 4 also allow us to assess other effects.
Consider Regression 4. Consistent with emotional selection, we
found that participants were more willing to pass along stories that
evoked more interest (/3 =
.11,
p < .05), joy (/3 = .15, p < .01),
and contempt (/3 = .09, p < .05). Consistent with informational
selection, participants were also likely to pass along stories that
were plausible (j3 = .17, p < .001) and that would change their
behavior (j3 = .14, p < .001). Notably, the regression does not
indicate any evidence of gloating—participants were not more
willing to pass along a story when the main character of the story
suffered greater trauma or loss of dignity.
Story-level analysis. We also assessed whether the overall
results were skewed by one or two of our stories. In this analysis,
we treated each story as the unit of analysis and compared the
mean response of all participants in the low-, medium-, and high-
disgust conditions. Of the 12 stories we studied, participants said
they would pass along the version in the high-disgust condition
over that in the low-disgust condition in 10 stories (p < .05 by
binomial test), and they said they would pass along the version in
the high-disgust condition over that in the medium-disgust condi-
tion in 9 cases (p = .15). In fact, the only case for which
transmission decreased as disgust increased was the wedding video
story, in which people accidentally see a tape of a man participat-
ing in bestiality.
Discussion
Study 2 directly documents emotional selection when emotion is
manipulated. In general, people preferred the version of the story
that produced the highest levels of disgust. It is interesting that
when people indicated that they would pass along the most dis-
gusting story, they were also passing along stories that produced
higher mean levels of other negative emotions (i.e., anger and
sadness) and were passing along stories that they admitted were
less plausible. Recall that we randomly selected legends to be
manipulated from the broader database of disgusting legends.
Thus,
there is no reason to believe that the results of this study are
atypical—it should be possible to manipulate emotions for other
stories in a way that alters emotional selection.
One possible explanation for these results is that by changing
the stories, we created bad versions of the story that did not "hang
together." However, we note that people were almost as likely to
prefer the highly disgusting version of a story whether it was
invented by us (4 out of 6 stories) or was the original version in the
environment (in 5 out of 6 stories). Some readers may wonder
why—if we found it so easy to manipulate urban legends for our
experiment—the process of emotional selection does not operate
in the natural environment to make urban legends even more
disgusting (e.g., if a legend mentions a rat, why does the process
of emotional selection not eventually produce a legend with a
diseased rat?). As anecdotal evidence of the power of emotional
selection, we note that we found it difficult to "improve" the
disgust quotient of about half our stories (brave readers might
attempt this as an exercise). However, we also note that evolution-
ary approaches assume only that selection works in general, not
that it always produces an optimum on each dimension of
selection.
The emotional selection hypothesis argues that stories are more
likely to propagate if they evoke strong emotions, but it does not
specify the precise form of this relationship. For example, people
might like stories that evoke more disgust but balk at passing along
stories that are too disgusting. To our surprise, Study 2 shows the
opposite pattern within the limits of our sample—people were
equally willing to pass along versions in the low- and medium-
disgust conditions, but they were significantly more likely to pass
along the version in the high-disgust condition.
This study also provides some evidence about how much memes
are selected for information in the marketplace of
ideas.
Consistent
with informational selection, we found that people were more
likely to pass along stories that were plausible and that would
change their own behavior. However, note that in terms of overall
means, the study suggests that the highly disgusting stories that
were most likely to be passed along were also the stories that were
least plausible. Thus, on balance, emotion rather than truth may
sometimes win out in the marketplace of ideas.
Study 3
Studies 1 and 2 support emotional selection by showing that
legends were more likely to be passed along when they evoked
greater disgust. Yet our measures in these studies only involved
what people said they would pass along, and such self-report
measures may be suspect. A better measure would assess what
people actually pass along in an uncontrived social setting. In this
study, we seek evidence of emotional selection in a nonlaboratory
environment by surveying urban legends Web sites.
Urban legends Web sites exist to collect and comment on the
most popular contemporary legends. The Web site designers seem
1038HEATH, BELL,
AND
STERNBERG
to take pleasure
in
cataloguing
and
debunking legends,
so
they
are
motivated
to
comment
on the
legends that
are the
most prominent
and widely distributed
in the
social environment. Thus,
in
Study
3
we used these
Web
sites
as a way of
measuring
the
breadth
of
distribution
of
particular legends.
In this study
we
also examine
a
different mechanism
for mea-
suring disgust. Previously,
we
measured disgust through
the self-
reports
of
independent raters.
In
this study
we
measure disgust
using
a
scale that codes
the
presence
of
individual disgust motifs
identified
by
research
on
disgust—for example, whether
the
story
involves
the
motif
of
contact with bodily fluids
or the
motif
of
ingesting
a
nonfood item (Haidt
et al., 1994;
Rozin
et a!., 1993;
Rozin
et al.,
1994).
If we
imagine each motif
as a
psychological
"lever" that
can be
pressed
to
create some amount
of
disgust, then
our motif scale allows
us to
measure
how
many levers
are
pushed
by
a
particular legend.
For
example,
in one
legend
a
couple adopts
an unusual type
of
Chihuahua during
a
trip
to
Mexico. Later, when
they take
it to the vet, the vet
informs them that their
pet is not a
dog
but a
Mexican sewer rat. According
to
research
on
disgust,
one
of
the
seven most common motifs that produce disgust
is
contact
with suspect animals (e.g., insects, toads, rats).
The
Mexican
pet
legend would score
at
least
one
point
on the
disgust motif scale
for
contact with animals.
In
another legend,
a
woman
is
eating
her
Kentucky Fried chicken
and
discovers that
her
piece
of
chicken
has teeth—she
has
actually been eating
a
Kentucky Fried
rat.
This
story would score
at
least
two
points
on the
disgust motif scale
for
contact with animals
and
ingestion
of an
inappropriate substance.
In this study
we
examine whether stories that contain more disgust
motifs
are
actually more likely
to
succeed
in the
social environ-
ment,
as
measured
by
their presence
on
multiple
Web
sites
for
contemporary legends.
Method
Web survey.
We
searched each
of the top 10 Web
sites listed
in the
Appendix
to
locate each
of the
disgusting stories using
key
words
in the
story.
To
construct
our
measure
of
how widely each story
was
reported,
we
simply counted
how
many
Web
sites contained each story.
Disgust motif
scale.
Haidt
et al.
(1994) validated
a
disgust scale that
contains questions from seven different domains that commonly elicit
disgust.
We
consider these seven domains
to
represent separate motifs,
and
we coded each legend
for
each
motif.
Without knowledge
of the Web
survey results,
the
three
of us
independently read
the 76
stories from
the
database
we
compiled
in
Study
1 and
indicated whether each legend
contained each
of the
seven motifs (coefficient alphas
are
given
in
paren-
theses): unusual sexual activity such
as
incest
or
bestiality (.96); contact
with bodily substances such
as
feces, urine,
or
ejaculate (.88); violations
of
hygiene such
as
personal uncleanliness (.76); ingestion
of
inappropriate
food substance such
as
rats
or
bodily substances (.96); death (.91); enve-
lope violations
in
which
the
body
is cut or
pierced (.84);
and
contact with
animals, primarily insects, reptiles,
and
rats (.93).
To
construct
the
motif
scale,
we
assumed that
a
motif
was
present
if the
majority
of
raters agreed
it
was
present,
and
then
we
summed across motifs.
Informational selection.
We
also controlled
for
informational selection
using
the
ratings from
our
raters
in
Study
1 for
each
of the
stories
in the
database.
Results
Table
5
presents
the
percentage
of
stories that contain
the
various motifs
on the
disgust motif scale.
On
average, stories
Table
5
Study
3:
Frequency
of
Various Motifs Among
76
Legends
Variablei stories with motif
Contact with animal
Violations
of
body envelope
Death
Ingestion
of
inappropriate food item
Sex
Contact with body substances
Violations
of
hygiene
47
44
38
36
23
22
7
contained multiple motifs. Recall that
to
enter
the
database, stories
had
to
exhibit
at
least
one of the
disgust motifs; however,
the
average number
of
motifs
per
story
was 2.63,
which
is
signifi-
cantly greater than
1, t(16) =
10.6,
p <
.001.
The
majority
of the
stories
(78%)
included more than
one motif, and
about
a
quarter
(22%) contained more than four.
Table
6
presents
OLS
regressions that examine
how the
disgust
motif scale predicts
two
aspects
of
selection.
The
regressions
on
the left predict
the
pass-along measure from Study
1.
These
re-
gressions show that
the
disgust motif scale significantly predicted
the self-reports
of
our earlier raters—for example,
in
Regression
3,
stories were more likely
to be
passed along when they involved
more
of
the disgust motifs
(/3 =
.26,
p <
.001).
The
results
in
these
regressions, which
use the
disgust motif scale,
are
comparable
in
magnitude
to the
results
of the
regression
in
Study
1,
which used
as
an
independent variable
the
raters' average self-report
of the
disgust they experienced.
The regressions
on the
right
in
Table
6
predict
Web
site popu-
larity:
the
actual number
of Web
sites that catalogue
a
particular
legend.
The
disgust motif scale
was a
good predictor
of Web
site
popularity.
In
Regression
6,
which controlled
for
other informa-
tional
and
emotional factors,
the
effect
of
disgust
was
significant
(j8
= .37, p < .01), and the
other variables failed
to
reach
significance.
In
this regression,
for
every additional motif included
in
a
story,
the
chance
of
the story being catalogued
on an
additional
Web site increased
by
about
20%.
Discussion
This study finds results that
are
consistent with Studies 1
and 2
using
a
more objective independent
and
dependent variable.
In
terms
of the
independent variable,
we
were able
to
reliably code
our sample
of
legends
on the
various objectives motifs predicted
by research
on
disgust (Haidt
et
al., 1994; Rozin
et
al., 1993; Rozin
et
al.,
1994). Although
the
legends needed
to
have only
one of the
motifs
to be
included
in our
database, they typically featured
two
or three separate motifs.
Most important, this study shows that
it is
possible
to use the
emotional selection hypothesis
to
predict
the
prominence
of leg-
ends
in the
social environment. Note that because
we
were inter-
ested
in
emotional selection
for
disgust,
we
examined
a
sample
of
legends that were likely
to
evoke
at
least some disgust (i.e.,
legends with
at
least
one
disgust motif). Thus,
we
cannot
say
from
our analysis whether disgusting legends
are
more
or
less popular
than legends with other characteristics. However,
the
results
do
indicate that within stories that evoke
at
least some disgust,
emo-
tional selection operates. Each additional disgust motif signifi-
EMOTIONAL
SELECTION IN MEMES1039
Table 6
Study 3: Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regressions to Predict
Pass Along and Popularity on Web Sites Among 76 Legends
Variable
Disgust
motif scale
Interest
Surprise
Joy
Anger
Sadness
Fear
Contempt
Plausibility
Change
behavior
R2
Regression
Pass
along
1
2
-19t
.59**
-.09
-.23*
.10
.03
-.11
.02
.53***
.17*
.37
.31
3
.26***
.36**
.24*
-.18*
-.15
.10
-.08
-.01
.57***
.10
.59
Web
4
-.21*
.02
.04
site
popularity
5
.36**
-.13
-.03
-.09
-.36
.04
-.01
.26
.08
6
: 37**
-.14
-.02
-.06
-.411
.03
-.05
.31
-.08
.15
.07
Note.
The entries in each column represent standardized betas from the
OLS
regressions.
tp<.10.
*p<.05.
**p<.0\.
***p<.001.
cantly increased the probability that a Web site would catalogue a
particular legend.7 Because these Web sites exist to catalogue and
debunk legends that are prominent in the broader social environ-
ment, it is plausible to argue that, consistent with emotional
selection, more disgusting legends are more successful in the
social environment.
General Discussion
This article presents three studies that explore how memes are
selected in the marketplace of ideas. We studied contemporary
legends because they are socially prominent memes and are told as
true,
and we contrasted the impact of informational and emotional
selection. In general, the studies provide converging evidence for
emotional selection. Study 1 shows that when informational as-
pects of truth and usefulness were controlled, people were more
willing to pass along stories that elicited stronger disgust. Study 2
manipulates levels of disgust and shows that people preferred to
pass along the versions that produced the highest level of disgust.
Study 3 shows that legends could be reliably coded for individual
story motifs that produce disgust (e.g., ingestion of a contaminated
substance). It also shows that the number of motifs affected pop-
ularity; legends that contained more disgust motifs were more
likely to be passed along and were distributed more widely on Web
sites that specialize in contemporary legends. The results of
Study 3 are particularly interesting because they suggest that
emotional selection may alter the distribution of memes in the
social environment.
Limitations of the Current Article
Although the current studies provide evidence of emotional
selection, they have important limitations. Our studies controlled
for factors that may influence transmission of information, such as
informational selection, story characteristics, gloating, and social
comparison. However, there may be other potential mediators we
did not test (e.g., we did not provide a direct test of generalized
anxiety).
Probably the most important limitation of these studies is that
they focus only on emotional selection for disgust. We chose
disgust because it is a common negative emotion in contemporary
legends and because the prediction of emotional selection for
disgust is somewhat less intuitive than is the prediction for other
negative emotions, such as fear and anger. However, it would be
desirable to extend these results to other emotions. At present, this
is difficult because other basic emotions have typically not been
described at a level of detail that allows us, for example, to list
specific motifs such as the ones we used to select our legends in
Study 1 or to construct the motif scale in Study 3.
Another limitation of this article, and a direction for future
research, is that we have not examined why emotional selection
occurs. How much is it driven by emotional consumption, by
social bonding, and by other factors? The current studies do not
examine social interaction, and future studies could make a con-
tribution by exploring whether emotional memes succeed because
they increase emotional consumption or social bonding (as we
speculated in the introduction) or for other reasons—for example,
because they provide a more successful basis for social exchange
(Rosnow & Fine, 1976) as people vie to pass along the most
interesting, emotionally engaging stories.
Implications of
the
Current Article for Theory
In this article, we have adopted the term meme to refer to the
cultural practices that undergo selection because we want to high-
light that our approach is not limited to contemporary legends but
is more general. Previous researchers have considered a number of
topics that we feel are related to the evolution of memes in culture,
but researchers in one literature seldom cite or borrow from
researchers in another because each group of researchers defines
their domain narrowly. We think this is unfortunate, because the
literatures have much to learn from each other. For example, as we
described in the introduction, there are rich, interesting literatures
on both rumors and contemporary legends, but these literatures
have historically not communicated much with each other, prob-
ably to the detriment of both. To name some other literatures that
only rarely cite each other, we suspect that emotional selection
may also play a role in propagating memes such as fear-inducing
cascades of information about carcinogens or environmental con-
taminants (Kuran & Sunstein, 2000), moral panics about deviant
behavior (Goode & Nachman, 1994) or hysterias about satanic
ritual child abuse (Showalter, 1997), media attention to homicides
and auto accidents but not to diabetes or stomach cancer (Combs
& Slovic, 1979) or to road rage and flesh-eating bacteria but not to
poverty or workplace safety (Glassner, 1999). We have adopted
7 Table 6 displays a couple
of results
that are inconsistent with emotional
selection—legends
were less successful when they evoked greater joy
(Regression
2) or anger (Regression 4). Given the evidence in the
intro-
duction
that some classes of rumors and legends do produce joy or anger,
we
speculate that rumors and legends may evolve to highlight a focal
emotion.
If stories are selected to produce a focal emotion, then additional
emotions
other than generic interest or surprise may interfere with selection
for
the focal emotion and, as a result, be selected against.
1040HEATH, BELL, AND STERNBERG
the term meme as a general term to remind ourselves that it is
worth looking for general psychological and sociological pro-
cesses that lead to the selection of stories, attitudes, factoids,
rumors, legends, news, ideas, and other such memes.
The approach we have taken in this article can be adapted to
explore other forms of meme selection. Just as biological organ-
isms evolve to fit a physical environment, memes should evolve to
fit an environment determined by shared psychological and socio-
logical characteristics. In this article we have explored how memes
may evolve to fit shared emotional reactions, but, for example, a
cognitive psychologist might examine how memes evolve to fit
within shared cognitive constraints. It is probably no accident that
folk taxonomies in cultures around the world tend to evolve
systems for classifying kin, animals, or other objects that include
less than 7 ± 2 categories (D'Andrade, 1995, pp. 42-43). Alter-
natively, consider David Rubin's (1995) brilliant book Memory in
Oral Traditions, in which he explored how cultures manage to
transmit across generations complex oral traditions like epic poetry
or ballads. He provided evidence that the aspects of epics that are
retained over time are those that take advantage of people's natural
abilities to remember certain kinds of material—for example,
concrete, high-imagery actions (vs. abstract concepts) and phrases
that involve sound cues, such as alliteration or rhyme. Rubin's
work on cognitive selection and our work on emotional selection
are both examples of a more general approach to memes: a
variation-selection-retention approach that looks for some consis-
tent aspect of the shared cognitive or social environment and
investigates how memes evolve to fit that shared environment.
Implications for Social Dynamics
Emotional selection is theoretically interesting because it tells us
that informational selection is not the only process at work in the
marketplace of ideas. However, emotional selection may also be
practically important because it has the potential to alter social and
community relationships.
For example, if memes are selected for their emotional content,
then social systems may sometimes experience emotional snow-
balling—runaway selection for emotional content rather than for
information. Consider, for example, the Halloween trick-or-treat
legends in the introduction. Over the last 20 years or so, these
contemporary legends have undermined an annual ritual that pro-
vided a small but important part of the community fabric in many
neighborhoods. As another example of how runaway memes can
affect social dynamics, consider the common courtesy whereby
drivers flash their lights at other drivers who have forgotten to turn
on their headlights. This custom is a simple way of looking out for
others, but a few years back it was undermined in many urban
areas by a fear-inducing legend. According to the legend, some
urban gangs required prospective members to kill a person as a
part of the gang initiation. How was the unlucky victim selected?
According to the legend, the gangs would drive around in a car
with its lights off. The first driver who flashed his or her lights at
the car would be hunted down and killed.
Certain memes also operate to undermine public faith in gov-
ernmental or social institutions. Legends that evoke anger against
"welfare queens" who abuse the welfare system make people
suspicious of our social safety net (Glassner, 1999). Our faith in
the judicial system may be undermined by stories about criminals
who abuse the insanity defense (Caplan, 1992) or about individuals
who seem to benefit unfairly from the tort system (Bailis &
MacCoun, 1996)—as in the famous case of the woman who
"received millions" when she spilled a hot cup of coffee on her lap
and sued "because it was too hot."
In legal and public policy circles, researchers have expressed
repeated concerns that the media may skew public policy by
provoking irrational fears. By provoking such fears, the media may
cause society to skew public policy toward trivial but emotional
"problems" and away from legitimate problems that are less emo-
tional (Bailis & MacCoun, 1996; Edelman, Abraham, & Erlanger,
1992;
Glassner, 1999; Marsh, 1991). Although the media may
deserve all the criticism it gets, irrational fears often propagate in
the form of informal contemporary legends that use as experts only
the ubiquitous "friend of a friend." Until we understand more
about emotional selection, we are unlikely to understand the social
implications of a marketplace of ideas that competes not only over
truth but also over emotion.
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Appendix
List of Urban Legend References
The
AFU and
urban legends archive, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.urbanlegends.com.
Urban legends reference pages, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.snopes.com.
Urban myths, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.urbanmyths.com.
Monkeyburgers. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.xs4all.nl/~arink/index.html.
Your mining co. guide
to
urban legends and folklore, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.urbanlegends.tqn.com.
Urban legends
&
modern folklore, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.geocities.com/Area51/7416/.
Net
47
introduces urban myths
&
legends, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.delta-9.com/net47/myth.
Uncle Ken's urban myth page. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from pwl.netcom.com/~uncleken/urbanmyths.html.
Mystical World Wide Web. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from www.mystical-www.co.uk/urbanidx.htm.
Urban excursion: Urban legends: twincities.sidewalk, (n.d.). Retrieved February 1999 from twincities.sidewalk.com/detail/46685.
Brunvand,
J. H.
(1984). The choking doberman
and
other
"new"
urban legends.
New
York: Norton.
Brunvand,
J. H.
(1986). The Mexican pet: More
"new"
legends
and
some old favorites.
New
York: Norton.
Brunvand,
J. H.
(1989).
The
baby train
and
other lusty urban legends.
New
York: Norton.
Brunvand,
J. H.
(1989). Curses! Broiled again! The hottest urban legends going.
New
York: Norton.
Received November 27, 2000
Revision received April 18,
2001
Accepted April
20, 2001
