ABSTRACT
Although we generally seem to believe that rumors become highly distorted as they are communicated through a social group, evidence from several field studies has indicated that rumors are frequently transmitted with little if any distor tion. Caplow’s (1947) study of rumor transmission in army regiments during World War II indicated that rumors are recirculated through the social network and therefore subject to repeated correction. Distortion, he found, oc curred where numerical statements were involved. Simi larly, Schachter and Burdick found that planted rumors were not distorted in transmission. They found, though, that new rumors emerged when the group was exposed to an unprecedented and undefined event.
