Mind Moves:'Loose talk can cost lives." "Button your lip." "Keep it under your hat." So enjoined second World War posters at a time when careless talk did indeed have the capacity to cost the lives of thousands.
Those working in "intelligence", in the "underground" or "resistance" relied on the silence of others for their safety. To speak was to expose another to the possibility of the unspeakable. People were conscious of the negative power of rumour. They were careful about what they said. To be careless cost lives.
That was then. This is now. Or is it different now to then? From a psychological perspective, the reminder that careless talk costs lives remains relevant, if in a different form to former times.
The damage done by discussion of other people can be significant. Rumour, supposition and speculation are part of a continuum of communication of conjecture. The truth or falsity of the issue is often irrelevant because what is said assumes its own reality and becomes its own truth. Rumour about an individual can gather momentum until it is almost irrefutable. Whether it is grounded in fact or constructed in fiction, the recipients of the myth rarely inquire and each source, whether true or false, may be accorded equal status. This makes its refutation harder as the story becomes unrecognisable from its origin, if indeed it ever had any rational origin when it began.
Rumour receives less attention than it deserves in terms of its psychological consequences. Relegated to the realm of tittle tattle, chit chat and myth, it is often regarded as a relatively trivial social practice. Equated with gossip, it is further diluted into a mechanism for social networking: the conveyance of inconsequential information to create cohesion and collegiality in a specific social group.
However, further social-network analysis, or SNA, reveals the extent to which negative rumour can be damaging in mental-health terms. The victim of rumour is relatively helpless to refute what has been said - to deny is to be disbelieved, not to deny is to "refuse to deny" by which confirmation is implied. It is a no-win situation.
Research on rumour suggests that it often arises in situations that are ambiguous or where there is a perceived or actual threat. In these instances, it is either consciously or unconsciously believed that spreading a rumour may flush out the facts. After all, as the rumour grows, someone who actually has the facts may confirm or deny them. This fact-finding function of rumour often serves a workplace purpose in that the situation finally receives clarity when it reaches the highest organisational echelons. Then a formal communique informs staff of the actual situation and the rumour itself is dispelled.
In the social sphere, research says that spreading rumour is motivated by self-enhancement: those who do so draw attention to themselves, can appear to have knowledge not available to others, insider information to which only the powerful are privy. Self-importance is a prime motivator in the spread of rumours. Rumours invite interest, attract attention, evoke emotion, focus on the teller of the tale and imply that there is a special relationship between the teller and the people to whom the rumour is told. Those who participate in these schools for scandal are temporarily reassured that if others are being talked about, they themselves are safe. However, this may be short-lived, as indicated by Richard Brindley Sheridan's reported departing comments to a group "I leave my character behind me".
The human propensity to talk, to gossip, assume and suppose is increasingly being identified as damaging to people. It is not trivial. It hurts. It is impossible to defend what is merely rumoured to have been said because it is intangible, elusive and as ephemeral as the next conversation in which it may change. Where does one go to confront what one did not personally hear and which those who were present can deny ever took place, without having additional accusations of paranoia being added to the rumour machine? This happens to the people. Mental health can be at stake when a story starts.
The degree to which rumour and speculation can damage lives has been evident in the exceptional level of inference and innuendo imposed on the parents of Madeleine McCann. It shows how quickly sympathy can turn to suspicion, compassion to criticism and how support can be taken away from people at the most vulnerable times in their lives.
Even the vocabulary of rumour reflects its bizarre power, for rumour must be dispelled, the "spell" broken, the invisible hold overcome. Rumour can defame, assassinate character, damage a name, murder a reputation, undermine professional status, dent social standing and demoralise those about whom it is spread. Based on assumption, supposition, speculation and hearsay, rumour is both ubiquitous and invisible, making it a paradoxical form of guerrilla gossip that is difficult to defeat. It is often the basis for the most insidious form of bullying.
Perhaps this is why the famous Rule of Conduct suggests that we observe with care of whom we speak, to whom we speak and how, and when and where. For the rumour that rumour is without consequences is false. Careless talk can cost lives.
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of the Student Counselling Services in UCD.