Emotional selection in memes: The case of urban legends

被引:344
作者
Heath, C
Bell, C
Sternberg, E
机构
[1] Stanford Univ, Grad Sch Business, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
[2] Duke Univ, Fuqua Sch Business, Durham, NC 27706 USA
关键词
D O I
10.1037//0022-3514.81.6.1028
中图分类号
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号
04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
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.
引用
收藏
页码:1028 / 1041
页数:14
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