Emotional selection in memes: The case of urban legends
Heath, Bell and Sternberg, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(6), 2001, 1028-1041. Three studies of urban legends. With informational factors such as truth controlled, people were more willing to pass on stories that stirred stronger disgust; people preferred to pass on the highest-disgust version of randomly sampled legends; legends with more disgust motifs were distributed more widely on urban legend websites.
Heath, Bell and Sternberg, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(6), 2001, 1028-1041. Three studies of urban legends. With informational factors such as truth controlled, people were more willing to pass on stories that stirred stronger disgust; people preferred to pass on the highest-disgust version of randomly sampled legends; legends with more disgust motifs were distributed more widely on urban legend websites.
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Heath, C., Bell, C., & Sternberg, E. (2001). Emotional selection in memes: The case of urban legends. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 1028-1041. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.1028 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.1028