Urban Legends: The Word-of-Mouth Communication of Morality Through Negative Story Content

This study investigates factors influencing the diffusion of negative information via word-of-mouth communication of urban legends in the consumer environment. An experiment was conducted in which three aspects of a recent urban legend were manipulated: the intent of the central character (altruistic vs negative), the outcome of the story (positive vs negative), and the presence or absence of a brand name. Results indicate that intent to communicate an urban legend is lowest when the central character is altruistic and the outcome of the story is positive. These results are consistent with previous suggestions that consumers circulate urban legends in order to communicate negative information involving moralistic stories possessing an ironic twist.