Psychology of Urban Legends

Because my question to be answered is: “Why do people love urban legends so much?”, and that question directly relates to the way our minds work, I thought it would be a good idea to bring some psychology research into the equation. I found two studies, both reported by psychologists that assessed the spread of urban legends. The first study explored the retelling of urban legends, and was reported in “Retelling Urban Legends (Influential Factors)” by Jean Tree and Mary Susan Weldon. The second examined already expected factors of retelling urban legends reported in “Influence of Emotional Content and Perceived Relevance on Spread of Urban Legends” by Ellen Cotter.
The first of the studies found that people retold truthful, scary, well known stories. The original presumption was that people would be less likely to tell stories that people already knew, however, credibility rose with the number of times it was heard. Importance, scariness, and the likelihood of retelling also increased the number of times the story was repeated. Details are relatively unimportant in the retelling of urban legends, because they are often changed or embellished. The second study was done with 62 participants in which they read 15 urban legends. The study showed that “ both a high fear rating and a high believability rating were positively correlated with the reported intent to tell”. As before shown in the first study, this one also showed that familiarity increased the intent to tell. This helps my research because it gives me a look into what people are looking for in a good urban legend and what type they would be more likely to repeat or be interested in hearing.

Cotter, Ellen M. “Influence of emotional content and perceived relevance on spread of urban legends: a pilot study. (Author abstract)(Report).”Psychological Reports 102.2 (April 2008): 623 (7). General OneFile. Gale. Alabama Virtual Library Remote Access. 9 Apr. 2009 http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodld=IPS.>

Tree, Jean E. Fox, and Mary Susan Weldon. “Retelling urban legends.(influential factors).”American Journal of Psychology 120.3 (Fall 2007):459(18). General OneFile. Gale. Alabama Virtual Library Remote Access. 9 Apr. 2009 .