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An experiment was conducted to determine whether reluctance to transmit an overheard message intended for a stranger depends on (1) fear of negative evaluation by that stranger and (2) fear of the message's anticipated consequences for him. It was reasoned that a messenger would fear negative evaluation if he were identified by the recipient. The hypothesis that bad news would be transmitted less completely and spontaneously than good news was supported. Unexpectedly, anonymity did not interact with news content. Instead, greater communication occurred under nonanonymity than under anonymity. These findings, along with some supportive correlational data, are reinterpreted from an attribution-theoretical viewpoint.
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Rosen et al. (1972) studied this question.
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