Denial is a commonly used strategy to rebut a false rumor. However, there is a dearth of empirical research on the effectiveness of denials in combating rumors. Treating denials as persuasive messages, we conducted 3 laboratory‐based simulation studies testing the overall effectiveness of denials in reducing belief and anxiety associated with an e‐mail virus rumor. Under the framework of the elaboration likelihood model, we also tested the effects of denial message quality and source credibility, and the moderating effects of personal relevance. Overall, the results provided some support for the effectiveness of denials with strong arguments and an anxiety‐alleviating tone in reducing rumor‐related belief and anxiety. The effects of denial wording and source credibility were visible for participants who perceived high personal relevance of the topic. Limitations of the current research and future research directions are discussed.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. EATH in the Middle Passage has long been at the center of the moral attack on slavery, and during the past two centuries estimates of the death rate and explanations of its magnitude have been repeatedly discussed and debated. For comparative purposes we draw on studies of mortality in other aspects of the movement of slaves from Africa to the Americas, as well as the experiences of passengers on other long-distance oceanic voyages.1 These comparisons will provide new interpretations as well as raise significant problems for the study of African, European, and American history.The transatlantic slave trade represented a major international movement of persons, and, although only one part of the movement of slaves from the point of enslavement in Africa to their place of forced labor in the Americas, shipboard mortality was its most conspicuous and frequently discussed aspect. Of the more than 27,000 voyages included in the Du Bois Institute dataset, more than 5,000 have information on shipboard mortality. Information is provided on African ports of embarkation; American ports of disembarkation; nationality of carrying vessels; numbers of slaves leaving Africa, arriving in the Americas, and dying in transit; ship size; numbers of crew and their mortality; and length of time at sea. The dataset also permits, with subsequent collecting, the linking of this information to government Herbert S.

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