Deterrence and transmission as mechanisms ensuring reliability of gossip

Spreading information about the members of one\u27s group is one of the most universal human behaviors. Thanks to gossip, individuals can acquire the information about their peers without sustaining the burden of costly interactions with cheaters, but they can also create and revise social bonds. Gossip has also several positive functions at the group level, promoting cohesion and norm compliance. However, gossip can be unreliable, and can be used to damage others\u27 reputation or to circulate false information, thus becoming detrimental to people involved and useless for the group. In this work, we propose a the- oretical model in which reliability of gossip depends on the joint functioning of two distinct mechanisms. Thanks to the first, i.e., deterrence, individuals tend to avoid informational cheating because they fear punishment and the dis- ruption of social bonds. On the other hand, transmission provides humans with the opportunity of reducing the consequences of cheating through a manipulation of the source of gossip

Evolution of gossip-based indirect reciprocity on a bipartite network

Cooperation can be supported by indirect reciprocity via reputation. Thanks to gossip, reputations are built and circulated and humans can identify defectors and ostracise them. However, the evolutionary stability of gossip is allegedly undermined by the fact that it is more error-prone that direct observation, whereas ostracism could be ineffective if the partner selection mechanism is not robust. The aim of this work is to investigate the conditions under which the combination of gossip and ostracism might support cooperation in groups of different sizes. We are also interested in exploring the extent to which errors in transmission might undermine the reliability of gossip as a mechanism for identifying defectors. Our results show that a large quantity of gossip is necessary to support cooperation, and that group structure can mitigate the effects of errors in transmission.We want to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. D.V. received support from H2020 FETPROACT-GSS CIMPLEX Grant No. 641191

THE SCOPE FOR THE STRATEGIC USE OF SCANDALS

Scandals are pervasive in many areas of human life. Organizational leaders are human, and sometimes they are involved in scandalous issues that affect the organization. We propose a characterization of scandals that explicitly considers the potential benefits of scandals for transgressors. Even if scandals are frequently considered as undesirable for the targets or transgressors, we develop four rationales by which scandals can be beneficial for the scandal targets. First, scandals can propel the individual and the organization or cause into the limelight and generate a low cost publicity that can serve the interest of the target, e.g., by increasing the visibility and salience of a given issue or getting the right-to-explain what happened with great mass media coverage. Second, scandal targets can decide to serve as altruistic or egoistic scapegoats. Third, scandal targets can use scandals to divert attention from more serious issues. Fourth, scandals can constitute a way to disadvantage competitors or foes who would be more harmed than the initial self-inflicted target. Moreover, for each rationale, we suggest some conditions of its success. Anecdotal evidence and real-world examples are also provided to illustrate and support these rationales

Researching the Mechanisms of Gossip in Organizations: From Fly on the Wall to Fly in the Soup

In this paper, I explored how to research a sensitive topic such as gossip in organizations and used a narrative approach to illustrate the methodological and ethical issues that come up when considering a variety of research methods. I first attempted to conduct an ethnographic research on a project group from a Dutch university undergoing a major change. At the very beginning of the project, as a participant observer, I struggled to remain an outsider, or a “fly on the wall.” But as issues of power came into play and access became increasingly problematic, I moved towards the role of an “observing participant.” Therefore, in order to research gossip and some of the hidden dimensions of organizational life, I turned to auto- and self-ethnography as a way to regain access and greater authenticity. While following this route presented its share of ethical and methodological issues, it also provided valuable insights that could be of value to researchers attempting to study sensitive topics such as gossip in organizations

Truth, Lies and Gossip

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordIt is widely assumed that people will share inaccurate gossip for their own selfish purposes. This assumption, if true, presents a challenge to the growing body of work that argues that gossip is a ready source of accurate reputational information and therefore is welfare improving. We test this inaccuracy assumption by examining the frequency and form of spontaneous lies shared between gossiping members of networks playing a series of one-shot trust games (N=320). We manipulate whether gossipers are or are not competing with each other. We show that lies make up a sizeable minority of messages, and are twice as frequent under gossiper competition. However, this has no discernible effect on trust levels. We attribute this to the finding that, one, gossip targets are insensitive to lies, and two, some lies are welfare enhancing. These findings suggest that lies need not prevent — and may help — gossip to serve reputational functions

Is it costly to deceive? People are adept at detecting gossipers’ lies but may not reward honesty

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Royal Society via the DOI in this recordData accessibility: Materials, data, analysis code and the electronic supplementary material documents are available for replication and reanalysis purposes at https://osf.io/t2vr9/.The possibility that gossipers may share dishonest reputational information is a key challenge to claims that gossip can shore up cooperation in social groups. It has been suggested that imposing social costs on dishonest gossipers should increase the honesty of these reputational signals. However, at present, there is little evidence of people’s willingness to impose costs on dishonest gossipers; there is also little evidence of their ability to detect gossipers’ lies in the first place. This paper aims to shed light on people’s abilities to detect dishonest gossip and their treatment of those who share it. To do this, we report the results of two trust game studies using the strategy method (Study 1) and repeated interactions in the lab (Study 2). We show that in an environment where gossipers tell spontaneous lies people are more inclined to believe honest than dishonest gossip. We also show that people are more likely to treat favourably gossipers they believe to be honest, but that this does not always result in more favourable treatment for gossipers who were actually honest. We discuss the implications for the potential utility of social sanctions as a tool for securing honesty

Silence Is Golden. Six Reasons Inhibiting the Spread of Third-Party Gossip

Most of the current literature on gossip describes gossipmongers as incessantly sharing evaluative and valuable information about an absent third party in teams, groups, communities, and organizations. However, potential gossipers can similarly decide not to share what they know, depending on the content, the context, or their relationship with the other actors in the gossip triad. We argue that understanding the reasons why people do not gossip may provide useful insights into individual motives, group dynamics, and collective behaviors. This theoretical contribution first critically surveys the existing gossip literature with the aim of highlighting the conditions under which people might refrain from sharing third party information. We then propose to apply Goal Framing theory as a way to bridge a theory of the micro-foundations of human behavior with an analytical model of the gossip triad that disentangles the various ways through which senders, receivers, and objects of gossip may be interrelated. From a goal framing perspective, most research on gossip illustrates the mechanisms in which the hedonic gratification derived from gossiping is reinforced by gain or normative goals. However, a normative or a gain goal frame can prevent the gossip monger from spreading the information, and we argue that depending on different configurations of frames and relations between actors the perceived costs of sending gossip may be far higher than much of the previous literature suggests

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones: Social Undermining as Social Influence

The current social undermining literature suggests the important role of the witness in determining the negative impact on the victim. However, the literature has yet to explicitly explore the witness’ role in social undermining. In this dissertation, I integrate theory and research on social influence and emotions to develop a framework that suggests social undermining be considered a form of social influence. This framework allows for the exploration of the witness’ sense-making process following a social undermining event along with the accumulated effects of repeated exposure to a series of social undermining events. I propose that social undermining influences witness perceptions of underminer and/or victim trustworthiness as well as subsequent witness behaviors. Witness relational identification with the underminer will increase the likelihood of accepting social undermining, which will facilitate feelings of contempt, while witness relational identification with the victim will decrease the likelihood of accepting social undermining, which will facilitate feelings of anger and fear. Additionally, underminer power will shape the expression of behavior such that high underminer power decreases retaliatory behaviors toward the underminer. I test these premises in two empirical studies. In study 1, I utilize a critical incident recall task to explore the social influence factors that shape the witness’ response to social undermining (n = 100). Results indicate that witness’ experience feelings of contempt, anger, and fear following a social undermining event. Feelings of contempt promote negative perceptions of victim trustworthiness and encourage behaviors designed to harm v the victim. Feelings of anger encourage retaliatory behaviors toward underminer. Feelings of fear encourage behaviors designed to harm the victim. In study 2, I utilize a multi-round experiment to test the influence of relational identification and underminer power on response to a campaign of social undermining (n = 308 observations). Results indicate that witness perceive the victim as progressively less trustworthy and give increasingly fewer resources to the victim over time, regardless of relational identification and underminer power. Additionally, witness’ who identify with the underminer give increasingly more resources to the underminer over time than those who identify with the victim. The results of these studies provide evidence for the significant role that the witness plays in social undermining