The virtues of gossip
Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6201624 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matthew Feinberg (0000-0001-8626-1620, University of California, Berkeley), R Willer (0000-0003-3404-6472, University of California, Berkeley), Jennifer E Stellar (0000-0001-7753-6637, University of California, Berkeley), Jennifer Stellar, Dacher Keltner (0000-0001-9061-5292, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1015-1030 |
| Publication date | 2012-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037/a0026650 |
| PMID | 22229458 |
| OpenAlex | W2058039621 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 90 |
| References cited | 66 |
Reputation systems promote cooperation and deter antisocial behavior in groups. Little is known, however, about how and why people share reputational information. Here, we seek to establish the existence and dynamics of prosocial gossip, the sharing of negative evaluative information about a target in a way that protects others from antisocial or exploitative behavior. We present a model of prosocial gossip and the results of 4 studies testing the model's claims. Results of Studies 1 through 3 demonstrate that (a) individuals who observe an antisocial act experience negative affect and are compelled to share information about the antisocial actor with a potentially vulnerable person, (b) sharing such information reduces negative affect created by observing the antisocial behavior, and (c) individuals possessing more prosocial orientations are the most motivated to engage in such gossip, even at a personal cost, and exhibit the greatest reduction in negative affect as a result. Study 4 demonstrates that prosocial gossip can effectively deter selfishness and promote cooperation. Taken together these results highlight the roles of prosocial motivations and negative affective reactions to injustice in maintaining reputational information sharing in groups. We conclude by discussing implications for reputational theories of the maintenance of cooperation in human groups
Affect (linguistics) · Gossip · Injustice · Political science · Prosocial behavior · Reputation · Selfishness · Communication · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Importance of Norm Violation and Relevance for Gossip Appreciation
Reputation management
Secrets and Misperceptions
Reality Decoupling
Judging those who judge
Why People Gossip
Viral Dissemination of Content in Advertising
The Evolution of Reputation-Based Cooperation
Moving beyond assumptions of deviance
Moral Judgments
Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling
The Bright Side of Being Prosocial at Work, and the Dark Side, Too
Approaching evolutionary communication
The Difference between Right and Wrong
Local journalism and its audience
Public and Private Information Sharing under “New Normal” of Covid-19
Venting makes people prefer—and preferentially support—us over those we vent about
Leader decision speed as a signal of honesty
The impact of impression evaluation on knowledge sharing behavior
The double-edged sword of negative workplace gossip
More than appearance
What’s my motivation? Reputational motives, virtue signaling, and self-directed mindshaping
“You can get clarity that other students may feel the same way you do”
Gossip 2.0
Are People More Horrible Than Ghosts? Workplace Haters and Employee Creativity
Leveraging Gossip for Good
When and Why Do Good People Not Do Good Deeds? Third-Party Observers’ Unfavorable Reactions to Negative Workplace Gossip
The Hidden Costs of Negative Workplace Gossip
When Targets Strike Back
Employee Moral Evaluation of Supervisor Leniency for Coworkers’ Misconduct
Elevated Power Promotes Prosocial Behavior More Than Elevated Status
How Should I Feel About This? Investigating the Emotions and Processes Involved in Indulging in Guilty Pleasures
Nasty and Noble Notes
People Overestimate How Much Gossiping Encourages Listeners’ Self-Disclosure
Evolution, situationism, and virtue ethics
Beauty Builds Cooperation by Increasing Moral Concern for the Environment
Sexual Assault Gossip
When do gossip receivers assess negative gossip as justifiable? A goal framing approach
Viral Dissemination of Content in Advertising
When Does Gossip Promote Generosity? Indirect Reciprocity Under the Shadow of the Future
Incivility Diminishes Interest in What Politicians Have to Say
Incivility Is Rising Among American Politicians on Twitter
Who Gossips and How in Everyday Life
Matchmaking Promotes Happiness
Fairness of Peer Review Systems in Hospitality and Tourism Journals
The Consequences of Failing to Act
Gossip about Coronavirus
Content, structure, and dynamics of personal reputation
An obligation of conscience
The effect of intent and character information on children's evaluations of third‐party transgressions
Children manage their reputation by caring about gossip
Do young children preferentially trust gossip or firsthand observation in choosing a collaborative partner
Beyond adherence to justice rules
Workplace gossip
Generosity pays
When the ones we love misbehave
Norm talk and human cooperation
Punishment
Symbolic belief in social cognition
Beyond Altruism
Tell Me the Gossip
Celebrities’ Memorial Afterlives
Avoidance of altruistic punishment
Ironic effects of prosocial gossip in driving inaccurate social perceptions
Gossip and Ostracism Promote Cooperation in Groups
Cybergossip in adolescence
How do Children Evaluate the Gossiper of Negative Gossip
The Relative Effectiveness of Positive and Negative Gossip in Promoting Prosocial Giving
Social networks and the emergence of informal norms and metanorms in transient working groups
Stuck in Place? A Field Experiment on the Effects of Reputational Information on Student Evaluations
Love or fear
Social game theory
How Gossip Rules the World
The anticipated social cost of disclosing a rejection experience
Folk personality psychology
People are scarier than ghosts? Workplace haters and knowledge sharing
Learning from supervisor negative gossip
Endogenous monitoring through voluntary reporting in an infinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma game
Whispered words and organizational dynamics
Bad luck or bad intentions
Unbounded indirect reciprocity
The power of moral concerns in predicting whistleblowing decisions
When and how refusing to help decreases one's influence
Being in the Know
Four Puzzles of Reputation-Based Cooperation
The Roots of Reciprocity
Norms
Gossip as Social Control
The Role of Reciprocity in the Creation of Reputation
Solidarity through punishment
The Belief in a Just World
Evidence for Altruism
A Conceptual Review of Decision Making in Social Dilemmas
Trustworthiness and competitive altruism can also solve the “tragedy of the commons”
Positive emotion dispositions differentially associated with Big Five personality and attachment style
Putting stress into words
Writing About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process
Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments
Reputation helps solve the ‘tragedy of the commons’
Twenty Years of Experimental Gaming
Public Goods
Disrespect and the Experience of Injustice
An Integrated Review of Indirect, Relational, and Social Aggression
In Search of Homo Economicus
Justice sensitivity and distributive decisions in experimental games
Nice Guys Finish First
Voluntary Facial Action Generates Emotion‐Specific Autonomic Nervous System Activity
Third-party punishment and social norms
The emotional dog and its rational tail
Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History
Telling more than we can know
Gossip, reputation, and knowledge in Zinacantan
How the Grapevine Keeps You in Line
Discriminant Validity of NEO-PIR Facet Scales
The Lobster Gangs of Maine
Hierarchy in the Forest
Deontic justice
Social Values, Subjective Transformations, and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas
Altruism and Indirect Reciprocity
Social and personal determinants of workplace aggression
Transgression and altruism
Motivational bases of choice in experimental games
Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits
The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research
Why humans value sensational news
Flustered and faithful
Social Motives and Strategic Misrepresentation in Social Decision Making
Cooperation in social dilemmas
The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good
The pursuit of joint outcomes and equality in outcomes
Social interaction basis of cooperators' and competitors' beliefs about others
Collective Action and the Second-Order Free-Rider Problem
Gossip in Evolutionary Perspective
Handbook of the Sociology of Morality
Research on Gossip
The Tragedy of the Commons
Of Tabloids and Family Secrets
Gossip as Cultural Learning
Having less, giving more
Utilities of gossip across organizational levels
Evolutionary explanations of emotions
Groups Reward Individual Sacrifice
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Psychological, Sociological and Anthropological Explanations of Witchcraft and Gossip
A Question of Morality
Collective Benefits, Exchange Interests, and Norm Enforcement
Social Dilemmas
Injustice and arousal
| Unique citing works | 90 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6,43 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2026 (15) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 85 |