People Gossip Strategically to Shape Receiver Behavior [CANCELED]

Abstract

Theories modelling the evolution of reputation-based cooperation ascribe an essential role to gossip – senders communicating to receivers about absent targets – to spread information used to condition cooperative behavior. Most work testing these models focused on how people use gossip to condition cooperation. Yet, indirect reciprocity and partner choice theories also predict gossip could be used to shape receivers’ conditional cooperative strategies to impose costs and bestow benefits on targets. We, therefore, hypothesize negative versus positive gossip is directed at having receivers impose costs and confer benefits on targets, respectively. Moreover, we expect fitness interdependence with targets influences how people gossip to impose costs and confer benefits. Specifically, we predict that when people have conflicting versus corresponding interests with targets, they gossip negatively (versus positively) to impose costs or bestow benefits on them, respectively. Furthermore, because people calibrate responses to non-cooperative individuals based on relative social power, we predict an uncooperative target’s relatively higher social power to be associated with gossip that encourages less costly responses by gossip receivers. We tested these predictions using experience sampling to randomly sample observations of sending gossip in daily life (k = 2,516) in a Dutch community sample (N = 309). Supporting our predictions, conflicting versus corresponding interests with targets was positively related directly and indirectly to more positive gossip. More corresponding interests also related positively (negatively) to reporting receivers should help (avoid) targets. In turn, positive gossip was related to reporting receivers should help targets, while negative gossip was related to reporting receivers should avoid targets. Finally, people indicated receivers of gossip should use less costly strategies (i.e., less confronting and helping, more avoiding) when interacting with targets with higher relative social power. Supporting theories of reputation-based cooperation, everyday gossip was used by senders to shape receivers’ strategies of cooperative behavior towards targets.