Symposium: The functions of gossip: Novel insights from the lab and the field - Talk: People gossip strategically to shape receiver behavior

Recommended citation: Dores Cruz, T. D., Balliet D., van der Lee, R., & Beersma, B. (2023, July 1). People gossip strategically to shape receiver behavior, 19th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology, Krakow, Poland.

Abstract Symposium:

This symposium sheds light on gossip’s key social functions. Starting with cooperation, Terence Dores Cruz examines how gossip is used to shape receiver’s behavior towards subjects. Experience sampling and a two-wave survey show people use positive and negative gossip strategically to shape (un)cooperative behavior towards subjects they (dis)like. Focusing on norm enforcement, Catherine Molho outlines personality and situations driving gossip about norm violations. A diary study shows that aggressive people gossiped more, and that gossip was more likely when people had low power, did not value subjects, and were angry and disgusted. Further, Hirotaka Imada examines gossip about norm violations involving different group memberships. A vignette study shows diverse motives for gossip, with people intending to gossip more about out-group violations to in-group receivers but more about in-group violations to out-group receivers. Beyond norm enforcement, Kim Peters uses workplace emails to identify a novel coordination problem solving function. Coding of the content shows that gossip was common and described subject’s behavior but mostly functioned to solve coordination problems rather than other functions. In contrast, Elena Martinescu exhibits a detrimental function of workplace gossip. Longitudinal surveys and a diary study show that negative gossip leads to high turnover intentions, due to its negative effect on organizational commitment. This was buffered by working from home.

Abstract Talk:

Indirect reciprocity and partner choice theories predict gossip– a sender communicating to a receiver about an absent target–functions to shape receivers imposing costs and bestowing benefits on targets. Negative versus positive gossip should thus impose costs (less helping, more avoiding) and confer benefits (more helping, less avoiding), respectively. Further, fitness interdependence with targets should influence how people gossip to impose costs and confer benefits: When people have conflicting (corresponding) interests with targets, they should gossip to impose costs (bestow benefits). First, an experience sampling study of sending gossip (k = 2,516) in a Dutch community sample (N = 309) showed that corresponding interests with targets increased gossip positivity. In turn, gossip positivity related positively to indicating receivers should help targets and negatively to indicating receivers should avoid targets. Second, a two-wave recall survey on M-Turk (N = 1652), where participants recalled gossip and later reported on how receivers had actually behaved, replicated findings regarding helping targets but not regarding avoiding targets. Specifically, gossip positivity in the first survey related positively to indicating receivers actually helped targets after the gossip in the second survey. In sum, everyday gossip was used strategically by senders to shape receivers’ behavior towards targets in ways that support theories of partner selection and indirect reciprocity.