The Benefits and Costs of Gossip

Recommended citation: Dores Cruz, T. D., Peters, K., van der Lee, R., & Beersma, B. (2024, July 4). The Cost and Benefits of Gossip, International Conference on Social Dilemmas, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Abstract:

Study Rationale: Gossip is integral to cooperation because it is the building block of reputation systems that entail reputational costs and benefits for prosocial and antisocial behavior. Despite this, gossip is commonly perceived negatively. This presents a puzzle: gossip is needed for cooperation but could lead to costs for gossipers that motivate refraining from gossip. Moreover, for gossip to support reputation systems, it is essential that true/prosocial gossip is associated with benefits while gossip that harms reputation systems should be associated with costs. Shedding light on gossip’s consequences builds our understanding of how conditions for reputation-based cooperation are met.

Methods: Across three studies, potential gossipers (trustors) interact in a trust game with gossip targets (trustees). Potential gossipers subsequently can send gossip to a receiver that will interact with the target next. Receivers then also reward or punish potential gossipers in a dictator game with giving and taking. In two pre-registered studies, we first tested how receivers respond to true or false and positive or negative gossip, as well as no (gossip) communication across six rounds (Study 1: n=201; nobs=1206) and eight rounds (Study 2: n=200; nobs=1600). We are running a pre-registered interactive laboratory study to focus on sending gossip (Study 3; planned n=300; nobs=7200; 12 rounds including the dictator game, 12 rounds without).

Results: Studies 1 and 2 showed that when senders shared true gossip that contributed to the reputation system, this was associated with receivers providing more benefits or fewer costs to senders as compared to when senders did not contribute to the reputation system by sharing false gossip or not communicating gossip. Moreover, within true gossip, positive gossip was associated with more benefits than negative gossip. From the receiver’s perspective, this indicates that there are fewer costs to gossiping than refraining from gossip. Yet, this provides no insight into how potential gossipers perceive the costs of gossip or how this informs their behavior, which will come from Study 3.

Conclusion: The first steps towards understanding the costs and benefits of gossip show that receivers’ behavior follows predictions based on gossip being important for reputation-based cooperation. Harming the reputation system by not contributing gossip or spreading false information is punished, while accurate gossip contributions are rewarded—especially when positive. With our test of gossiper behavior, we will provide further insights into whether these social costs of gossip could hinder or promote gossip and build our understanding of how reputation-based cooperation functions.