Nasty and Noble Notes: Interdependence Structures Drive Self-Serving Gossip

Author:

Dores Cruz Terence D.1ORCID,van der Lee Romy1,Bechtoldt Myriam N.2,Beersma Bianca1

Affiliation:

1. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2. EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht, Oestrich-Winkel, Germany

Abstract

Much information people receive about others reaches them via gossip. But is this gossip trustworthy? We examined this in a scenario study ( Nsenders = 350, Nobservations = 700) and an interactive laboratory experiment ( Nsenders = 126; Nobservations = 3024). In both studies, participants played a sequential prisoner’s dilemma where a gossip sender observed a target’s (first decider’s) decision and could gossip about this to a receiver (second decider). We manipulated the interdependence structure such that gossipers’ outcomes were equal to targets’ outcomes, equal to receivers’ outcomes, or independent. Compared to no interdependence, gossip was more often false when gossipers were interdependent with targets but not when interdependent with receivers. As such, false positive gossip (self-serving when interdependent with targets) increased but false negative gossip (self-serving when interdependent with receivers) did not. In conclusion, the interdependence structure affected gossip’s trustworthiness: When gossipers’ outcomes were interdependent with targets, gossip was less trustworthy.

Funder

H2020 European Research Council

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Social Psychology

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