{"title":"Ironic effects of prosocial gossip in driving inaccurate social perceptions","authors":"Samantha Grayson , Matthew Feinberg , Robb Willer , Jamil Zaki","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104682","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Gossip is often stereotyped as a frivolous social activity, but in fact can be a powerful tool for discouraging selfishness and cheating. In economic games, gossip induces people to act more cooperatively, presumably to avoid the cost of accruing a negative reputation. Might even this prosocial sort of gossip carry negative side effects? We propose that gossip might protect communities while simultaneously giving people the wrong idea about who's in them. Specifically, gossipers might disproportionately share information about cheaters in their midst, driving <em>cynical</em> perceptions among receivers of that gossip. To test these predictions, we first reanalyzed data from a prior study in which people played a public goods game and could gossip about their fellow players. These participants indeed produced negatively skewed gossip: writing much more frequently about cheaters than cooperators, even when most people in their public goods game groups acted generously. To examine the effect of this gossip on cynicism, we ran a new experiment in which a second generation of participants read these gossip notes, and then prepared to play their own public goods game. Gossip recipients inferred that the groups that produced these notes acted significantly more selfishly than they truly had–becoming both cynical and inaccurate based on gossip. However, this gossip did not affect second generation participants' forecasts of how their own group would behave, nor their own cooperative choices. Together, these findings suggest that gossip skews negative, and, therefore, encourages outside observers to draw more cynical conclusions about groups from which it comes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"116 ","pages":"Article 104682"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103124000957","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Gossip is often stereotyped as a frivolous social activity, but in fact can be a powerful tool for discouraging selfishness and cheating. In economic games, gossip induces people to act more cooperatively, presumably to avoid the cost of accruing a negative reputation. Might even this prosocial sort of gossip carry negative side effects? We propose that gossip might protect communities while simultaneously giving people the wrong idea about who's in them. Specifically, gossipers might disproportionately share information about cheaters in their midst, driving cynical perceptions among receivers of that gossip. To test these predictions, we first reanalyzed data from a prior study in which people played a public goods game and could gossip about their fellow players. These participants indeed produced negatively skewed gossip: writing much more frequently about cheaters than cooperators, even when most people in their public goods game groups acted generously. To examine the effect of this gossip on cynicism, we ran a new experiment in which a second generation of participants read these gossip notes, and then prepared to play their own public goods game. Gossip recipients inferred that the groups that produced these notes acted significantly more selfishly than they truly had–becoming both cynical and inaccurate based on gossip. However, this gossip did not affect second generation participants' forecasts of how their own group would behave, nor their own cooperative choices. Together, these findings suggest that gossip skews negative, and, therefore, encourages outside observers to draw more cynical conclusions about groups from which it comes.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology publishes original research and theory on human social behavior and related phenomena. The journal emphasizes empirical, conceptually based research that advances an understanding of important social psychological processes. The journal also publishes literature reviews, theoretical analyses, and methodological comments.