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

ABSTRACT: Much information people receive about others reaches them via gossip. But is this gossip trustworthy? We examined this in a scenario study (N_senders = 350, N_observations = 700) and an interactive laboratory experiment (N_senders = 126; N_observations = 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 wi

SUBMITTER: Dores Cruz TD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11492547 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature