Familiarity with interest breeds gossip: contributions of emotion, expectation, and reputation.

ABSTRACT: Although gossip serves several important social functions, it has relatively infrequently been the topic of systematic investigation. In two experiments, we advance a cognitive-informational approach to gossip. Specifically, we sought to determine which informational components engender gossip. In Experiment 1, participants read brief passages about other people and indicated their likelihood to share this information. We manipulated target familiarity (celebrity, non-celebrity) and story interest (interesting, boring). While participants were more likely to gossip about celebrity than non-celebrity targets and interesting than boring stories, they were even more likely to gossip about celebrity targets embedded within interesting stories. In Experiment 2, we additionally probed participan

SUBMITTER: Yao B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4132070 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature