Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity

@article{citeulike:1884444, abstract = {Communication about social topics is abundant in human societies, and many functions have been attributed to such gossiping. One of these proposed functions is the management of reputations. Reputation by itself has been shown to have a strong influence on cooperation dynamics in games of indirect reciprocity, and this notion helps to explain the observed high level of cooperation in humans. Here we designed a game to test a widespread assumption that gossip functions as a vector for the transmission of social information. This empirical study (with 14 groups of nine students each) focuses on the composition of gossip, information transfer by gossip, and the behavior based on gossip information. We show that gossip has a strong influence on the resulting behavior even when participants have access to the original information (i.e., direct observation) as well as gossip about the same information. Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential. Furthermore, gossip about cooperative individuals is more positive than gossip about uncooperative individuals, gossip comments transmit social information successfully, and cooperation levels are higher when people encounter positive compared with negative gossip. 10.1073/pnas.0704598104}, author = {Sommerfeld, Ralf D. and Krambeck, Hans-Jurgen and Semmann, Dirk and Milinski, Manfred }, citeulike-article-id = {1884444}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.0704598104}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, keywords = {direct-observation, gossip, reputation}, month = {October}, number = {44}, pages = {17435--17440}, posted-at = {2008-05-10 15:40:18}, priority = {2}, title = {Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0704598104}, volume = {104}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1884444 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1884444 TI - Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences VL - 104 IS - 44 SP - 17435 EP - 17440 N2 - Communication about social topics is abundant in human societies, and many functions have been attributed to such gossiping. One of these proposed functions is the management of reputations. Reputation by itself has been shown to have a strong influence on cooperation dynamics in games of indirect reciprocity, and this notion helps to explain the observed high level of cooperation in humans. Here we designed a game to test a widespread assumption that gossip functions as a vector for the transmission of social information. This empirical study (with 14 groups of nine students each) focuses on the composition of gossip, information transfer by gossip, and the behavior based on gossip information. We show that gossip has a strong influence on the resulting behavior even when participants have access to the original information (i.e., direct observation) as well as gossip about the same information. Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential. Furthermore, gossip about cooperative individuals is more positive than gossip about uncooperative individuals, gossip comments transmit social information successfully, and cooperation levels are higher when people encounter positive compared with negative gossip. 10.1073/pnas.0704598104 KW - direct-observation KW - gossip KW - reputation AU - Sommerfeld, Ralf AU - Krambeck, Hans-Jurgen AU - Semmann, Dirk AU - Milinski, Manfred PY - 2007/10/30/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0704598104 ER -