Can’t stand gossip? New research suggests gossiping about others is ‘not always a bad thing’

Rumors, gossipers, snoopers – whatever you call it, gossip gets a bad rap. But new theoretical research from researchers at the University of Maryland and Stanford University says gossip isn’t all bad. In fact, they might even be beneficial for social circles.

Gossip, defined as the exchange of personal information about absent third parties, can provide a “social benefit,” researchers say. Their study found that gossip is effective at spreading information about people’s reputations, which can help recipients of this advice connect with cooperative people while avoiding selfish ones.

“When people want to know if someone is a good person to interact with, if they can get information through chatting – assuming the information is honest – that can be very useful,” said Dana Nau, co-author of the study. retired professor from the Department of Computer Science and Systems Research Institute at UMD.

In their study published on February 20, 2024 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesResearchers used a computer simulation to help solve a long-standing mystery in social psychology: how gossip became such a popular pastime that transcends gender, age, culture and socioeconomic background ?

“A previous study shows that on average, a person spends an hour a day talking about others, which takes up a lot of time in our daily lives,” said the study’s first author, Xinyue Pan, Ph.D. ., who published part of this research in his master’s thesis. “That’s why it’s important to study it.”

Previous theories suggested that gossip could create bonds between large groups of people and foster cooperation, but it was unclear what individual gossips would gain from these interactions.

“This has been a real headache,” said study co-author Michele Gelfand, a Stanford Business School professor and professor emeritus in the UMD psychology department. “It’s not entirely clear why gossip, which requires a lot of time and energy, evolved as an adaptive strategy.”

It also remained unexplained why the recipients of the gossip were so willing to listen attentively to the gossip or behave differently in its presence.

To better understand complex gossip networks, the research team used an evolutionary game theory model that mimics human decision-making. By combining principles of evolutionary biology and game theory, the researchers were able to observe how their agents, or virtual study subjects, interacted with each other and changed their strategies to receive rewards.

In this case, the researchers wanted to know whether officers would use gossip to protect themselves or to exploit others. Agents might cooperate with gossip or faults; they might become gossips themselves; and they might change their strategies after observing the consequences or rewards of other agents’ decisions. By the end of the simulation, 90% of the agents had become gossips.

Researchers have argued that people are more likely to cooperate in the presence of a known gossiper because they want to protect their own reputation and avoid falling victim to the rumor mill. For gossips, receiving cooperation from another person can be a reward in itself.

“If other people are on their best behavior because they know you’re gossiping, then they’ll be more likely to cooperate with you on certain things,” Nau explained. “The fact that you chatter ends up giving you an advantage as a chatterbox. This then incentivizes others to chatter because they can see that it provides a reward.”

Researchers argue that gossip proliferates because sharing information about people’s reputations can have a “selfishness deterrent” effect on gossip recipients. In other words, recipients of gossip condition their behavior on the reputation of others, and because they do not want to be the subject of future gossip, this deters them from acting selfishly. Through its ability to influence the behavior of others and encourage cooperation, gossip has an “evolutionary advantage” that perpetuates the gossip cycle and provides a useful service to listeners.

Although gossip has a negative connotation, Pan emphasized that the information shared through gossip can be complementary. Whatever its content, gossip serves a useful function.

“Both positive and negative gossip are important because they play an important role in sharing information about people’s reputations,” said Pan, who is now an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen. “Once people have this information, cooperative people can find other good people to cooperate with, and that is actually beneficial to the group. So gossip is not always a bad thing. It can be a thing positive.”

Their simulation also took into account different factors that promote or hinder the spread of gossip, ultimately confirming what previous research has shown: small-town gossip is not just a cinematic trope.

“The model highlights contexts in which we can expect more gossip to evolve, particularly when social networks have high connectivity and mobility is low, which is consistent with research on rural areas ” said Gelfand. “This provides clues about the contexts in which gossip may be more or less likely to thrive.”

Nau explained that their research does not encompass all of human complexity, nor can it replace behavioral studies. However, computer simulations can give rise to new theories that will inspire further research involving human subjects.

“People are very complicated and we can’t come up with a simulation that does everything they do, nor would we want to,” Nau said. “As this is an oversimplification, you cannot say conclusively that this is how people behave, but you can develop ideas. These can then lead to scientific hypotheses that you can try to study through studies involving human participants.”

The researchers hope to pursue a follow-up study to test one of their simulation’s predictions on human participants: the idea that gossip is effective when people have no other methods of gathering information about their reputation.

“To me, that’s one of the most exciting parts of this whole thing,” Nau said. “If we can hypothesize and verify the predictions of these models on human studies, then that’s what makes this kind of thing useful.”

There’s one thing the researchers can already say with certainty: Given the overwhelming amount of gossip in their simulation and in real life, gossip is unlikely to disappear any time soon.