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Gossip and ostracism promote cooperation in groups
Matthew Feinberg1, Robb Willer, Michael Schultz
11Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University.
Psychological Science
|January 28, 2014
Summary
Gossip about reputation helps cooperation by allowing people to choose cooperative partners and avoid selfish ones. Ostracized individuals later improved their cooperative behavior.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
- Evolutionary Biology
Background:
- Cooperation is widespread despite incentives for exploitation.
- Understanding mechanisms that promote cooperation is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of reputational information spread through gossip in fostering cooperation.
- To examine how individuals use gossip to manage social interactions in mixed-motive settings.
Main Methods:
- Experimental study involving participants communicating and receiving reputational information.
- Observation of partner selection and ostracism based on communicated reputations.
- Analysis of subsequent cooperative behavior after social exclusion.
Main Results:
- Individuals actively shared reputational information about others.
- Recipients used gossip to selectively interact with cooperative individuals and ostracize selfish ones.
- Ostracized individuals increased their cooperation levels to match non-ostracized individuals.
Conclusions:
- Reputational information spread via gossip facilitates partner selection, mitigating exploitation.
- Gossip can promote cooperation even in non-repeated interactions by managing social dynamics.
- This mechanism helps resolve the evolutionary puzzle of widespread cooperation.
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