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   Message 8,033 of 8,931   
   ScienceDaily to All   
   Gossip influences who gets ahead in diff   
   11 Apr 23 22:30:22   
   
   MSGID: 1:317/3 643633f1   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Gossip influences who gets ahead in different cultures    
      
     Date:   
         April 11, 2023   
     Source:   
         Washington State University   
     Summary:   
         Gossip influences if people receive advantages whether they   
         work in an office in the U.S. or in India -- or even in a remote   
         village in Africa, a new study found. In a set of experiments,   
         anthropologists found that positive and negative gossip influenced   
         whether participants were willing to give a person a resource,   
         such as a raise or a family heirloom, especially when the gossip   
         was specific to the circumstance.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   Gossip influences if people receive advantages whether they work in an   
   office in the U.S. or in India -- or even in a remote village in Africa,   
   a Washington State University study found.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   In a set of experiments, WSU anthropologists found that positive and   
   negative gossip influenced whether participants were willing to give   
   a person a resource, such as a raise or a family heirloom, especially   
   when the gossip was specific to the circumstance. For instance, positive   
   gossip concerning job- related behavior, such as saying the person worked   
   well under pressure, increased the participants' willingness to give a   
   work-related benefit compared to gossip about family relationships.   
      
   The researchers ran the experiment with 120 online participants workers   
   in the U.S. and India, and after making some culturally appropriate   
   adjustments, with 160 Ngandu horticulturalists, who make a living from   
   small gardens in the Central African Republic. In all three groups,   
   they found similar results.   
      
   "Gossip seems context relevant. People don't just say random things," said   
   Nicole Hess, a WSU anthropologist and lead author on the study published   
   in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. "Gossip that was relevant   
   to the exchange and the relationship had the most impact on whether   
   a person gave a resource, or not."  Anthropologists consider gossip,   
   defined as exchanging reputational information about other community   
   members, to be a feature of almost every human society, but it is less   
   clear what function it serves. Some argue that talking about other   
   people this way helps enforce social norms or serves as social bonding   
   between the gossipers. This study lends evidence to yet another theory:   
   that gossip is used competitively because it shows a direct relationship   
   between gossip and the likelihood of receiving more resources.   
      
   "Up until this study, no one had even really asked 'what is the end   
   result of gossip?' Gossip makes a person's reputation worse or better, so   
   what is the result?" Hess said. "These findings support the competitive   
   evolutionary model: that people are using gossip to compete with each   
   other over valuable resources in their communities."  For this study,   
   Hess and co-author Ed Hagen, also a WSU anthropologist, developed a set   
   of experiments that provided participants with job- or family- related   
   scenarios. For the office workers in the industrialized countries, the   
   scenarios described a situation where they could either give a raise to   
   one of their co-workers or an inherited painting to a family member.   
      
   They then were given a mix of gossip statements about how a theoretical   
   co- worker or relative behaved at work or dealt with their family. For   
   example, the work statement might be about whether the colleague was   
   willing to work late to finish a project, or on the family side, whether   
   they got along well with their siblings.   
      
   After reading a mix of these statements, the participants were asked   
   whether they were willing to give that fictional person the resource.   
      
   For the Ngandu farmers, the work scenario was adjusted to have them   
   evaluate a fictional worker they hired to help with their garden, and   
   whether they would share some shirts with the worker that a produce   
   buyer had given them. The family scenario involved deciding whether to   
   give a relative some nice clothes the participant had inherited.   
      
   Both surveys showed a similar pattern: participants were more willing to   
   give the resource when exposed to more positive, context-specific gossip   
   statements about them, and less willing when exposed to more negative,   
   context-specific gossip statements.   
      
   In this paper, the researchers also included an observational study of   
   40 Aka hunter-gatherers who live near the Ngandu horticulturists. This   
   study was designed as a series of questions asked verbally about real   
   people the participants knew, which increased the study's ecological   
   validity, meaning it shows that the results can be generalized to   
   real-life settings.   
      
   While not exactly parallel with the experimental studies, these   
   observational results also indicated that an individual's positive   
   reputation strongly influenced whether the Aka participants were willing   
   to share a resource with them.   
      
   "The cultural contexts are different, but they have the same patterns   
   of responses," said Hess. "This appears to be the universal psychology   
   in how people evaluate reputation in allocating valuable things from   
   industrial societies to small scale communities."   
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Mind_&_Brain   
                   # Social_Psychology # Stress # Relationships # Psychology   
             o Science_&_Society   
                   # Industrial_Relations # Education_and_Employment #   
                   Resource_Shortage # Disaster_Plan   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Experimental_economics o Anchoring_bias_in_decision-making   
             o Placebo_effect o Workaholic o Charisma o Social_psychology   
             o Privacy o Self-esteem   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by Washington_State_University. Original   
   written by Sara Zaske. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. Nicole H. Hess, Edward H. Hagen. The impact of gossip, reputation,   
      and   
         context on resource transfers among Aka hunter-gatherers, Ngandu   
         horticulturalists, and MTurkers. Evolution and Human Behavior,   
         2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.02.013   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230411105900.htm   
      
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