Below you will find an overview of the scientific output of the research project.
Project 1 Reasons for and Reactions to Gossip
This project contributes to our understanding the antecedents and consequences of gossip at an individual level.
The first aim of this project is to answer the question of why people engage in gossip, puzzling behavior that is simultaneously condemned and omnipresent. Specifically, this project investigates how, when, and why both self-serving (proself) and group-serving (prosocial) motives could drive people to gossip.
The second aim of this project is to answer the question of how people evaluate gossipers, ascribe motives to gossip, and react to both gossipers and the subject of gossip. Specifically, this project investigates whether ascribing self-serving or group-serving motives to gossipers differentially affects people's reactions to gossip.
To build comprehensive understanding of the reasons for and reactions to gossip, we rely on set of diverse methods.
First, we employ scenario studies online or in the laboratory. In these studies participants imagine making decisions in specific scenarios used to capture the real-world as accurately as possible while providing experimental control to manipulate the content of gossip (see for example: ), the motives for gossip (see for example: ), and the context in which gossip occurs (for example: ). These methods also provide insights into how people will behave in our more elaborate laboratory experiments or field studies.
Second, we employ experimental studies in the lab or online using interactive (computer-mediated) tasks such as economic games. In these tasks, we can use the relationships between participants and monetary incentives to manipulate the context in which gossip occurs, the goals that can be achieved through gossip, and individual states such information processing tendencies. In these experiments, we do not use deception and incentivize participant behavior. These methods allow us to investigate real gossip behavior in a controlled environment. Take a look at an example of an interactive laboratory experiment: .
Finally, we investigate gossip behavior in everyday life, outside the laboratory, using recall studies (for example: ), daily diary studies (for example: ), and intensive experience sampling studies (for example: in collaboration with the ). These methods allow us to investigate gossip in its natural setting.
Project 2 How does gossip affect group functioning and performance?
This project focuses on the consequences of gossip on group functioning and performance. In what situations and under what circumstances does gossip lead to positive outcomes, such as increased cooperation and task performance, or to negative consequences, such as decreased trust and psychological safety? In this project, we will investigate whether gossip influences group functioning and performance differently depending on the type of motive gossipers have (prosocial vs. proself) and the type of tasks teams have to perform (i.e. more divergent tasks, requiring team members to come up with different ideas and have different perspectives, or more convergent tasks, requiring team members to achieve consensus). In addition, we will investigate how gossip influences norm conformity across several situations in which different norms (such as the norm of cooperation or honesty) prevail.
Methods
We aim to answer our research questions using a variety of methods. For example, we are currently conducting a on the consequences of gossip. Through this project, we will establish under what circumstances gossip leads to negative or positive consequences. In addition, we will conduct several behavioral experiments which will aim to shed light on the previously raised questions.
Project 3 Modelling gossip in groups
This project aims at incorporating the empirical findings about gossip and cooperation collected through experiments into a broader framework: a computational model that integrates the different stages of gossip in organizations. The goal is to investigate how gossip shapes group performance, while taking into account several factors such as group composition, gossip motives, gossip reactions and interpretations and so on. Manipulating several factors can be problematic in a lab setting, thus we employ computational models that allow us to vary each of these factors separately, providing us all-embracing results on the cooperation dynamics.
The first model arising from this project investigates the impact of pro-self, pro-social and emotion-venting motives on group cooperation while manipulating first-hand information and group overall cooperation (among other factors). The second model builds on the previous one and includes a cognitive assessment of the gossip received by agents. This aspect is often overlooked in computational models on gossip while it is a salient feature of human interactions. Using data collected through a lab experiment, we model how agents interpret the gossip they receive and how they react to it depending on their interpretation. Through these computational models we will study the multiple facets that characterise gossip: from the reasons behind it, the receivers elaboration of its content, to how its diffusion impacts the group cooperation. Results from these models will provide important predictions on the key aspects that affect organizational performances with respect to gossip propagation.
Project 4 From the lab to the real world: Gossip in ongoing organizational teams
This project investigates how people experience, understand and use gossip in organizational settings. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we study the drivers and effects of gossip in the workplace, for instance the effect it has on the citizenship behavior of its targets (), or how it affects the performance and deviance behavior of people who encounter gossip in the workplace (). Furthermore, in this project we focus on understanding what is the role of exchanging gossip for people who work predominantly from home, who work in jobs that involve extensive social isolation from colleagues (i.e. truck drivers), and how gossip influences social perceptions of strangers we hear about from someone in our network.
Please contact us if you would like to receive more information on the above research output.