Gossipers who punish social norm violators are evaluated positively

Gossipers who punish social norm violators are evaluated positively. Mark D. Cloud, Melinda M. Funk, Jaime M. Cloud. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Studies have shown that about 65% of human conversation is occupied by gossip. Although gossipers often are scorned, Wilson et al. (2000) predicted and found that gossipers are evaluated positively if the gossip, in response to a social norm violation, is third-party punishing rather than self-serving. In this systematic replication, we expected to find similar results recruiting participants with a broader range of backgrounds. We also added a potential moderating variable – individual differences in tendency to gossip. Using TurkPrime across two experiments, we recruited 266 participants (M age = 40.17; 53% female). For both experiments, participants read different versions of a scenario involving a social-norm violation (e.g., cattle breaking a neighbor’s fence) in which a gossiper either responded in a group-serving or selfserving manner. Subsequently, participants rated their feelings toward the gossiper and completed a tendency to gossip questionnaire. We replicated the effects found by Wilson et al. (2000) in which group-serving gossipers were evaluated positively and self-serving gossipers were evaluated negatively and further found evidence for the interactive effects of tendency to gossip and participant age on those evaluations. These findings are consistent with the notion that gossip often serves as a form of third-party punishment.