The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior
Feinberg, Willer, Stellar and Keltner, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102(5), 2012, 1015-1030. Witnesses of antisocial acts felt negative affect and were motivated to share the information with potentially vulnerable others, which reduced the feeling; those with stronger prosocial orientations were most likely to gossip, even at personal cost; a fourth study showed gossip can deter selfishness and promote cooperation.
Feinberg, Willer, Stellar and Keltner, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102(5), 2012, 1015-1030. Witnesses of antisocial acts felt negative affect and were motivated to share the information with potentially vulnerable others, which reduced the feeling; those with stronger prosocial orientations were most likely to gossip, even at personal cost; a fourth study showed gossip can deter selfishness and promote cooperation.
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Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J., & Keltner, D. (2012). The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 1015-1030. doi:10.1037/a0026650 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026650