Gossip, the exchange of information about absent others, is ingrained in the system of indirect reciprocity, in which participating members selectively interact and cooperate with others with a good reputation. Previous psychological theorizing suggests that indirect reciprocity is perceived to be bounded by group membership. We aimed to examine whether the group-bounded indirect reciprocity perspective explains intergroup gossip. We thus explored how group membership shapes the expectations about how gossip is used and willingness to gossip within and across group boundaries. We conducted three studies (total = 986) and re-analyzed a published dataset ( = 690) and comprehensively investigated how willing people expect others to be to engage in within- and between-group gossip as well as how willing they themselves are to engage in both types of gossip, in minimal and university contexts. We found that consistent with the group-bounded indirect reciprocity perspective, people expected within group gossip to be more likely than intergroup gossip. In addition, in the minimal group context, we found that people were, in general, more willing to gossip towards in-group members rather than out-group members. However, in the university context, they were more willing to gossip about in-group and out-group members towards out-group and in-group members, respectively, suggesting that people may utilize intergroup gossip for strategic reasons. Our research was the first to experimentally elucidate the role of group membership in shaping expectations about gossip and willingness to gossip, and offers a promising starting point for future work on intergroup gossip and indirect reciprocity.

中文翻译：

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群体范围内的间接互惠和群体间的八卦


八卦是关于不在场的其他人的信息交换，它根植于间接互惠系统中，在该系统中，参与成员有选择地与声誉良好的其他人互动和合作。先前的心理学理论表明，间接互惠被认为受到群体成员身份的限制。我们的目的是研究群体范围内的间接互惠视角是否可以解释群体间的八卦。因此，我们探讨了群体成员身份如何塑造对如何使用八卦的期望以及在群体内部和跨群体边界八卦的意愿。我们进行了三项研究（总计 = 986），并重新分析了已发布的数据集（= 690），并全面调查了人们期望他人参与群体内和群体间八卦的意愿以及他们自己参与八卦的意愿在这两种类型的八卦中，在最小的和大学的环境中。我们发现，与群体范围内的间接互惠观点一致，人们预期群体内八卦比群体间八卦更有可能发生。此外，在最小群体背景下，我们发现人们一般更愿意对群体内成员而不是群体外成员八卦。然而，在大学背景下，他们更愿意分别向群体外和群体内成员谈论群体内和群体外成员的八卦，这表明人们可能出于战略原因利用群体间八卦。我们的研究首次通过实验阐明了群体成员身份在塑造对八卦的期望和八卦意愿方面的作用，并为未来关于群体间八卦和间接互惠的工作提供了一个有希望的起点。