Gossip is both common and consequential. People often share reputational information about others in their absence, and this ubiquitous practice powerfully shapes impressions, interactions, and relationships among senders, receivers, and the targets of gossip. This paper addresses two open questions in the gossip literature: When and why do senders share inaccurate information, and to what extent do receivers rely on such information? We conceptualize letters of recommendation (LORs) as institutionalized gossip and study these questions in the context of labor markets, where senders choose how much to advocate for a job candidate and receivers decide whether to hire them. We propose that senders of LORs balance advocacy and accuracy based on the strength of their ties with the target and the receiver. Specifically, we predict that senders prioritize advocacy over accuracy when they are strongly connected to the target and weakly connected to the receiver; yet prioritize accuracy over advocacy when they are weakly connected to the target and strongly connected to the receiver. We report findings from two large experiments wherein we systematically manipulated the sender's tie strength with both the target and the receiver. In Experiment 1, participants made decisions within a novel economic game we devised to capture the accuracy-advocacy tradeoff. In Experiments 2a and 2b, participants assumed the roles of senders and receivers of LORs, respectively. These experiments show that the strength of senders' ties to others shape the (in)accuracy of their communications and that receivers tend to trust the information conveyed to them.

中文翻译：

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作为制度化八卦的推荐信：中介中的平局强度和宣传准确性的权衡


八卦既常见又有后果。人们经常在他人不在的时候分享有关他人的声誉信息，这种无处不在的做法有力地塑造了发送者、接收者和八卦目标之间的印象、互动和关系。本文解决了八卦文献中的两个悬而未决的问题：发送者何时以及为何分享不准确的信息，以及接收者在多大程度上依赖这些信息？我们将推荐信 （LOR） 概念化为制度化的八卦，并在劳动力市场的背景下研究这些问题，在劳动力市场中，发件人选择为求职者辩护的程度，接收者决定是否雇用他们。我们建议 LOR 的发送者根据他们与目标和接收者的联系强度来平衡倡导和准确性。具体来说，我们预测，当发送者与目标紧密相连而与接收者相连较弱时，他们优先考虑倡导而不是准确性;然而，当他们与目标的联系较弱而与接收者紧密联系时，他们优先考虑准确性而不是倡导。我们报告了两个大型实验的结果，其中我们系统地操纵了发送者与目标和接收者的联系强度。在实验 1 中，参与者在我们设计的新颖经济游戏中做出决策，以捕捉准确性与倡导的权衡。在实验 2a 和 2b 中，参与者分别扮演 LOR 的发送者和接收者的角色。这些实验表明，发送者与他人的联系强度决定了他们通信的（不）准确性，并且接收者倾向于信任传达给他们的信息。