Gossip-Based Self-Organising Agent Societies and the Impact of False Gossip

Evil Acts and Malicious Gossip

“…My knowledge about your general cooperation is based on your reputation, spread through gossip. Mathematical analyses and multiagent simulations establish that this process can indeed lead to generalized cooperation in a population, with agents cooperating not on the basis of reciprocity with this specific interaction partner, but because a cooperative reputation will cause them to be rewarded by other agents (Giardini & Conte, 2012; Savarimuthu, Purvis, Purvis, & Savarimuthu, 2013; Takahashi, 2000). Viewed in a different light, this is another way of saying that gossip is useful for identifying norm violators so that others can withhold cooperation from them.…”

“…However, most detailed analyses of ways to deal with false gossip come from well outside social psychology, from theoretical biology or computer science perspectives. Savarimuthu et al (2013) advance a technical model of how a population of artificial agents (software programs) can establish cooperation and exclude free riders. Drawing on work on the evolution of cooperation (e.g., Nowak & Sigmund, 2005, as reviewed earlier), they make gossip (i.e., inter-agent communication about other agents’ levels of cooperation) a key part of their system.…”

Gossip as a Burdened Virtue

“…Here the ostracism is absent, though the speaker may still express that the norm in question still applies to the speaker or hearer. Interestingly, Savarimuthu et al 2013 demonstrate the effectiveness of gossip's commitment and direction by showing that gossip is a practical means for groups with differing norms to self-sort, so that (for instance) cooperators partner with other cooperators and free-riders with other free-riders. The moral psychological functions can then be summarized as initiating ostracism to cooperatively punish (alleged) norm violators and protect others, while also committing the speaker to the norm in question.…”

The Sources of Organizational Gossips in Schools

“…In other words, it can be claimed that gossip serves to strengthen existing relations (Gabriels & Backer, 2016). The research results in this topic conclude that gossips have some important functions in organizations such as; entertaining the audience or attracting social attention (Guerin & Miyazaki, 2006); enhancing social interactions and relationships within networks (Smith, Lucas & Latkin, 1999); strengthening social sharing (Mills, 2010); having benefits for the group (Kniffin & Wilson, 2005); cooperating employees in the organization (Wu, Balliet & Van-Lange, 2016); uniting social groups (Dunbar, 2004); controlling social norms (Vaidyanathan, Khalsa & Ecklund, 2016); giving social approval (Litman, Huang & Chang, 2009); strengthening social ties (Brondino, Fusar-Poli & Politi, 2016); contributing to the convergence and socialization of employees (Çalıkuşu, et al, 2013); sharing the secrets (Ditmarsch, et al, 2017); allowing the formation of groups (Savarimuthu, 2013). According to this, there are different social situations in schools that cause the gossips among teachers.…”