Making sense of information in noisy networks: Human communication, gossip, and distortion

Laidre, Mark E.; Lamb, Alex; Shultz, Susanne; Olsen, Megan

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2012.09.009

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Warning group members about norm violators through gossip can be seen as a prosocial act that allows cooperators to consult together and ensures that norm violators must cooperate to be part of the group (Apicella et al, 2012; Feinberg et al, 2014; Giardini et al, 2014). These benefits only seem to occur when the gossip is really about norm violators because accurate information allows for selecting cooperative interaction partners (Laidre et al, 2013), whereas false gossip seems to weaken the power of gossip to increase cooperation (Seki and Nakamaru, 2016; Fonseca and Peters, 2018). Finally, when there is true gossip about norm violations, the bright side of gossip prevails from the perspective of the sender and recipient, as gossip carries benefits for both parties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Bright and Dark Side of Gossip for Cooperation in Groups

et al. 2019

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Recent experimental studies seem to concur that gossip is good for groups by showing that gossip stems from prosocial motives to protect group members from non-cooperators. Thus, these studies emphasize the “bright” side of gossip. However, scattered studies point to detrimental outcomes of gossip for individuals and groups, arguing that a “dark” side of gossip exists. To understand the implications of gossip for cooperation in groups, both the dark and bright side of gossip must be illuminated. We investigated both sides of gossip in two scenario studies. In Study 1 ( N = 108), we confronted participants with a free-rider in their group and manipulated whether the gossip recipient was the free-rider’s potential victim or not. Participants showed a higher group protection motivation in response to gossip when imagining gossiping to a potential victim of a norm violator compared to a non-victim. They showed a higher emotion venting motivation when imagining gossiping to a non-victim compared to a potential victim. Both these gossip motives were related to an increased tendency to gossip. In Study 2 ( N = 104), we manipulated whether participants were the targets or observers of gossip and whether the gossip was true or false. Results showed that targets of negative gossip intended to increase their work effort in the short run, but only when the gossip was true. Furthermore, gossip targets reported lower long-term cooperative intentions toward their workgroup regardless of gossip veracity. This paper demonstrates that gossip has both a “dark” and “bright” side and that situational factors and agent perspectives determine which side prevails.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Bright and Dark Side of Gossip for Cooperation in Groups

et al. 2019

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“…Despite a steadily increasing amount of evidence that language evolved primarily for facilitating social bonding in large and complex social groups ( Dunbar, 1993 , 2003 , 2004 ; Nettle and Dunbar, 1997 ; McComb and Semple, 2005 ; Mesoudi et al, 2006 ; Roberts, 2010 , 2013 ; Ireland et al, 2011 ; Weaver and Bosson, 2011 ; Cohen, 2012 ; Freeberg et al, 2012 ; Laidre et al, 2012 ; Dávid-Barrett and Dunbar, 2013 ; Redhead and Dunbar, 2013 ; Galantucci and Roberts, 2014 ; Pietraszewski and Schwartz, 2014 ), there is currently no broad consensus as to how language originated in the human species ( Számadó and Szathmáry, 2006 ; Fitch, 2010 ). Despite the fact that upon closer examination, the deceptive use of language reveals a more direct role for social bonding, and suggests a derived role for deception, there are nevertheless several adherents to the perspective that the primary function for language is deception ( Dawkins and Krebs, 1978 ; Krebs and Dawkins, 1984 ; Scott-Phillips, 2006 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of language evolution, this distinction is often referred to as the difference between direct and derived functions ( Millikan, 1984 ; Origgi and Sperber, 2000 ). Further, despite the existence of a large body of relevant theoretical and empirical research in favor of the social bonding hypothesis as a direct function, ( Dunbar, 1993 , 2003 , 2004 ; Nettle and Dunbar, 1997 ; McComb and Semple, 2005 ; Mesoudi et al, 2006 ; Roberts, 2010 , 2013 ; Ireland et al, 2011 ; Weaver and Bosson, 2011 ; Cohen, 2012 ; Freeberg et al, 2012 ; Laidre et al, 2012 ; Dávid-Barrett and Dunbar, 2013 ; Redhead and Dunbar, 2013 ; Galantucci and Roberts, 2014 ; Pietraszewski and Schwartz, 2014 ), there is nonetheless still considerable debate over the issue as to how and why language originated exclusively in the human species ( Christiansen and Kirby, 2003 ; Számadó and Szathmáry, 2006 ; Larson et al, 2010 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deception as a Derived Function of Language

Oesch

2016

Front. Psychol.

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Language may be one of most important attributes which separates humans from other animal species. It has been suggested by some commentators that the primary biological function of human language is to deceive and selfishly manipulate social competitors. However, despite the existence of a large body of relevant theoretical and empirical literature in favor of the social bonding hypothesis for language function, the ostensible evidence and arguments for the deception hypothesis have not been fully discussed. The following review analyses the evidence and theoretical arguments from human social behavior, comparative animal behavior, and developmental psychology and suggests that deception shows clear signs of a derived function for language. Furthermore, in addition to being used relatively infrequently across most human and non-human animal contexts, deception appears to be utilized just as often for prosocial and social bonding functions, as it is for antisocial purposes. Future studies should focus on theoretical and experimental investigations which explore interactions between deceptive and honest language use in the context of social bonding.

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“…More broadly, the social complexity hypothesis for animal communication posits that groups with complex social systems (those in which individuals repeatedly interact with many different individuals over time, often involving close social ties) require more complex communication systems (those which contain a large number of structurally and functionally distinct elements or possess a high number of units of information) to regulate interactions and relations among group members and facilitate social bonding (Freeberg et al., ; Oesch, ). That said, given the evidence that independent and diverse opinions generally improve collective decision‐making (James, ; King, Cheng, Starke, & Myatt, ; Vul & Pashler, ), our first prediction was that larger foraging teams would locate and use profitable foraging patches more quickly than smaller teams due to access to more sources of independent information (King & Cowlishaw, ; Simons, ), which can in turn provide fitness benefits (Laidre, Lamb, Shultz, & Olsen, ). Furthermore, consistent with the social complexity hypothesis for animal communication, complex communication systems should be characteristic of larger groups to regulate complex social interactions and relations and facilitate social bonding (Freeberg et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group size, communication, and familiarity effects in foraging human teams

Oesch

Dunbar

2018

Ethology

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Exploitation of food resources that are dispersed in time and space has been crucial to the evolutionary success of humans. Recent experimental work has shown that an absence of communication impairs decision‐making in a foraging task. Here, we found that individuals in larger teams were more likely to reach group consensus and were more accurate and efficient foragers. Individuals in larger teams were also more likely to gesture to one another, while levels of verbal exchange were not significantly different in small and large groups. At last, teams in which individuals reported that they knew one another and rated team members as helpful and information‐seeking were more accurate in their foraging. Overall, our findings offer experimental evidence that larger, communicating, familiar teams are quicker and more accurate foragers. We therefore suggest that complex communication within socially bonded relationships may have been important to the ecological success of the human lineage.

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Making sense of information in noisy networks: Human communication, gossip, and distortion

Cited by 23 publications

References 33 publications

The Bright and Dark Side of Gossip for Cooperation in Groups

The Bright and Dark Side of Gossip for Cooperation in Groups

Deception as a Derived Function of Language

Group size, communication, and familiarity effects in foraging human teams

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