Gossip about in-group and out-group norm deviations

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of hypotheses.

Hypothesis	Behavior	Target	Recipient	NI	SE	RB	P	GI	IG/IV	More or less willing to gossip?
Hypothesis 8	Negative	In	In	+	+	+	+		+	More (Hypothesis 1)
Hypothesis 9	Negative	In	Out	+				-	+
Hypothesis 10	Negative	Out	In	+	+	+	+		+	More (Hypothesis 2)
Hypothesis 11	Negative	Out	Out	+					+	More (Hypothesis 3)
Hypothesis 12	Positive	In	In		+			+	+	More (Hypothesis 4)
Hypothesis 13	Positive	In	Out					+	+	More (Hypothesis 5)
Hypothesis 14	Positive	Out	In		+			-	+	Less (Hypothesis 6)
Hypothesis 15	Positive	Out	Out					-	+	Less (Hypothesis 7)

Note: NI: negative influence (indirect punishment); SE: social enjoyment; RB: relationship building; P: protection; GI: group image; IG: information gathering; IV: information validation. + and – indicate gossip motivations would encourage and discourage individuals to gossip, respectively. Hypotheses 1–7 pertain to whether negative/positive norm deviations are more or less likely to be gossiped about as compared to normative behavior. Hypotheses 8–15 are about which gossip motivation(s) predicts the willingness to gossip.

figure 1. Descriptive statistics for the willingness to gossip in each condition.

Note: Diamonds and their error bars indicate means and 95% confidence intervals, respectively.

Table 2. Results of multiple regressions predicting the willingness to gossip.

						Regression coefficients B(semi-partial correlation)
Hypothesis	Behavior	Target	Recipient	F statistics	R^2	NI	SE	RB	P	GI	IG/IV
H8	Negative	In	In	F(6, 169) = 14.30*	.34	0.27(.18)*	0.07(.05)	0.13(.08)	0.19(.16)*	−0.02(−.01)	0.13(.09)
H9	Negative	In	Out	F(6, 169) = 18.37*	.39	0.18(.12)	0.03(.02)	0.05(.03)	0.21(.18)*	0.11(.11)	0.26(.17)*
H10	Negative	Out	In	F(6, 165) = 14.02*	.34	0.38(.25)*	0.02(.01)	−0.03(−.02)	0.09(.07)	−0.07(−.07)	0.35(.26)*
H11	Negative	Out	Out	F(6, 165) = 7.95*	.22	0.25(.20)*	0.06(.05)	0.08(.06)	0.13(.12)	−0.09(−.10)	0.11(.08)
H12	Positive	In	In	F(6, 157) = 4.64*	.15	−0.18(−.07)	0.17(.12)	−0.14(−.09)	0.07(.04)	0.24(.20)*	0.19(.14)
H13	Positive	In	Out	F(6, 157) = 10.80*	.29	−0.04(.01)	0.18(.11)	−0.04(−.02)	−0.06(−.03)	0.24(.18)*	0.36(.23)*
H14	Positive	Out	In	F(6, 171) = 9.29*	.25	−0.07(−.04)	0.27(.17)*	.002(.001)	0.23(.13)	0.04(.03)	0.28(.19)*
H15	Positive	Out	Out	F(6, 171) = 6.10*	.18	−0.02(−.002)	0.17(.11)	−0.004(−.002)	0.21(.12)	0.12(.13)	0.10(.06)

Note: * indicates p < .05. NI: negative influence; SE: social enjoyment; RB: relationship building; P: protection; GI: group image; IG: information gathering; IV: information validation.