As a child, you were probably told that gossip is wrong and that if you wouldn’t say something to an individual’s face, you shouldn’t say it at all.
But an interesting new study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland and Stanford University suggests that gossip may not be the worst thing for a social group. Rather, this study highlighted how “spilling the tea” can actually have benefits.
According to researchers, gossip, the exchange of personal information about people who are not present, has social benefits, especially in disseminating information about a person’s reputation. This allows those who hear the gossip to associate with more “supportive” people rather than “selfish” people.
“When people want to know if someone is a good person to interact with, if they can get information from gossip, assuming that information is honest, it can be very helpful. ,” said study co-investigator Dana Nau. author.
The findings were designed to address a long-standing question in social psychology: “Why has gossip become such a popular and widespread activity, regardless of age, gender, or culture?” This is the result of computer simulation.
In a previous study, the researchers found that people spend about an hour each day talking to others, which takes up a significant amount of their daily lives. That’s why researchers felt it necessary to dig deeper into this topic.
Other past research suggests that gossip can bind large groups together and encourage cooperation. However, it remains unclear how gossipers actually benefit from these interactions.
“This was a real puzzle. It’s unclear why gossip, which requires so much time and energy, evolved as an adaptive strategy in the first place,” said Michele Gelfand, another co-author of the study. he said.
So in their latest study, researchers used an evolutionary game theory model to simulate human decision-making. By integrating principles from evolutionary biology and game theory, researchers are investigating how hypothetical research subjects (known as “agents”) interact and adjust their strategies to obtain rewards. can now be observed.
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