ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
Gossip and competitive altruism support cooperation in a Public Good game.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Dark Tetrad Traits Differentially Predict Gossip Frequency and Motives.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Kill them with kindness: preliminary evidence for women's competitive altruism.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Exploring individual and organizational factors influencing cooperation in commons: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Evolutionary games on multilayer networks: coordination and equilibrium selection.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- How Daily Obstacles Affect Frontline Healthcare Professionals' Mental Health during Omicron: A Daily Diary Study of Handwashing Behavior.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Four Puzzles of Reputation-Based Cooperation : Content, Process, Honesty, and Structure.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2022Article
- Third-party punishers do not compete to be chosen as partners in an experimental game.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- The benefits of being seen to help others: indirect reciprocity and reputation-based partner choice.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Evaluating mechanisms that could support credible reputations and cooperation: cross-checking and social bonding.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Gossip and reputation in everyday life.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The complexity of human cooperation under indirect reciprocity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
When there is an opportunity to gain a positive reputation, individuals are more willing to sacrifice their immediate self-interest. Partner choice creates opportunities for competitive altruism, i.e. individuals compete to be regarded as more generous and to be chosen for future partnerships. Tests of the competitive altruism hypothesis have focused so far on reputation based on direct observation, whereas the role of gossip has not been theoretically and empirically addressed. Partner choice can create an incentive to cooperate and to send truthful messages, but it can also work in the opposite direction. In order to understand the consequences of partner choice on cooperation and gossip, we designed an experimental study in which participants played a sequence of Public Goods games and gossip rounds. In our two treatments, we observed that cooperation increased when there was an opportunity to be selected, but also that cooperators sent more honest messages than defectors, and that this strategy was prevalent in the treatment in which inter-group competition was implemented. We also found evidence that participants detached themselves from the information more often when lying. Taken together, our study fills a theoretical and empirical gap by showing that partner choice increases both cooperation and honesty of gossip. This article is part of the theme issue 'The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling'.
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