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Social networks and gossip Jeroen Bruggeman

Explore the role of reputation and gossip in fostering cooperation in social networks. Learn how different reputations influence cooperative behavior and how gossip can impact trust and group dynamics. Discover how network topology affects noise reduction and trust-building.

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Social networks and gossip Jeroen Bruggeman

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  1. Social networks and gossipJeroen Bruggeman

  2. Cooperation?

  3. Cooperation • Reputation: infomation [knowledge] that one individual has about another • Reputation: through observation and for humans - with language - also through gossip • Gossip requires network • Reciprocity as special kind of reputation-based cooperation

  4. Reputations • Different reputations for different kinds of actions and skills • Let’s distinguish reputations for cooperation - as in game theory - from prestige for remainder actions and skills (gossip for both) • Meta-reputations for contributing to transmission of reputations

  5. Gossip in theory • Who are trustworthy candidates to cooperate with? Whom to avoid? • Gossip as (evaluative) statements about non-present persons • Gossip-based reputations can foster cooperation, even for public goods (Panchanathan & Boyd 2004) • Boundary condition: actions observable

  6. Gossip in actuality • Emotional aspects: irresistable to hear, gratifying to do • (Tacit) references to norms • Context dependent who can say what about whom • Diffusion in network, but locally sticky around gossipee • Conformist bias: (nearly) consensus within groups; not necessarily across

  7. Gossip in actuality • Negative gossip does not necessarily create trust, but requires it: risk of retaliation when gossiper is exposed • Signaling group loyalty is self-serving without risk of sanctions: speak positively about group members who live up to group norms and negatively about norm violators

  8. Gossip in actuality • Combinedwithself-presentation • Notalwayshonest: strategic actions to make oneself look favorablecomparedwithothers(socialcomparisontheory) • Meta-gossip aboutreliabilityand goals gossiper, e.g. excessive or unreliable gossip mongers are lesstrusted • Tactics: “the art of gossipingwhilenotappearingto” N.Besnier

  9. Can network topology reduce noise (error & manipulation) and increase trust? Appropriate definition of social cohesion to distinguish ‘better’ parts from ‘worse’ parts

  10. Social cohesion as k-connectivity(Douglas White, Frank Harary 2001) • (sub)group bonding as strong as minimal number of (sub)group members, k, who hold group together • redundancy of information channels helps to reduce noise: minimal number of independent paths, m, that connect any pair of members • Theorem (Menger 1927): m = k

  11. To be done: public goods experiment with imputed noise 3-connected 1-connected, with same size, density, degree distribution, degree centralization, path distance Gossip tuples (X,Y,)

  12. Complications • Through meta-reputations, people will trust some info-sources more than others - no adoption of average gossip but weighted average • In large groups, k-connectivity expected to have non-monotonic effect on cooperation. • Acutal networks change, probably also with non-monotonic effect

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