What Is the Use of Gossip? A Sensitivity Analysis of the Spreading of Respectful Reputation

Abstract

The evolution of social norms is explained by many authors as a solution to problems of either coordination (cf. Lewis, 1969) or cooperation (Binmore, 1994) or both (Ulman-Margalit, 1977). In the social dilemmas literature (cf. Kerr, 1995), social norms include commitment, reciprocity, equity, and roles. While ethological studies (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1967/1978; de Waal, 1982) show that norms evolve also as means to control aggression in both human and primate sociaties (see, for example, the finder-keeper precept), this functionality of norms has been essentially ignored by the social scientific literature.