Reputation mechanisms and informal communication about others behind their back (gossip) are among the most important informal management tools that are present in any context of human social life. Gossip is believed to serve social bonding and is expected to take an essential amount of informal speaking time. This is puzzling, because according to common wisdom, gossip channels mainly negative and often fictitious information.

We have tackled this puzzle by exploiting a wide set of instruments in various contexts. We accumulated solid evidence that gossip is an essential part of informal conversations, and it can be differentiated from other topics of social enjoyment. We found that feelings, intentions, and relationships are frequently discussed in in-group gossip. We demonstrated experimentally that gossip plays an important role in forming reputations about others and provides relevant social orientations resulting in higher in-group cooperation.

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