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Research in various disciplines has highlighted that humans are uniquely able to solve the problem of cooperation through the informal mechanisms of reputation and gossip. Reputation coordinates the evaluative judgments of individuals about one another. Direct observation of actions and communication are the essential routes that are used to establish and update reputations. In large groups, where opportunities for direct observation are limited, gossip becomes an important channel to share individual perceptions and evaluations of others that can be used to condition cooperative action. Although reputation and gossip might consequently support large-scale human cooperation, four puzzles need to be resolved to understand the operation of reputation-based mechanisms. First, we need empirical evidence of the processes and content that form reputations and how this may vary cross-culturally. Second, we lack an understanding of how reputation is determined from the muddle of imperfect, biased inputs people receive. Third, coordination between individuals is only possible if reputation sharing and signaling is to a large extent reliable and valid. Communication, however, is not necessarily honest and reliable, so theoretical and empirical work is needed to understand how gossip and reputation can effectively promote cooperation despite the circulation of dishonest gossip. Fourth, reputation is not constructed in a social vacuum; hence we need a better understanding of the way in which the structure of interactions affects the efficiency of gossip for establishing reputations and fostering cooperation. Funding Agencies|Linkoping University; National Research, Development and Innovation Office - NKFIH (OTKA) grantOrszagos Tudomanyos Kutatasi Alapprogramok (OTKA) [K 132250]; European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions research and innovation programmeEuropean Research Council (ERC) [648693]

The present study aims to shed light on the mechanisms of ethnic discrimination in teacher assessments in Hungarian primary schools. For this purpose, we use data collected among Roma minority and non-Roma majority students. First, we identify a considerable ethnic difference in non-blind school grades, which is beyond the ethnic difference in blind standardized test scores. Then, we derive and empirically test predictions from different theories of discrimination that might explain the ethnic difference in grades. We find that stereotype-based theories of discrimination do not explain why minority students receive lower grades than majority students. We do not exclude the possibility that taste-based discrimination exists among teachers against Roma students. A considerable part of ethnic discrimination, however, is explained by teachers’ indirectly discriminatory grading practices: Roma students’ school behaviour is evaluated more negatively by teachers than that of non-Roma students and school behaviour seems to be taken into account in grading without legitimate justification.This practice does not only disadvantage Roma students, but boys and low status students as well. Funding: European Union, Hungary [EFOP-3.6.3-VEKOP-16-2017-00007]; European Social FundEuropean Social Fund (ESF); New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities [UNKP-16-4]; Lendulet program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; European Research Council (ERC) under the European UnionEuropean Research Council (ERC) [648693]

Humans are capable of solving cooperation problems following social norms. Social norms dictate appropriate behaviour and judgement on others in response to their previous actions and reputation. Recently, the so-called leading eight norms have been identified from many potential social norms that can sustain cooperation through a reputation-based indirect reciprocity mechanism. Despite indirect reciprocity being claimed to extend direct reciprocity in larger populations where direct experiences cannot be accumulated, the success of social norms have been analysed in models with global information and evolution. This study is the first to analyse the leading eight norms with local information and evolution. We find that the leading eight are robust against selfish players within most scenarios and can maintain a high level of cooperation also with local information and evolution. In fact, local evolution sustains cooperation under a wider set of conditions than global evolution, while local reputation does not hinder cooperation compared to global reputation. Four of the leading eight norms that do not reward justified defection offer better chances for cooperation with quick evolution, reputation with noise, larger networks, and when unconditional defectors enter the population.

A hazai fesztivál önkéntes szervezeten belül kialakult három szintű hierarchia (önkéntesek, mentorok, koordinátorok) jól tükrözi a szervezeti működés professzionalizálódását. A középvezetői szintet képviselő mentori pozíció egyedülálló tanulási lehetőséget jelent az önkéntes programba jelentkező fiatalok számára. A mentorok 20-30 önkéntesből álló csoport munkájáért felelnek a fesztivál ideje alatt, lehetővé téve olyan - a munkaerőpiacon is jól hasznosítható - készségek elsajátítását, mint például a csapatmunka szervezése és számonkérése, a csoportos és csoportközti kommunikáció, továbbá a feladat-, illetve humánerőforrás koordinációja. Az esettanulmány alapját képező kutatás a Sziget Fesztivál ideje alatt kapcsolathálózati módszerekkel vizsgálta a fesztivál önkéntesek mentori szintjét 2018-ban. A kapcsolathálózati elemzés elsődleges értéke abban van, hogy rámutat a klasszikus feladat- és az érzelmi vezető funkcióinak az önkéntesek közösségében való megjelenésére, amelyek ismeretében sikeresebb és eredményesebb vezetői döntések alakíthatók ki.

Gossip -talking about relevant others in their absence -is believed to constitute a large part of informal communication. The perception of the prevalence of gossip implies that it can be unambiguously identified and distinguished from other topics in spontaneous conversation. Its distinctiveness may be justified by multiple theoretical perspectives, in- cluding one that describes in-group gossip as an informal device for enforcing norms and punishing norm violators, and another that claims that gossip is used to release frustration and communicate envy. If the ultimate reason for gossip is to facilitate social bonding between the sender and the receiver, however, this would not differentiate gos- sip from other conversational topics that provide social enjoyment, such as entertain- ment and food. In a novel contribution, we explore the topics included in a corpus con- taining 550 hours of unfiltered spontaneous conversation and identify using LDA topic modeling whether some topics are unambiguously prominent in in-group gossip. The ex- plorative approach is integrated with the manual annotation of instances of gossip across the entire corpus. We identified coherent topics of in-group gossip that are clearly differ- ent from those of small talk and storytelling. Our analysis finds that feelings, intentions, and opinions are frequently expressed in in-group gossip, more than habits, manners, and behavior. In-group gossip topics are characterized by more words associated with anger, in line with theoretical perspectives that attribute the motives of norm enhance- ment and punishment or frustration and envy to gossip. Funding Agencies|European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union [648693]

Large-scale non-kin cooperation is a unique ingredient of human success. This type of cooperation is challenging to explain in a world of self-interested individuals. There is overwhelming empirical evidence from different disciplines that reputation and gossip promote cooperation in humans in different contexts. Despite decades of research, important details of reputation systems are still unclear. Our goal with this theme issue is to promote an interdisciplinary approach that allows us to explore and understand the evolution and maintenance of reputation systems with a special emphasis on gossip and honest signalling. The theme issue is organized around four main questions: What are the necessary conditions for reputation-based systems? What is the content and context of reputation systems? How can reputations promote cooperation? And, what is the role of gossip in maintaining reputation systems and thus cooperation? This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

Brokerage is a central concept in the organization literature. It has been argued that individuals in broker positions-i.e., connecting otherwise disconnected parts within a firm's social network-can control the flow of information. It would imply their increased relevance in workplace gossip. This allegation, however, has not been addressed empirically yet. To fill this gap, we apply social network analysis techniques to relational data from six organizations in Hungary. First, we identify informal groups and individuals in broker positions. Then, we use this information to predict the likelihood with which positive or negative gossip is reported. We find more gossip when the sender and receiver are part of the same group and more positive gossip about in-group rather than out-group targets. Individuals in broker positions are more likely the senders and targets of negative gossip. Finally, even if both the brokers and the boss(es) are the targets of their colleagues' negative gossip, the combination of the two categories (bosses in broker positions) does not predict more negative gossip anymore. Results are discussed in relation to the theoretical accounts on brokerage that emphasize its power for information control but fail to recognize the pitfalls of being in such positions.

Gossip is believed to be an informal device that alleviates the problem of cooperation in humans. Communication about previous acts and passing on reputational information could be valuable for conditional action in cooperation problems and pose a punishment threat to defectors. It is an open question, however, what kind of mechanisms can make gossip honest and credible and reputational information reliable, especially if intense competition for reputations does not exclusively dictate passing on honest information. We propose two mechanisms that could support the honesty and credibility of gossip under such a conflict of interest. One is the possibility of voluntary checks of received evaluative information from different sources and the other is social bonding between the sender and the receiver. We tested the efficiency of cross-checking and social bonding in a laboratory experiment where subjects played the Prisoner's Dilemma with gossip interactions. Although individuals had confidence in gossip in both conditions, we found that, overall, neither the opportunities for cross-checking nor bonding were able to maintain cooperation. Meanwhile, strong competition for reputation increased cooperation when individuals' payoffs depended greatly on their position relative to their rivals. Our results suggest that intense competition for reputation facilitates gossip functioning as an informal device promoting cooperation. Funding: European Research Council (ERC)European Research Council (ERC)European Commission [648693]; National Research, Development and Innovation Office -NKFIH (OTKA)Orszagos Tudomanyos Kutatasi Alapprogramok (OTKA) [K 132250]

Our social lives are segmented into various circles including family, friends, and colleagues. Differences in social norms and expectations between these circles can create tension, especially on large online social networks (OSNs), where their boundaries are blurred. It is unclear whether such phenomenon, called context collapse, outweighs the convenience of having diverse communities in one place for users of OSNs. To better understand this trade-off, we analyze whether ego-network characteristics suggestive of context collapse can explain exit choices from iWiW, a defunct Hungarian OSN with over 3.5 million active users at its peak. We measured context collapse with the presence of two conditions: the first is that communities of the user are non-overlapping, while the second is that these communities are different from each other. We find that users having merely overlapping communities were more likely to stay on the site. This result suggests that the benefits of being connected to diverse communities outweighs the tension from context collapse. Differences in gender composition of alter communities were associated with leaving, while having geographically distant connections were associated with staying longer on iWiW. Our results suggest that the tradeoff between access to diverse contacts and the stress of context collapse is a salient dimension in predicting user churn.

High school track choice determines college access in many countries. We hypothesize that some qualified students avoid the college-bound track in high school simply because they overestimate admission requirements. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a randomized field experiment that communicated the admission standards of local secondary schools on the academic track to students in Hungary before the application deadline. We targeted the subset of students (“seeds”) who occupied the most central position in the classroom-social networks, aiming to detect both direct effects on the track choice of targeted seeds and spillover effects on their untreated peers. We found neither a direct effect nor a spillover effect on students’ applications or admissions on average. Further analyses, however, revealed theoretically plausible heterogeneity in the direct causal effect of the intervention on the track choice of targeted seeds. Providing information about admission standards increased applications and admissions to secondary schools on the academic track among seeds who had a pre-existing interest in the academic track but were unsure of their chances of admission. This demonstrates that publicizing admissions standards can set students on a more ambitious educational trajectory. We discuss the implications for theory and policy.

Reputation has been shown to provide an informal solution to the problem of cooperation in human societies. After reviewing models that connect reputations and cooperation, we address how reputation results from information exchange embedded in a social network that changes endogenously itself. Theoretical studies highlight that network topologies have different effects on the extent of cooperation, since they can foster or hinder the flow of reputational information. Subsequently, we review models and empirical studies that intend to grasp the coevolution of reputations, cooperation and social networks. We identify open questions in the literature concerning how networks affect the accuracy of reputations, the honesty of shared information and the spread of reputational information. Certain network topologies may facilitate biased beliefs and intergroup competition or in-group identity formation that could lead to high cooperation within but conflicts between different subgroups of a network. Our review covers theoretical, experimental and field studies across various disciplines that target these questions and could explain how the dynamics of interactions and reputations help or prevent the establishment and sustainability of cooperation in small- and large-scale societies. Funding:European Research Council (ERC)European Research Council (ERC)European Commission [648693]; National Research, Development and Innovation Office -NKFIH (OTKA)Orszagos Tudomanyos Kutatasi Alapprogramok (OTKA) [K132250]; Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO); DutchMinistry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) [024.003.025]

A human solution to the problem of cooperation is the maintenance of informal reputation hierarchies. Reputational information contributes to cooperation by providing guidelines about previous group-beneficial or free-rider behaviour in social dilemma interactions. How reputation information could be credible, however, remains a puzzle. We test two potential safeguards to ensure credibility: (i) reputation is a scarce resource and (ii) it is not earned for direct benefits. We test these solutions in a laboratory experiment in which participants played two-person Prisoners Dilemma games without partner selection, could observe some other interactions, and could communicate reputational information about possible opponents to each other. Reputational information clearly influenced cooperation decisions. Although cooperation was not sustained at a high level in any of the conditions, the possibility of exchanging third-party information was able to temporarily increase the level of strategic cooperation when reputation was a scarce resource and reputational scores were directly translated into monetary benefits. We found that competition for monetary rewards or unrestricted non-monetary reputational rewards helped the reputation system to be informative. Finally, we found that high reputational scores are reinforced further as they are rewarded with positive messages, and positive gossip was leading to higher reputations. Funding Agencies|European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeEuropean Research Council (ERC) [648693]; Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office NKFIH [K112929]; European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF) in Hungary (GINOP) [2.3.2-15-2016-00057]

This study aims at disentangling the effects of status generalization and social identity processes on ability perceptions among early adolescents. Double standards theory predicts that people use different standards for making inferences about others’ abilities based on social status. Social identity processes, however, imply that people evaluate in-group members more positively than out-group members. We analyze cross-sectional dyadic peer nomination data from 21 primary school classes in Hungary ( N = 392, [Formula: see text] = 13 years) with exponential random graph models. Next to ethnic self-identification, we use dyadic ethnic perceptions as a novel way of measuring ethnicity in the analysis. Our findings are mostly in line with social identity theory: Students are more likely to nominate in-group peers as clever compared with classmates from the out-group, in terms of both gender and ethnicity. Nonetheless, ethnic and gender biases in ability perceptions differ in some important ways.

Direct and indirect reciprocity are good candidates to explain the fundamental problem of evolution of cooperation. We explore the conditions under which different types of reciprocity gain dominance and their performances in sustaining cooperation in the PD played on simple networks. We confirm that direct reciprocity gains dominance over indirect reciprocity strategies also in larger populations, as long as it has no memory constraints. In the absence of direct reciprocity, or when its memory is flawed, different forms of indirect reciprocity strategies are able to dominate and to support cooperation. We show that indirect reciprocity relying on social capital inherent in closed triads is the best competitor among them, outperforming indirect reciprocity that uses information from any source. Results hold in a wide range of conditions with different evolutionary update rules, extent of evolutionary pressure, initial conditions, population size, and density.

Problems of cooperation have often been simplified as the choice between defection and cooperation, although in many empirical situations it is also possible to walk away from the interaction. When opting out of is a feasible alternative, it is questionable whether known solutions to the problem of cooperation, such as punishment could still work, given the limited sanctioning potential it imposes on free riders. We present the results of two experiments with non-student subjects who play optional and compulsory public goods games both with and without a punishment stage. We find that the possibility of opting-out motivates cooperation. Instead, when punishment is introduced, higher cooperation emerges in the compulsory game. This key result indicates that informal solutions to public good problems might rule each other out and punishment is a robust solution only if players are not allowed to opt out of the interaction.

Direct and indirect reciprocity are good candidates to explain the fundamental problem of evolution of cooperation. We explore the conditions under which different types of reciprocity gain dominance and their performances in sustaining cooperation in the PD played on simple networks. We confirm that direct reciprocity gains dominance over indirect reciprocity strategies also in larger populations, as long as it has no memory constraints. In the absence of direct reciprocity, or when its memory is flawed, different forms of indirect reciprocity strategies are able to dominate and to support cooperation. We show that indirect reciprocity relying on social capital inherent in closed triads is the best competitor among them, outperforming indirect reciprocity that uses information from any source. Results hold in a wide range of conditions with different evolutionary update rules, extent of evolutionary pressure, initial conditions, population size, and density.