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What is Gossip About? An Alternative Hypothesis
... On the other hand, gossip that is focused on the traits of a person or the actions that alter the way we perceive a person will be called reputation gossip. Reputation gossip is used to alter the reputations of self and other people, driven by a desire to gain personal prestige (Paine, 1967). To do so, we slander rivals and foes, and bask in the glorious gossip stories about family and friends (see McAndrew, this volume;McAndrew, Bell, & Garcia, 2007). ...
... In everyday life people gossip positively about family and friends and share negative news about rivals and foes (McAndrew, Bell, & Garcia, 2007). In doing so, individuals increase their personal status which, according to Paine (1967Paine ( , 1968, is a major drive to gossip. It has been shown that people enjoy positive and negative gossip about celebrities and are amused by reading negative mass media gossip (Peng et al., 2015). ...
... Gossip about celebrity behavior thus helps audiences make sense of the social world and the changes that can be seen to take place in that regard (Gamson, 2001;Evans & Hesmondalgh, 2005). Gossip further functions as a means to protect individual selfinterest and enhance one's moral status (Paine, 1967). This can be linked to Goffman's (1959) impression management theory which states that an individual represents oneself in the best possible way, for instance by discussing celebrities' transgressions to enhance their own status as morally "good" people. ...
This chapter has three goals. The first is to illuminate the various topics covered in mass media gossip about complete unknowns and celebrities, highlighting the overlap with interpersonal gossip. The second goal is to zoom in on celebrity gossip by examining who becomes a celebrity and what role the media play in this process. Third, we take a look at the audience, reviewing why people consume celebrity gossip, and how some people become so deeply involved with some celebrities that they actively take part in the creation and evolution of celebrities and their reputation. In all these discussions, we try to make clear how reputation gossip is a key part in every step of the process. That is, reputation gossip is what makes someone a celebrity and what drives the audiences to consume celebrity gossip and, in doing so, reinforcing the creation of a “celebrity.”
... In a seminal article, Gluckman (1963) argued that gossip has the social function of reinforcing norms and contributing to the unity of a group of people by delineating exclusionary boundaries of information. Paine (1967) gave an alternative hypothesis: individuals engage in gossiping to advance their own interest in controlling information flows. Both positions reflected the long-standing divide in research foci between the individual and the group, or between psychology and sociology. ...
... His account also reveals that drug traffickers and the army alike produce the beaches as spaces they can take control of, rendering Rubén as a passive object in that representation. Moreover, it shows some of the everyday strategies that people employ to survive, commenting and speculating about what they know (Paine 1967), as well as invoking ignorance and feigned ignorance to fend off armed actors, state-sanctioned or otherwise (Gluckman 1963;1968). For others like Ramiro, a non-local hotel entrepreneur, the situation is unproblematic: ...
... Zhu 2018). The rumours could be understood as a use of Othering (Paine 1967) to undermine the perceived success of the paisas in conducting business, as well as reflecting the thorny colonial past, in which Chocó's mines and slave labour were managed from Antioquia (Jimeno et al. 1995). Moreover, it is challenging to discern the incomes generated from White Fish from those resulting from other types of economic activities, as they may benefit indirectly from increased expenditure resulting from the general prosperity. ...
What is life like after drift‐cocaine arrives in a village on Colombia's Northern Pacific coast? Drift‐cocaine is a side‐effect of the interdiction of drug transport boats heading towards Central and North America as part of the US‐Colombian War on Drugs. Villagers refer to drift‐cocaine as the White Fish. Through ethnographic engagement with Afro‐descendant peoples in Chocó, this article explores the effects and relations that emerge from an ocean turned into an amphitheatre of fishing livelihoods, drug traffickers, and military operations. By taking seriously the White Fish as the way people refer to cocaine, I focus on gossip and rumour as the strategies they employ to discuss the pervasive effects of the drug trade. I trace three interrelated discussions – concerning violence, cocaine, and the White Fish – in order to argue for the usefulness of gossip and rumour in investigative ethnographies of violence.
... Therefore, it will be useful to understand and find the managerial solutions to manage gossip-related information (Akande & Odewale, 1994). Paine (1967) states that gossip is a powerful tool of communication for anyone who is able to strategically manage it and direct its effects. Similar results were found in studies conducted in Turkey. ...
... The source of gossip and rumour is usually third parties, and in many cases the source and location of the message are not easily known (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007a). On the other hand, some researchers (Cox, 1970;Paine, 1967) define gossip as a cultural tool that the individual uses in line with his/her own interests. DiFonzo and Bordia (2007a) defined gossip as social conversation about individuals in order to have fun, adapt to the group and be a part of the social network, while Noon and Delbridge (1993, p. 25) defined gossip as "conveying valuable information to individuals in the social environment". ...
This study provides insights on gossip related organizational communication in the context of hospitality businesses and reveals the relationship between employees’ personal attitude for gossip and their perception of workplace gossip. A quantitative research approach was adopted, and data were collected from 451 hotel employees through the survey. The relationships were examined by using path analyzes through the AMOS program. Findings show that managerial gossip attitude influences perception of workplace gossip dimensions (comparison and exaggeration, fun and entertainment, physical appearance, flow of social-information, managerial, and sublimation). This study differs from similar studies in related field as it examines how employees perceive gossip in the work environment through their individual attitudes towards gossip.
... Gossip is therefore defined as a "process of informally communicating value-laden information" (Noon and Delbridge, 1993: 25) selected by members "as alternative to the available official or open ones" (Paine, 1967: 293, see also Michelson and Mouly, 2000), which is linked to "informal communication networks" (Noon and Delbridge, 1993: 23) and "informal structures of organizations" (1993: 24). Engagement and development in gossip occurs between at least two people. ...
... First, our data draws attention to the importance of gossip in the routines of daily practice (Schatzki, 2001) for making sense of organizations. As a form of informal communication, gossip allows social comparison (Wert and Salovey, 2004), information gathering (Rosnow and Fine, 1976), and provides stories that entertain and influence (Paine, 1967). By participating in gossip, interpersonal relationships develop and collective forms of sensemaking occur. ...
Gossip is pervasive at the workplace, yet receives scant attention in the sensemaking literature and stands on the periphery of organization studies. We seek to reveal the non-triviality of gossip in processes of sensemaking. In drawing on empirical data from an observational study of a British Media firm, we adopt a processual perspective in showing how people produce, understand, and enact their sense of what is occurring through gossip as an evaluative and distinct form of informal communication. Our research draws attention to the importance of gossip in the routines of daily practice and the need to differentiate general from confidential gossip. We discuss how gossip continuously informs learning as evaluative sensemaking processes that encourages critiques and evaluation to shape future action and behavior. Within this, we argue how confidential gossip can challenge power relations while remaining part of formal authority structures, constituting forms of pragmatic and micro-resistance. This shadowland resistance provides terrain for learning that both criticizes and preserves espoused values and cultural norms. We conclude that confidential gossip as an evaluative and secretive process provokes a learning paradox that both enables and constrains forms of resistance in reinforcing and simultaneously questioning power relations at work.
... In fact, further analyses show that if gossip has only its reputation dissemination function, if we make gossiping even a little costly, few gossipers can survive (SI Appendix, Fig. S9 and section 2.2.2). Therefore, the fact that gossip disseminates reputation information and facilitates cooperation is not sufficient to explain the evolution of gossipers (34). If so, what is missed in the causal chain? ...
Gossip, the exchange of personal information about absent third parties, is ubiquitous in human societies. However, the evolution of gossip remains a puzzle. The current article proposes an evolutionary cycle of gossip and uses an agent-based evolutionary game-theoretic model to assess it. We argue that the evolution of gossip is the joint consequence of its reputation dissemination and selfishness deterrence functions. Specifically, the dissemination of information about individuals’ reputations leads more individuals to condition their behavior on others’ reputations. This induces individuals to behave more cooperatively toward gossipers in order to improve their reputations. As a result, gossiping has an evolutionary advantage that leads to its proliferation. The evolution of gossip further facilitates these two functions of gossip and sustains the evolutionary cycle.
... Gossip serves many different functions [4]. Among others, gathering information, social bonding, and social monitoring are common applications of gossip [5][6][7]. There are many ways in which gossiping could be considered as harmful, though, both for the gossiper and the victims of gossip. ...
This is the first scoping review of gossip addiction.. See: https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/gossiping-between-social-interaction-and-behavioral-addiction.pdf
... Por otro lado, el chisme, en términos de Paine (1967), no sólo es un género de comunicación informal, sino también, un dispositivo de protección de los propios intereses. Ello explica que tanto Anita como Esteban hayas sido tan cautos en una conversación, que tuvo muchos sobreentendidos, cuya explicación excedería los límites del presente trabajo, pero que atañen al partido político gobernante en el municipio, sus relaciones con el partido provincial, la actividad cultural de la Secretaría de Cultura del Municipio, etc. ...
El presente artículo se encuadra en una investigación sobre el trabajo artístico independiente y el asociacionismo, en tiempos de pandemia y pos pandemia, en la Norpatagonia argentina, esto es, en un circuito lejano a los centros culturales hegemónicos. Nos centraremos en el análisis de un conflicto que estalló en el terreno virtual, un grupo de WhatsApp. Para ello, deberemos partir del estudio de los valores enarbolados por los protagonistas del enfrentamiento. Ello nos permitirá comprender, no sólo la virulencia de los intercambios, sino también los acuerdos previos y posteriores. Pero, también, abordaremos la citada mensajería instantánea, en tanto escenario de disputa y, también, los condicionamientos que produce sobre las lecturas del conflicto realizadas por los/as integrantes del colectivo.
... Gossip brings tight bonding, membership in the group. Peter Wilson (1974) scrutinizes Gluckman' proposal with Robert Paine's (1967) where Gluckman 'identified gossip in its cultural form as a sort of game, for which he formulated the rules. He then went on to suggest a sociological explanation for the prevalence of this game, arguing that gossip crystallised and reinforced common community values, thereby furthering the coherence and unity of the social group' (Wilson, 1974). ...
Gossip and bullying have psychosocial concerns and are usually considered as vice, bad, hence, non-virtuous. This paper deals with a plausible modest account for them to be considered not as bad, rather significant behavioral and epistemic tools from evolutionary and epistemological points of view. It adheres to a relationship between gossip and bullying in real (sociobiological-psychological domains) and within cyberspaces. Considering the formation of social relations and orders in reality and virtual platforms, it attempts to understand the issues and advantages gossip poses to societies from a reputational perspective. While evolutionary explanations of complex social behavior are not only difficult, but controversial too, this paper aims to present an evolutionary epistemological perspective to the act of gossiping, to understand the vantage it may have or provide. Usually, gossip and bullying are considered as having a negative connotation, but these are explicated as epistemic access tools for regulation, social order, knowledge gain, and niche construction. Consequently, gossip is showcased as an evolutionary epistemic achievement and virtuous enough to deal with the partly unknown features of the World.
... A relação das fofocas com a moral foi sublinhada em trabalhos clássicos da Antropologia (e também fora da disciplina 18 ): seja na pers-pectiva de Max Gluckman em Gossip and Scandal (1963), para quem as fofocas reafirmariam normas morais, promovendo a coesão do grupo, seja na visão antagonista de Robert Paine (1967), segundo a qual as fofocas informam sim sobre a 'ordem moral' de um determinado grupo, mas servem essencialmente a interesses individuais e tendem a produzir mais fragmentação que unidade. Deixando em grande medida de lado essa preocupação com a função da fofoca, diversos antropólogos têm, atualmente, insistido sobre a importância de considerar, no estudo dos atos de fala, as posições sociais dos locutores (hierarquias, status) e o contexto de enunciação das falas (relações nas quais se inserem, disputas por poder, conflitos precedentes). ...
Quem é evangélico “de verdade” e quem é só “de aparência”? Neste texto, descrevo e analiso processos morais entre evangélicos de uma mesma igreja, numa comunidade rural do sudoeste do Haiti, onde a verdade da fé de cada um é colocada sob suspeita. Na malha de relações mediadas por uma missão norte-americana, o fogo-cruzado de acusações entre fiéis revela disputas por poder, competição por superioridade moral e uma maneira de exprimir as preocupações morais que não toma a forma da autoreflexividade e da culpabilidade tão comum em contextos protestantes. O pecado está nos outros, e acusá-los não deixa de ser uma ocasião para afirmar a sua própria virtude.
... Thirdly, gossip can be used more instrumentally to justify privileges, inequalities and to exclude outsiders (Dingfelder 2006;Elias and Scotson 1994). Research shows that people can use gossip strategically for protecting their individual interests or improve their social standing by damaging the reputation of others (Paine 1967). People in positions of relative power also use gossip to exclude outsiders and thereby sustain and justify social or political hierarchies and inequalities (Foster 2004;Gluckman 1963;Noon and Delbridge 1993). ...
Gossip is often considered to have negative and exclusionary social consequences within migrant communities and multi-ethnic settings. In contrast, the current research examines whether gossip can contribute to including and integrating people with different ethnic and migration backgrounds into a local community. The empirical study is based on 11 Months of fieldwork research in Riace, a small town in Southern Italy that has hosted refugees and migrants for over 20 years. We focused on the local functions of gossip as it occurs in everyday life and is embedded in the local social context. Findings demonstrate that much of the local gossip is inter-ethnic and facilitates strong community relationships by sustaining local norms and promoting trust relationships and shared narratives. It is concluded that local gossip does not only have to be divisive but also can have inclusive and integrative implications for multi-ethnic local settings.
... Many who have studied gossip have been drawn to functional explanations. See the debate between Max Gluckman (1963Gluckman ( , 1968 and Robert Paine (1967Paine ( , 1968. 11. ...
At a sparsely populated wake in Luang Prabang, Laos, the guests appeared to re- strain themselves from evaluating the deceased’s son-in-law to his face, even as they said to one another that he had neglected his mother-in-law and pocketed the funds for her wake to feed his methamphetamine habit. What are we to do with moments of apparent restraint like this, those meaningful silences in which signs of evaluation seem partially withheld, transfigured, or utterly absent? What do they mean for ac- counts of ordinary ethics? In unpacking the events of Paa’s wake, I suggest that such moments force us to reckon with the relation between signs of evaluation and me- ta-ethical accounts of them, as they also give flesh to the descriptive claim that hu- mans are evaluative. Doing so makes clear that, at times, whether a particular person is being evaluative in a particular moment remains uncertain. At other times, people appear to be not only evaluative but so omnivorously evaluative—so fundamentally oriented to evaluation’s possibility—that they keep their evaluations to themselves. [ordinary ethics; anthropology of ethics; Laos; evaluation; face-to-face inter- action; sincerity; character]
... Investigações transculturais e pesquisas históricas bem descrevem os efeitos das mentiras inocentes, pequenas difamações e "verdades alternativas" sobre a vida alheia sobre a volição e como aquelas, ao longo dos milênios, acomodaram-se no cerne das relações sociais do Homo Sapiens (10) (11) (12). Por enfatizar a dimensão mais constrangedora ou abominável dos comportamentos que corrompem normas sociais, é plausível admitir que, evolucionariamente, tais disposições tenham função de formação moral. ...
A mentira parece ter raízes antigas e profundamente fincadas nas inclinações humanas para o engodo para obtenção de vantagens imorais ou ilícitas. Ao longo da História, as produções caluniosas humanas se reproduziram de forma limitada em nichos da esfera privada. A partir do final do século XX as acumulações tecnológicas em termos de produção de conteúdo e segmentação de consumidores da “sociedade da informação” também geraram condições para criação da “sociedade da desinformação” por meio da potencialização de processos comunicativos distorcidos ligados a interesses comerciais. Defende-se no presente texto que, mais relevante que a credibilidade de conteúdos e seus veiculadores no contexto da potencialização tecnológica para produção e distribuição das fake news, o consumo de mentiras expandiu-se em função de necessidades humanas inconfessáveis. Usando o referencial teórico da “sociedade do espetáculo” de Guy Debord, da Filosofia da Excitação de Christoph Türcke e do Capitalismo de Vigilância de Shoshana Zuboff, discute-se os novos rumos do capitalismo contemporâneo. Descreve-se o surgimento de uma nova forma de mercado que explora a luxúria da excitação pelo ódio da intolerância e pelo pânico no contexto das biocalamidades como a pandemia do COVID-19. Nos novos modos de produção, vultosos lucros são gerados pela sociedade que se tornou o próprio espetáculo - agora impulsionado pela luxúria/gula da sensação no comércio da excitação. A gula pelo consumo excessivo de conteúdos de reafirmação de laços sociais gera mais tempo de tela nos devices, embora também esteja implicada na genealogia das xenofobias. Discute-se assim os mecanismos da exploração da mentira, da fofoca e das confidências de difamação transformadas em commodities. A ação comunicativa para superação de ideologias e emancipação do ser humano tem sido reduzida à reprodução alienada de memes e partículas de informação sensacional. No contexto dessa nova “Idade Mídia”, proliferam os discursos sem diálogos e a convicção sem reflexão e sem interlocuções. Assim como a oferta excessiva de açúcares levou à obesidade, a luxúria pela sensação articulada à gula por seu consumo e replicação, está nos conduzido à infobesidade e às corrupções infodêmicas da comunicação.
... Sonuç olarak örgütsel söylentiler dedikoduların tersine bireyler arasında gerçekleşip, gizliliği korunmaya çalışılan bir olgu olmanın ötesinde örgütte çalışan topluluklarına yönelik merak uyandıran haber veya rivayetlerdir. Bu sebeple dedikoduya göre çok daha fazla kişiye ulaşır ve örgütte hızlı bir şekilde yayılır (Paine, 1967). ...
... In almost all models and experiments, gossip is assumed to be honest (Nowak & Sigmund, 1998a;Ohtsuki & Iwasa, 2004), but this is not the case in real life. Classic ethnographic accounts of gossip highlight that it can be used strategically (e.g., Paine, 1967), and people often lie or exaggerate to manipulate others, either to improve their own reputation or to damage the reputation of their competitors (Buss & Dedden, 1990;Diekmann et al., 2014;Hess & Hagen, 2006;McAndrew, 2014). Lying can be promoted by both pro-self (DePaulo et al., 1996) and prosocial motivation (Shalvi & De Dreu, 2014; for review, see Jacobsen et al., 2018). ...
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.
... Few terms within the scientific literature are more equivocal than the word "gossip". Although research on the topic can be traced several decades back (Gluckman, 1963;Paine, 1967), gossip has been defined in many disparate ways by different scholars (Dores Cruz et al., 2021;Michelson et al., 2010). Briefly, gossip can be defined as the transmission of evaluative information about an absent person. ...
Gossip constitutes a form of human communication consisting of the transmission of evaluative information about absent others. Previous research has associated the usage of gossip with outcomes at both the individual and the group levels. Such outcomes include, among other things, the delimitation of group boundaries, the ostracism of wrong-doers, effects on job performance, or feelings of social inclusion. Despite all this, there are conflicting views and an overall lack of research regarding how gossip affects — and is affected by — one’s and others’ relationships and, consequently, the evolution of a social network. Using social network data from high schools and firms, the purpose of this thesis is to shed light on gossip’s relational antecedents and consequences.
Four chapters compose this thesis. Chapter 1 (the “kappa”) provides the reader with an introduction to the study of gossip, the research problem, the theoretical and methodological approaches used, and the contributions and limitations of this thesis. In Chapter 2 (with Dorottya Kisfalusi and Károly Takács), I examine how antipathies contribute to negative gossip in high school classrooms. Results show that one’s and friends’ antipathies favour gossip independently, supporting the hypothesis that discrepancies between the sender and the receiver in how they relate to the target are resolved in gossip. Chapter 3 (with Károly Takács) centres on the distinctive contribution of employees whose networks span different groups. Results reveal that “network brokers” send positive and negative forms of gossip, but also are the targets of their colleagues’ negative talk. Finally, Chapter 4 (with Rafael Wittek, Francesca Giardini, Lea Ellwardt and Robert Krause) examines the impact of the reputations heard in gossip on the evolution of friendship relationships among employees. Results reveal weak reputational effects but disclose that negative information decay in value if overused.
... Accordingly, the strive for good reputation drives not only generosity [38][39][40][41][42], but as an alternative tool for individuals to improve their relative rank, also dishonest gossip about rivals [43][44][45]. Unlike random noise [46] and exaggeration [23], once such strategic misrepresentations are of a realistic possibility, the reliability of social information exchange could be questioned [47] and the alleged link between gossip and cooperation is broken [48]. In previous experiments, dishonesty was brought about by competition between the sender and receiver of gossip [48], but it has not been tested whether people will mislead their audience with dishonest information if they have a conflict of interest only with the target. ...
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.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.
... One group of theoretical approaches to gossip, which we term 'social competition' theories, emphasize gossip as a means of manipulating reputations to the benefit of oneself, one's kin and one's allies (e.g. [19,20]). Corroborating this strategic, competitive view of gossip, non-physical forms of aggression, such as gossiping and ostracism, are common in both sexes and all age groups. ...
Those with better reputations often obtain more resources than those with poorer reputations. Consequently, gossip might be an evolved strategy to compete for valuable and scarce material and social resources. Influenced by models of non-human primate competition, we test the hypotheses that gossip: (i) targets aspects of reputation relevant to the domain in which the competition is occurring, (ii) increases when contested resources are more valuable, and (iii) increases when resources are scarcer. We then test hypotheses derived from informational warfare theory, which proposes that coalitions strategically collect, analyse and disseminate gossip. Specifically, we test whether: (iv) coalitions deter negative gossip, and (v) whether they increase expectations of reputational harm to competitors. Using experimental methods in a Mechanical Turk sample ( n = 600), and survey and ego network analysis methods in a sample of California sorority women ( n = 74), we found that gossip content is specific to the context of the competition; that more valuable and scarcer resources cause gossip, particularly negative gossip, to intensify; and that allies deter negative gossip and increase expectations of reputational harm to an adversary. These results support social competition theories of gossip.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.
... 156 Their interest 154 Many anthropologists that have studied gossip have been drawn to functional explanations. This has led to debate, most famously between Max Gluckman (1963; and Robert Paine (1967; who argued about whether gossip was, among other things, a means for strengthening 'unity' or a means for people to achieve their own interests. Anthropologists have been drawn to understanding the function of gossip in part to contradict the many academics and local populations that talk about it as if it does nothing in regard to more on the record, and instrumental, forms of talk. ...
Anthropologists have long pointed out the intensity with which people sort economic practices into moralized types based on the practices’ purported aims such as gift-giving, ‘deep play,’ and guanxi. Yet more than a century after Malinowski first pitched his tent in the Trobriand Islands and some nine decades after Mauss proposed his theory of the gift, we still know little about how people invoke these types in interaction and why they find them so compelling. In this dissertation, I explore the moral and pragmatic life of economic types in Luang Prabang, Laos and challenge the epistemological life of similar types in anthropology. I argue that understanding moral economy is fundamentally a semiotic problem. That is, moral economic types can only be understood if we study the communicative acts in which they are made manifest. With close attention to these acts, I show that any answer to the classic ethical question of ‘How one should live’ (Williams 2006) is inevitably entangled with another question: ‘How is one living?’ In Laos, since the 1975 socialist revolution, typifying economic conduct has been a national project. As the late-socialist state adopts once-banned forms of economy, it reframes these practices using the moral categories of its socialist past: the lottery has become ‘pro-development,’ capitalistic business has become a vehicle for the eventual attainment of ‘socialism,’ and gambling, in certain forms, has become ‘good.’ Although I touch on a broad range of empirical economic and social practices—theft at a funeral, lottery buying and selling, paying for food at a bar—I focus empirically on conduct that seems to blur moral types of economy and combine conflicting aims and logics, like generosity and greed, friendship and estrangement, socialism and capitalism. Most centrally, I reflect on the moral and pragmatic dimensions of a contrast that gamblers on the French colonial game called pétanque make between ‘gambling for money’ (lin5 kin3 ngen2) and ‘gambling for beer’ (lin5 kin3 bia3). Using materials from more than fifteen months of fieldwork in the rapidly developing city of Luang Prabang, I disentangle the variety of reflexive forms people use to invoke these moral economic types, including implicit and explicit typifications of conduct as well as generic propositions about the types as kinds. I show that close attention to these forms reveals their allure and multifunctional utility: they are not just conceptual categories for reflecting on the world but also clusters of semiotic resources people use to make ethical and pragmatic claims about others as well as themselves. While anthropologists have been wary of ‘ideal types’ in recent years because they ‘distort’ practice, I show that by attending to the heterogeneous ways people use types, we can better understand the reflexive dimensions of ‘ordinary ethics’ and the methodological and epistemological muddles that arise when scholars try to disentangle communication from action.
... Nevertheless, we seem able to address this concern in theory. First, gossip has already been widely recognized as a mechanism of reciprocity and verification of information (Paine, 1967). The important purpose of gossip sharing is to get more information from the receiver, which contributes to learning the organization's rules and regulations by constantly comparing and verifying the information (Brady et al., 2017;Jones, 1980). ...
Researchers have been interested in discussing negative workplace gossip and its consequences, but have paid little attention to positive workplace gossip and its positive aspects in the workplace. Based on the perspective of social network, this study explores the two-path mediating mechanisms between positive workplace gossip and the socialization outcomes of newcomers. The data was collected in a multi-time and multi-source manner. The results shown that information ties and friendship ties mediated the relationship between positive workplace gossip and the socialization outcomes of newcomers. Specifically, positive workplace gossip helped newcomers form instrumental and expressive social relationships, namely informational ties and friendship ties, which in turn contributed to socialization outcomes, namely, role clarity and social integration.
The theoretical and management implications are discussed as well.
... Diğer yandan "kendinden öncekini yutan etkinlik" olarak değerlendirilen dedikodu (Walter, 2003), çalışanın, söz konusu bilgiyi bir başkasına aktarırken, kendi çıkarları doğrultusunda değiştirmesi ile sonuçlanabilmektedir (Şimşek, 1997: 59). Çünkü çalışan, dedikoduyu bir araç olarak kullanarak, kişisel yarar sağlamakta ve rakiplerine karşı avantaj elde etmeye çalışmaktadır (Paine, 1967). Diğer yandan, dedikodunun grup açısından işlevselliği değerlendirildiğinde; grubun moralini ve değerlerini güçlendirdiği, grup içi ayrışmayı kontrol ettiği ve düzenlediği ifade edilmektedir (Gluckman, 1963: 308). ...
Özet: Artan rekabet ve değişim ortamında işletmeler, örgüt performansını arttırmak için örgüt iş ortamının çalışanlarca nasıl algılandığını dikkate almak zorundadırlar. Çalışanların örgüt iş ortamına ilişkin olumsuz algıları, onların tutum ve davranışlarını etkileyebilir. Bu çalışmada, örgütsel engeller konusu kapsamlı olarak incelenmekte ve örgütsel engellerin örgütsel bağlılığın üç boyutu ve bireysel iş performansı üzerindeki etkileri değerlendirilmektedir. Araştırma lastik sektöründe yer alan üç büyük işletmede yapılmış ve 145 çalışandan elde edilen veriler incelenmiştir. Araştırma sonuçları; örgütsel engellerin, örgütsel bağlılık boyutlarını farklı yönde ve kuvvetli bir şekilde etkilediğini göstermektedir. Ayrıca, örgütsel engellerin, bireysel performansı negatif yönde etkilediğini göstermektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Örgütsel Engeller, Duygusal, Normatif ve Zorunlu Bağlılık, Bireysel İş Performansı.
Jel Kod: M10,M12
... Los pioneros de la antropología, por su parte, también manifestaron un interés marcado por las disposiciones morales de los "salvajes" que constituían su objeto de estudio (Stocking, 1987(Stocking, y 1995. 2 Esta preocupación explícita por la moral en la agenda antropológica temprana será recogida por no menos de dos tradiciones, una vez más a uno y otro lado del Atlántico. La primera de ellas proviene del derecho comparado por vía de juristas como Maine, Morgan, Lubbock y McLennan y luego de un proceso de fecundación cruzada con la escuela de L'Année… se prolonga durante más de medio siglo en los debates sobre derecho, moral y control social que surgirán en el marco de la antropología social británica, entre los que podemos enumerar como ejemplos más notorios los que tienen que ver con la cuestión de la hechicería, la brujería y la polución ritual (Evans-Pritchard, 1976;Gluckman, 1972;Evens, 1982;Douglas, 1966), así como los que hacen hincapié en cuestiones relacionadas con la reputación y el honor (Malinowski, 1926;Gluckman, 1963;Paine, 1972aPaine, y 1972bPitt Rivers, 1971;Peristiany, 1966;Peristiany y Pitt Rivers, 2005;Gilmore, 1987;Herzfeld, 1980). La segunda verá la luz en los Estados Unidos y en el ámbito de la antropología pos-boasiana que, recogiendo la herencia de la ilustración alemana, en particular, la noción de Kultur, de Herder, entendida como "genio" de un pueblo (Elias, 2000), producirá nociones moralmente informadas como las de pattern (Benedict, 1971), ethos (Bateson, 1958;Bidney, 1959;Robert, 1968) o "carácter nacional" (Benedict, 2006;Mead y Metraux, 2000), en el marco de una empresa que entiende a la cultura -incluyendo de manera explícita y fundamental sus dimensiones valorativas-como marco fundamental del comportamiento del hombre en sociedad, que eventualmente habrá de convergir tanto teórica como institucionalmente con la agenda parsoniana arriba mencionada (Kroeber y Parsons, 1958;Kuper, 2001). ...
Ante un panorama en el cual la tematización de las dimensiones morales de la vida social ocupa un lugar quizás no central, pero si creciente y notorio en las agendas de la sociología y la antropología, el presente dossier se presenta como una invitación teórica y metodológica, pero sobre todo heurística, que procura mostrar a partir de experiencias concretas de investigación en ciencias sociales la productividad de interrogar y construir nuestros objetos desde un punto de vista que se sitúa en el terreno de las indagaciones sobre el lugar de la moral y lo moral en la vida social. El objeto de esta compilación no apunta específicamente a tematizar la moral como objeto de las ciencias sociales sino a mostrar a partir de trabajos concretos surgidos de experiencias de investigación qué es lo que permite y habilita el movilizar la moral como recurso teórico, como herramienta metodológica o como perspectiva de análisis.
... La pregnancia del chisme como forma de organización social nos permite abordar esta dimensión, ya que se trata de comentarios generalmente de carácter negativo, no verificados ni documentados, que circulan generando ideas o representaciones sobre miembros de la comunidad. Mediante ellos se refuerzan los sentidos de pertenencia (Gluckman, 1963), se disputan fuerzas morales hegemónicas (Elías, 1974), se ponen en juego intereses individuales (Paine, 1967), y en circulación, datos significativos para el entramado social. Fasano (2006) afirma que el chisme solo puede operar en una comunidad de sentido compartido, y que generalmente remite a "personas necesariamente conocidas (...), de las cuales se dicen predicados que sólo interpretan quienes tienen una historia en común" (p. ...
El par urbano/rural ha sido la base desde la cual se ha construido el pensamiento espacial de Occidente, usado no solo para oponer distintas formas de ocupación territorial, sino también posiciones contrarias en el proceso modernizador; discursos e imaginarios donde el campo ocupa lo primitivo, tradicional y restrictivo, y la metrópolis lo moderno, versátil y tolerante. Intentando superar esta dicotomía, este artículo ofrece un modelo más acorde a la complejidad de nuestros arreglos espaciales, proponiendo pensar cada espacio como el ensamblaje de piezas de distinto cuño, como urbano o rural, pero concentrándose en definir las características esenciales de un tercer tipo de territorio: las ciudades no metropolitanas. A partir de un trabajo cuantitativo y cualitativo realizado en Chile y en Argentina, se plantean cuatro variables centrales que configurarían el modo de vida de estos territorios, al que hemos llamado ‘citadino’: la escala, el ritmo, la población y las jerarquías.
У статті розглянуто різноманітні підходи до розуміння феномену чуток у системі соціальних комунікацій. Зазначено, що чутки є важливим елементом суспільного життя та впливають на формування громадської думки, мають соціальну, політичну, економічну, історичну та культурну значущість. У дослідницьких підходах представників різних наук виокремлено соціальнокомунікаційні аспекти феномену чуток, які узагальнено в цілісне бачення. Зроблено висновок, що комплексний мультикультурний підхід потенційно дозволить підвищити ефективність протидії загрозливим чуткам.
Gossip at the workplace is inevitable! The concept usually elicits negative reactions, however, several studies on gossip show that it has many positive attributes including creating social networks and contributing to the bonding experience of co-workers. Gossip can reinforce a strong bond and improve morale among employees at the workplace but on the other hand, it can be detrimental to individuals as well as group cohesion. This study contributes to the literature on office gossip by examining how it enhances camaraderie among co-workers in a University setting. Academia is highly competitive and we argue that competition and camaraderie are two sides of the same coin when examined through the lens of office gossip. We activate the concepts of time and space to underscore how office gossip channels competition as well as camaraderie. Workspace and time can be formally structured or informally shaped by co-workers in their informal networks and social groups. We show that camaraderie will allow greater use of space while conflict and competition restrict the use of physical spaces. Thus, co-workers resort to informal social networks, often supported by office gossip.
We review cross‐disciplinary research on gossip and integrate it with two streams of theoretical scholarship: paradox theory and the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) perspective. In doing so, we develop what we label a paradox‐constitutive perspective of organizational gossip. Our perspective holds that gossip does not merely reflect or reveal organizational paradoxes but contributes to constituting them. Drawing on an extensive narrative literature review ( N = 184), we conceptualize organizational gossip as a socially constructed category of interpersonal communication that, paradoxically, is regarded as both an exceptionally reliable and exceptionally unreliable source of social information. In turn, we illustrate how this contradictory view of gossip engenders paradoxical tensions when gossip surfaces in organizational life, and we illuminate two specific tensions to which gossip contributes: resistance‐authority tensions and inclusion‐exclusion tensions. Our work has important implications for research on organizational gossip, paradox, and communication and suggests intriguing directions for future investigations.
El tema de esta investigación explica la forma en que el discurso del chisme contribuye a la formación de conocimiento a partir de la integración de diversos procesos sociocognitivos y culturales, y cómo este se representa en la literatura por intermedio de la funcionalidad de lo que hemos catalogado como imaginario del chisme. Para ejemplificar este proceso se analiza la contribución del imaginario del chisme en la construcción de sentido común y de saberes de creencias, enfocados desde la identidad, el poder y la resistencia, en la última novela del escritor argentino Manuel Puig, Cae la noche tropical (1988). ABSTRACT The theme of this research explains how the discourse of gossip contributes to the formation of knowledge from the integration of various socio-cognitive and cultural processes, and how it is represented in the literature through the functionality of the imaginary of gossip. To exemplify this process, analyze the contribution of the imaginary of gossip in the construction of common sense and knowledge of beliefs in the latest novel by the Argentine writer Manuel Puig, Cae la noche tropical. In the tropics of knowledge: The construction of the imaginary of gossip and its relationship with knowledge in the novel Cae la noche tropical, by Manuel Puig (1988)
Disclosure is a pervasive behavior critical to the human experience, and has been the focus of both empirical research and theorizing by social and consumer psychologists. This work has typically characterized disclosure as a deliberate and strategic act, the product of a careful weighing of costs and benefits. In this paper, we argue that, although some disclosure can be deliberate and “rational,” much of it exhibits drive‐like qualities. We review evidence to suggest that, much like other drive states (e.g., hunger), the desire to disclose can be visceral, driven by emotions and physical arousal, and satiated through the act of disclosing. And just as more basic drives evolved to motivate adaptive action but can engender maladaptive behavior (e.g., over‐eating), disclosures can likewise be impulsive and ultimately regrettable. We propose a dual‐process model that encompasses both viscerally driven and deliberate disclosures and that makes sense of the conflicts that often arise between the two.
This book offers an original anthropological approach to the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, demonstrating why AIDS interventions in the former homeland of Venda have failed - and possibly even been counterproductive. It does so through a series of ethnographic encounters, from kings to condoms, which expose the ways in which biomedical understanding of the virus have been rejected by - and incorporated into - local understandings of health, illness, sex and death. Through the songs of female initiation, AIDS education and wandering minstrels, the book argues that music is central to understanding how AIDS interventions operate. This book elucidates a hidden world of meaning in which people sing about what they cannot talk about, where educators are blamed for spreading the virus, and in which condoms are often thought to cause AIDS. The policy implications are clear: African worldviews must be taken seriously if AIDS interventions in Africa are to become successful.
This book offers an original anthropological approach to the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, demonstrating why AIDS interventions in the former homeland of Venda have failed - and possibly even been counterproductive. It does so through a series of ethnographic encounters, from kings to condoms, which expose the ways in which biomedical understanding of the virus have been rejected by - and incorporated into - local understandings of health, illness, sex and death. Through the songs of female initiation, AIDS education and wandering minstrels, the book argues that music is central to understanding how AIDS interventions operate. This book elucidates a hidden world of meaning in which people sing about what they cannot talk about, where educators are blamed for spreading the virus, and in which condoms are often thought to cause AIDS. The policy implications are clear: African worldviews must be taken seriously if AIDS interventions in Africa are to become successful.
Purpose
Although many probable consequences of workplace gossip have been featured prominently in the organizational behavior literature, existing research lags in identifying the possible causes behind it. In the present research, the authors aim to examine self-focused personality traits such as narcissism and core self-evaluation (CSE) as predictors of negative (NWG) and positive workplace gossip (PWG). In addition, the study tests the moderating influence of perceived organizational politics (POP) on the aforementioned relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a time lagged field study on a sample of 616 employees from various organizations across India. The proposed theoretical model was tested using structural equation modeling procedures in AMOS.
Findings
Narcissism was found to relate significantly with NWG as well as PWG. CSE, on the other hand, showed significant association with NWG only. Further, POP was found to moderate the relationship between narcissism and PWG.
Practical implications
Present study makes practitioners aware of the ubiquity of the phenomenon of gossip and encourages them to design and implement policies that cater to the needs of communication of employees. It also advises managers to carefully examine political scenario in the organization, and understand how it can be moulded for the betterment of employees as well as the organization.
Originality/value
First, using social comparison theory, the authors introduce personality traits as predictors of NWG and PWG. Second, by exploring POP as the boundary condition, the authors take into account the most common yet unexplored factor that affects gossip behavior in the organizations.
How do we understand gossip as spatialization processes? How can we address such processes through liminal space? In this paper, we challenge the trap of social determinism in understanding gossip and argue that gossip should be conceptualized through the mutual constitution and contestations between social relations and space. We draw on a three-month participant observation case study to explore such interactive processes and relations through the lens of liminal space. This paper contributes to the existing literature of gossip in two interconnected ways. First, we address the overlooked importance of ‘space’ in theorizing and understanding gossip. We emphasize that space acts as a localized context for and an active participant in enabling or constraining social interactions for gossip. Second, we explore the theoretical potential and empirical possibility of blending theory of liminal space and gossip that can shed light on future research on unmanaged and marginalized social practices in organizations.
This book, as a companion to Rhetoric in Everyday Life, which we dedicated to teachers, is for students. It is for students who are ready and open to feeling rhetoric, not to fear it as strategy or overcome it as problematic, but as the ability to move, maybe move us a little closer together.
https://librarypartnerspress.pressbooks.pub/feelingrhetoric/
Bodily participation provides insights that mere observation cannot offer. Based on an ethnographic vignette, this article explores how bodily interactions in ethnographic fieldwork raise awareness for non-observational knowledge and hidden social practices. It looks at how such encounters shape all participants, including the ethnographer, and how subtle bodily interactions constitute a social space that remains invisible to outsiders but where intersubjectivity unfolds. It then addresses differences between participation and observation in ethnography and the epistemological problems it leads to: First, bodily social practice is largely non-predicative, but ethnographers are urged to put it in words – which affect their relationship to that practice and how they can engage in it. The second challenge is the habituation of bodily practices. The longer ethnographers engage in such social practices, the more they will develop routines and no longer focus consciously on them. Both can distort the ethnographic account of bodily practices.
Ameaças de morte são violações recorrentes na experiência compartilhada de ocupantes de áreas rurais de Manaus, Presidente Figueiredo e Iranduba no estado do Amazonas, Brasil. Inscrevem-se em uma pletora de atos de violência que tomam parte nos conflitos territoriais movidos pelas disputas por ocupação e propriedade da terra. A noção de situação de ameaça de morte parte de um percurso etnográfico em conflitos territoriais no Amazonas, (Brasil) como proposta de um instrumento analítico que abarca a experiência vivida por um coletivo diante de um conjunto de atos de violência, enquanto um complexo ou uma totalidade. O testemunho das vítimas permite compreender suas experiências marcadas por medo, sofrimento, angústia, silenciamento, trauma e luto; como também por resistências e curas. Ameaças verbais e não verbais, agressões, intimidações, atentados, estupros, destruições de bens, “reintegrações de posse”, calúnias e criminalização constituem atos que carregam a força perlocucionária de trazer a aproximação constante da possibilidade de morte ao cotidiano. Desta forma, a violência reveste-se em uma ação sistemática que tem como objetivo último suscitar o medo e, através deste, a imobilização política e a expulsão dos ocupantes de terra. Por fim, o terror de Estado representa uma contraparte indispensável para a existência e permanência dessa experiência vivida em situação de ameaça e se demarca através das ações das forças de segurança pública, das agências executivas e do judiciário e, principalmente, nos processos judiciais e em “mediações” ou “negociações de conflitos” que a situação de ameaça pode ser ratificada pela combinação entre impunidade e aparência de legalidade, garantindo a busca não completada por justiça.
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Republic in 1923 under the rule of Atatürk and his Republican People's Party, Turkey embarked on extensive social, economic, cultural and administrative modernization programs which would lay the foundations for modern day Turkey. The Power of the People shows that the ordinary people shaped the social and political change of Turkey as much as Atatürk's strong spurt of modernization. Adopting a broader conception of politics, focusing on daily interactions between the state and society and using untapped archival sources, Murat Metinsoy reveals how rural and urban people coped with the state policies, local oppression, exploitation, and adverse conditions wrought by the Great Depression through diverse everyday survival and resistance strategies. Showing how the people's daily practices and beliefs survived and outweighed the modernizing elite's projects, this book gives new insights into the social and historical origins of Turkey's backslide to conservative and Islamist politics, demonstrating that the making of modern Turkey was an outcome of intersection between the modernization and the people's responses to it.
Scholars, journalists, and activists alike have offered a variety of explanations to understand
the high incidence of COVID-19 among Haredi Jewish communities in the United States and abroad. Despite their differences, each assumes that Haredi Jews are inherently collectivistic. This article challenges this assumption and contends that COVID-19 has amplified pre-existing anxieties about the lack of proper social cohesion and solidarity within Haredi Jewish communities. It analyzes these dynamics through “Stop the Spread”, a Haredi “anti-gossip” campaign that links the ill health of social relations within the Haredi Jewish body politic to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 within its communities.
This dissertation examines women’s talk in seventeenth-century Massachusetts through the lens of holy watchfulness, investigating the gendered politics of speech by focusing on gossip—the oral exchange of information that was personal rather than political and concerned affairs of the household and neighborhood rather than the state. It considers when and why women’s speech crossed the line from authorized watchfulness to stigmatized gossip and argues that women’s lives in early Massachusetts can be better understood by examining their participation in holy watching. Focusing on women’s authorized speech and examining the talk of goodwives and servants rather than Antinomians and witches reveals women’s words being heard and accepted in public forums. Breaking down distinctions not only between speech and writing but also between sight and sound shows that a material and spatial history of women’s lives, work, and speech expands our understanding of how watchfulness operated and of who was actively participating in the transmission of information. Rather than focusing on illicit speech, this dissertation approaches gossip as a form of information to show that women’s talk was instrumental in the formation, adaptation, and maintenance of early New England’s religious culture. In a face-to-face culture that prioritized community watchfulness, women’s words were vital to the maintenance of order but could easily be viewed as disorderly when deployed in ways considered inappropriate. Authorities tried to rein in threatening aspects of women’s speech not just by limiting it but also by putting it in the service of social order, moral policing, and surveillance. Watchfulness harnessed what would otherwise have been illicit speech in the service of church and state as a way of containing disorder. This dissertation first surveys the ways that surveillance was embedded in church and state efforts to contain disorder. Puritan ideas combined with older structures to make family government and moral enforcement reliant on ordinary people’s observations. It then examines how community surveillance functioned in the daily lives of women in Boston and how gossip helped shape the patriarchal family and household. Focusing on female domestic servants, wives, and neighbors, it shows how official surveillance could be inoperative or ineffective when disorder took place behind closed doors, how women’s access to intimate spaces countered hierarchical relationships, and the contradictory messages women received about keeping and revealing men’s secrets. It then considers the consequences of gossip for ministers who were accused of sexual indiscretions, showing how political considerations and the historical record have determined whether women’s words have been remembered or forgotten. A short epilogue describes the conditions at the turn of the eighteenth century when prominent men formed associations for overseeing the morals of their neighbors and tried to circumvent the role that women had previously held as carriers of information about order and disorder in their communities. Examining women’s gossip allows a reassessment of women’s roles in New England puritanism and in Protestantism more broadly. Reconceptualizing women’s public roles to include their everyday lives and their conversations restores their significance in early Massachusetts society and the development of American religious practice. Redefining gossip as a form of information not only reveals a range of actors helping shape puritan religious culture but also underscores the importance of historicizing distinctions between public and private in early America in ways that make women’s lives visible.
Think gossip is just trash talk? Think again. A new study shows that gossip influences behavior, fosters cooperation, and increases group affiliation.
In this re-evaluation of the writings of Joseph Conrad, Michael Greaney places language and narrative at the heart of his literary achievement. A trilingual Polish expatriate, Conrad brought a formidable linguistic self-consciousness to the English novel; tensions between speech and writing are the defining obsessions of his career. He sought very early on to develop a 'writing of the voice' based on oral or communal modes of storytelling. Greaney argues that the 'yarns' of his nautical raconteur Marlow are the most challenging expression of this voice-centred aesthetic. But Conrad's suspicion that words are fundamentally untrustworthy is present in everything he wrote. The political novels of his middle period represent a breakthrough from traditional storytelling into the writerly aesthetic of high modernism. Greaney offers an examination of a wide range of Conrad's work which combines recent critical approaches to language in post-structuralism with an impressive command of linguistic theory.
This case report is an attempt to study the formation, incidence, and social repercussions of rumor in a small-scale "primitive" society, the Polynesian island of Tikopia in the Western Pacific. The content of rumor in Tikopia is closely related to the experience of the inhabitants, and while the total range is wide, the main themes are relatively few and repetitive. The mode of communication is almost wholly verbal. Most rumors are ephemeral. "They tend to succeed one another in fairly rapid succession, especially when the issue is one of immediate emotional significance––as a famine, or the fate of absent kin. When they persist or reappear, it is because they correspond to some deep-seated structural cleavage."
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
In the course of a research program dealing with the effects of newly organized community activity programs on the social life of a housing project a rumor concerning the nature of the investigation arose. It stated that the research was communist inspired, and very quickly the entire program of stimulating activities bogged down. Thus, the study of the rumor was incidental to the major study and data were collected by means of informal reports and a retrospective questionnaire given to the members of the project. Steps taken to combat the rumor are briefly reported. The issue is discussed in terms of the media and processes of communication, and 3 theoretical principles concerning rumor are advanced: rumors arise where people are unable to control those factors disrupting their existence, also where "cognitive regions especially relevant to immediate behavior are largely unstructured," and lastly that "once the central theme of a rumor is accepted, there will be a tendency to reorganize and to distort items so as to be consistent with the central theme." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Honour, family and patronage
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The Makah Indians. Manchester: University Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande
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Cat Harbour: A Newfoundland fishing settlement (Nfdlnd. social econ
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Brothers and rivals: patrilocality in Savage Cove (Nfdlnd. social econ. Stud. 5) St John's: Memorial
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Village on the border
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Custom and conflict in Africa Oxford: Blackwell. I963. Gossip and scandal
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Life in a Haitian valley
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Children errand-runners: Their role in the social life of a small Mexican community
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Hotchkiss, J. C. I962. Children errand-runners: Their role in the social life of a small Mexican community. (Paper read to the American Anthropological Association: annual meeting I962.) Kluckhohn, C. I944. Navaho witchcraft. Boston: Beacon Press.
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