Chris Cantell Discusses Science: Study says gossip matters more than facts by Corina Ciubotaru

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany have recently tested the power of gossip in influencing our everyday decisions. How did they do that? They put some students in front of computers and asked them to give each other virtual money based on what they thought of the others. The scientists gave them true information about the other students but also some gossip about each of them, with some false gossip thrown in to help measure the impact. They passed money from one another and then the scientists analyzed who gave money to whom and the way these decisions were affected by the gossip players had read. The result was that even though rationally the students should have been more influenced by facts, the gossip proved to be the biggest factor, since it supposedly came from other people. Scientists believe the explanation could rely on the fact that in real life we can never know the full truth about someone, so we tend to believe the words of people who may somehow know more facts about the person in question. Maybe we missed some vital information about a person and subsequently made errors in judging them; and since nobody likes being betrayed, we tend to take gossip for granted and rely on it. The gossip we pay more attention to depends on many factors though: on the person we hear about, because we tend to believe only the best about people; on the person who spreads the word, because some people's opinions matter more than others'; on our past experiences and many other personality traits that make us different from one another.

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071015/thl-uk-gossip-power-b2e59e8_1.html

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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Edited by Iveta Nagyova