Basic and Applied Social Psychology

ISSN: 0197-3533 (Print) 1532-4834 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hbas20

The Impact of Negative Gossip on Target and

Receiver. A “Big Two” Analysis

Nicole Hauke & Andrea E. Abele

To cite this article: Nicole Hauke & Andrea E. Abele (2020) The Impact of Negative Gossip on
Target and Receiver. A “Big Two” Analysis, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 42:2, 115-132,
DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2019.1702881

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2019.1702881

View supplementary material

Published online: 20 Dec 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 419

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 2 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hbas20
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
2020, VOL. 42, NO. 2, 115–132
https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2019.1702881

The Impact of Negative Gossip on Target and Receiver. A “Big Two” Analysis
Nicole Hauke and Andrea E. Abele
University of Erlangen-N€urnberg

ABSTRACT
Negative gossip can negatively influence the gossip target as well as the gossip receiver.
Building on the “Big Two” of agency and communion and their facets of assertiveness and
competence (agency) and warmth and morality (communion), we show in three studies
that negative gossip based on these four types of content differentially affect targets’ and
receivers’ reactions. Targets’ identity threat was particularly high after negative assertiveness
and warmth gossip, their reputation threat and their negative affect were especially high
after negative morality gossip. Receivers’ impressions of and negative affect toward the tar-
get were most negative after negative morality gossip. Findings are discussed with respect
to the Big Two framework and with respect to the target versus receiver perspective in
social cognition.

People spend between 65% (Dunbar, Marriott, &
Duncan, 1997) and 80–90% (Emler, 1994) of their
day-to-day conversations gossiping (see also
Goldsmith & Baxter, 1996). Gossiping is considered to
be a type of speech that transmits information about
the behaviors and attributes of absent third parties
(Foster, 2004). Gossip can have beneficial effects on,
for instance, group cohesion (Fonseca & Peters, 2018;
Feinberg, Willer, Stellar, & Keltner, 2012; Wu, Balliet,
& Van Lange, 2015). But it can also have detrimental
effects on the gossip target’s well-being, especially if
the content of the gossip is negative (Peters &
Kashima, 2014). In this paper, we are concerned with
negative gossip containing false accusations and its
impact on both the target (in situations in which the
target is aware of the negative gossip) and the receiver
of the gossip. More specifically, we apply the “Big
Two” framework of agency and communion (Abele
& Wojciszke, 2014, 2018; Bakan, 1966; Fiske, Cuddy,
& Glick, 2007; Judd, James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, &
Kashima, 2005; Paulhus & John, 1998) to a distinction
of different types of gossip and analyze how more
agency-related versus more communion-related nega-
tive gossip affects target and receiver. We present two
studies that test targets’ reactions and one study that
tests receivers’ reactions toward different types
of gossip.
The impact of negative gossip on targets
and receivers
Gossip
Gossip always involves a social triad: a gossiper (the
person telling the gossip), a target (the person the gos-
sip is about), and a receiver/audience (the person/peo-
ple the gossip is transmitted to; Peters & Kashima,
2015). Gossip can both be accurate or inaccurate
(through error or deliberate distortion), positive about
the target or negative, and veracity of the gossip is dif-
ficult to assess. Even when inaccurate, gossip will
always have some impact (Sommerfeld, Krambeck,
Semmann, & Milinski, 2007). Gossip has a number of
positive functions for the gossiper and the audience –
to inform, maintain group norms, build trust, or sim-
ply for enjoyment (Feinberg, Willer, & Schultz, 2014;
Beersma & Van Kleef, 2011, 2012; Feinberg et al.,
2012; Fonseca & Peters, 2018; Wu et al., 2015). In
terms of the target, positive gossip may also have
positive consequences, but gossip often takes the form
of negative talk about others (Dunbar, 2004; Wert &
Salovey, 2004) and this can be harmful, both when
the target is aware or unaware of the gossip. As an
example, imagine that the target heard that others had
gossiped that he/she had disclosed private information
that should have been kept secret. Even if the target

CONTACT Nicole Hauke nicole.hauke@fau.de urnberg, N€agelsbachstr. 49b, D-91052

Social Psychology Group, University of Erlangen-N€
Erlangen, Germany.
Supplemental material for this article can be accessed at www.tandfonline.com/hbas.
ß 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
116 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
knows that the gossip was wrong, it can nevertheless
have negative effects, because he/she might experience
a threat to his/her reputation and might also feel
angry or sad.
Content of gossip: agency, communion, and
their facets
Gossip involves attributing behaviors and/or traits to
the gossip target. A review of anthropological and
sociological studies showed that the most common
topics of gossip are “personal qualities and idiosyncra-
sies, behavioral surprises and inconsistencies, charac-
ter flaws, discrepancies between actual behavior and
moral claims, bad manners, socially unaccepted modes
of behavior, shortcomings, improprieties, omissions,
presumptions, blamable mistakes, misfortunes, and
failures” (Bergmann, 1993, p. 15). Although there are
no limits on the specific content of gossip, we suggest
that most gossip can be classified into one of two
major content dimensions: gossip referring to compe-
tence/performance/assertiveness (or lack of these char-
acteristics) and gossip referring to friendliness/
warmth/trustworthiness (or lack of these characteris-
tics; Peters & Kashima, 2015). These two classes of
content are the fundamental content dimensions –
also called the “Big Two” – that have been revealed in
many fields of psychology, such as social cognition,
personality, motivation, and interpersonal behavior
(for a review see Abele & Wojciszke, 2018). These
dimensions are referred to as agency and communion
(Bakan, 1966). Agency focusses on the individual per-
son and the pursuit of personal goals. Themes of
agency are self-realization, striving for power and sta-
tus, and acting in one’s own interest and are summar-
ized under the label of “getting ahead” (Hogan, 1982).
Communion focusses on community and social inte-
gration. Themes of communion are the formation and
maintenance of social relationships, striving for har-
mony, and acting in the interest of others and are
summarized under the label of “getting along”
(Hogan, 1982). These fundamental dimensions reflect
the two recurring challenges of human life: pursuing
individual goals and belonging to social groups
(Ybarra et al., 2008). Agency and communion are dif-
ferentially related to the two perspectives of social
cognition. According to the Dual Perspective Model
(DPM, Abele & Wojciszke, 2014), agency is more
important in the actor perspective since agentic traits
are self-profitable (Peeters, 2008) and help to pursue
own goals and communion is more important in the
observer perspective since communal traits are
other-profitable (Peeters, 2008) and signal to the
observer if the actor has benevolent intentions toward
him/her or not.
The agency-communion framework has seen broad
usage. Nonetheless, there are differences in the specific
ways in which this framework is conceptualized in the
various research traditions what can be seen in the
labeling of the constructs: agency is also called
“competence”, “masculinity”, or “instrumentality”;
communion is also called “warmth”, “femininity”, or
“morality” (Abele, Cuddy, Judd, & Yzerbyt, 2008;
Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002; Judd et al., 2005;
Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974; Wojciszke, 2005).
Importantly, not all of these labels show conceptual
equivalence. The specific conceptualization of
“competence” (i.e. “competent”, “smart”) is somewhat
different from the specific conceptualization of
“masculinity” (i.e. “decisive”, “assertive”), even though
both competence and masculinity form a common
cluster of agency. Similarly, the specific conceptualiza-
tion of “warmth” (i.e. “friendly”, “empathetic”) is
somewhat different from the specific conceptualization
of “morality” (i.e. “fair”, “honest”), even though they
form a common cluster of communion (see Abele &
Wojciszke, 2007, Study 1). The differences in the
labeling and operationalization of constructs are not
spurious, but they instead reflect the multi-faceted
nature of the fundamental dimensions which should
be taken into account for the sake of conceptual clar-
ity and also because the different facets showed differ-
ent associations in empirical studies.
Research has proven that the fundamental dimen-
sions or Big Two can be further sub-divided into two
facets each (Abele et al., 2016). Agency can be reliably
distinguished into the facets of agency-competence
(competent, efficient) and agency-assertiveness (deter-
mined, assertive). This distinction of agency can be
understood from the consideration that successful
goal pursuit or “getting ahead” requires both ability
and motivation. Agency-competence (ability, capabil-
ity) reflects the former, more ability-related compo-
nent and agency-assertiveness (ambition, confidence)
reflects the latter, more motivation-related component.
Research has shown that the agency-assertiveness facet
is more related to self-esteem as well as to status and
power than the agency-competence facet (Abele et al.,
2016; Carrier, Louvet, Chauvin, & Rohmer, 2014).
Communion can be reliably distinguished into the
facets of communion-warmth (warm, caring) and com-
munion-morality (fair, trustworthy; Abele et al., 2016).
The establishment and maintenance of social relation-
ships or “getting along” needs behaviors that are on

one hand warm and friendly and on the other fair
and reliable. While warmth pertains to being benevo-
lent to people in ways that facilitate affectionate,
cooperative relations with them, morality refers to
being benevolent to people in ways that facilitate cor-
rect and principled relations with them by the adher-
ence to ethics and important social values (Brambilla
& Leach, 2014; Kervyn, Fiske, & Yzerbyt, 2015). Both
warmth and morality related traits are intentional,
and hence motivational, components (Fiske et al.,
2002, 2007). Empirical work has investigated the
impact of “sociability” (in present terms: communion-
warmth), and of communion-morality on judgments
of other people and groups. This research revealed
that judgments of others were more influenced by
communion-morality than by communion-warmth
(for reviews see Brambilla & Leach, 2014;
Ellemers, 2017).
We suggest that this distinction of four facets of
agency and communion can be applied to categorizing
gossip content; and that distinguishing these four
types of gossip content is a means for analyzing the
effects gossip can have on both gossip targets and gos-
sip receivers.
Impact of agency-versus communion-related
gossip on self-concept
A recent series of studies (Hauke & Abele, 2019) ana-
lyzed the impact of gossip with different agency- ver-
sus communion-related content on the self-concept of
the target. The self-concept can be defined as a
person’s belief about himself or herself including the
person’s attributes (Baumeister, 1999). The purpose of
these studies was to reconcile seemingly inconsistent
results concerning the self in the agency-communion-
framework. On the one hand, people consider com-
munion to be more desirable than agency (Paulhus &
Trapnell, 2008), judge their communal attributes to be
higher than their agentic attributes (for a review see
Abele & Wojciszke, 2014), and are more troubled if
their communion is discredited than if their agency is
discredited (Ybarra, Park, Stanik, & Lee, 2012;
Pagliaro, Ellemers, Barreto, & Di Cesare, 2016). On
the other hand, self-esteem as the evaluative compo-
nent of the self-concept is more related to agency
than to communion (Wojciszke, Baryla,
Parzuchowski, Szymkow, & Abele, 2011). To bring in
line these contradictory results regarding the relative
importance of the Big Two in self-concept, an
extended Dual Perspective Model was proposed
(Hauke & Abele, 2019). According to this extended
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 117
Dual Perspective Model, the actor does not only want
to pursue his/her goals (“getting ahead”; like stated in
the DPM) but also wants to be liked and respected by
others (“getting along”). Getting ahead needs particu-
lar reliance on agentic qualities like ability or assert-
iveness. Getting along needs particular reliance on
communal qualities like friendliness and trustworthi-
ness. It was further reasoned that different parts of
the self-concept are related to these objectives and
they were called “self-as-identity” (related to pursuing
own goals) and “self-as-reputation” (related to social
connections). It was predicted that questioning a tar-
get’s characteristics by telling negative gossip about
him/her should in dependence on the content of the
gossip differentially threaten identity or reputation.
Negative gossip about agentic qualities was predicted
to increase identity threat. More specially, as research
has shown that the agency-assertiveness component is
more related to self-esteem and status than the
agency-competence component (Abele et al., 2016;
Carrier et al., 2014) and self-esteem and status consti-
tute essential parts of self-as-identity, identity threat
was predicted to be highest if negative gossip was
about a target’s agency-assertiveness. In contrast,
negative gossip about communal qualities was pre-
dicted to increase reputation threat. More specially, as
already described, other work concerning the commu-
nal facets has revealed that the communion-morality
component is more influential than the communion-
warmth component in judgments of people and
groups (Abele & Hauke, 2019; Brambilla & Leach,
2014) and therefore strongly related to reputation.
Consequently, reputation threat was predicted to be
highest if the negative gossip was about a target’s
communion-morality.
This reasoning was tested in a series of studies
(Hauke & Abele, 2019). Two studies were based on an
autobiographical recollection methodology where par-
ticipants had to remember self-threatening situations
or negative gossip situations in which they themselves
had been the target. The other two of these studies
were based on a scenario approach (see Ybarra et al.,
2012), in which participants had to imagine that an
acquaintance was telling false-negative gossip varying
in content (either agency-assertiveness, agency-
competence, communion-warmth, or communion-
morality) about the target, but the audience believed
the gossip to be true.1 Supporting our predictions we
found that (a) identity-threatening situations were, in
fact, more agency-related and reputation-threatening
situations were more communion-related and (b) that
identity threat was highest in case of negative
118 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
agency-assertiveness gossip, whereas reputation threat
was highest in case of negative communion-
morality gossip.
This previous research (Hauke & Abele, 2019), as
well as the present research on the one hand, advan-
ces theory in the domain of gossip research by apply-
ing the content of the agency-communion-framework
to gossip situations. Depending on the concrete
agentic or communal content of gossip, gossip elicits
different reactions. On the other hand, the previous
and present research also helps to advance theory in
the agency-communion-framework itself by resolving
inconsistencies regarding the importance of agency
and communion for the self with the help of the
extended Dual Perspective Model.
The present research not only builds on these pre-
vious findings but extends them in several ways. From
a methodological point of view, it extends them by
conducting a conceptual replication. More importantly,
from a theoretical point of view, the present research
extends our previous reasoning on gossip targets by
introducing also the gossip’s receiver perspective.
Finally, negative gossip should not only elicit cognitive
consequences for the gossip target and the gossip
receiver but also emotional consequences and these are
also considered in the present research. We will
explain our research agenda in detail in the following.
Overview of present research
The present series of studies had several aims. First,
we wanted to conceptually replicate our previous find-
ings regarding the impact of negative gossip on a per-
son’s self-concept (Hauke & Abele, 2019). We
consider a conceptual replication to be necessary
because in the previous series of studies, we had only
one study (Study 3) in which all four types of gossip
content were experimentally manipulated by means of
gossip scenarios and conceptual replication is an
important means for validating research (Shrout &
Rodgers, 2018) and it is always good to have multiple
scenarios to enhance stimulus sampling and increase
generalizability of the results (Wells & Windschitl,
1999). Thus, in the present research, we took the
agentic and communal scenarios from Study 2 of
Hauke and Abele (2019), i.e., scenarios regarding
negative agency-competence and negative commu-
nion-morality content and added newly developed
agency-assertiveness and communion-warmth scen-
arios. We did this in order to analyze if the previous
findings of Study 2 (Hauke & Abele, 2019) can be
found if all four facets of agency and communion are
tested at once and if therefore the previous findings of
Study 3 can be replicated with different operationali-
zation of agency-assertiveness, agency-competence,
communion-warmth, and communion-morality. This
conceptual replication was the first objective of the
present work. Our hypotheses were the same as in the
previous work:
Hypothesis 1: Identity threat is highest if negative
gossip is about lack of agency-assertiveness (H1).
Hypothesis 2: Reputation threat is highest if negative
gossip is about lack of communion-morality (H2).
Second, we extended our research to the perspec-
tive of gossip receivers. Because previous research has
shown that impression formation about other people
is strongly influenced by information on these per-
sons’ communion-morality (Abele & Hauke, 2019),
we generally expected that gossip receivers form the
most negative impression about gossip targets if the
negative gossip content is about communion-morality
(specific hypotheses see introduction to Study 3).
These results would support the validity of H2 since
the reputation threat of gossip targets is expected to
be highest if gossip receivers have the most negative
impression about the target.
Third, we extended our measures. We assessed the
negative affect of the target (hypotheses see introduc-
tion to Study 2) and negative affect toward the target
(hypotheses see introduction to Study 3) induced by
the respective gossip.2
Throughout the present paper, we do not report
statistical tests due to concerns with null hypothesis
significance testing (see Trafimow & Rice, 2009).
Study 1
Study 1 was conducted to conceptually replicate the
findings that negative agency-assertiveness-related gos-
sip elicits more identity threat (H1), whereas negative
communion-morality-related gossip elicits more repu-
tation threat (H2; Hauke & Abele, 2019). Before run-
ning Study 1, we ran a pilot study. It pretested the
gossip stories used. We wanted to ensure that
participants reliably inferred agency-assertiveness,
agency-competence, communion-warmth, and com-
munion-morality from the different gossip scenarios.
Method
Participants and procedure
The sample comprised 197 German university stu-
dents (99 women, 98 men) with a mean age of 23.13
 BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 119

(SD ¼ 3.62). The data were collected using a paper- Table 1. Pilot study: descriptive statistics for the traits called
and pencil survey. As an incentive, participants were into question separated by condition.
given candies after completing the questionnaire. Assertiveness Intelligence Morality Friendliness
(AA) (AC) (CM) (CW)
Participants first received one of the negative gossip
Condition M SD M SD M SD M SD
scenarios and then answered the dependent variables.
AA 6.04 1.07 3.64 1.78 3.28 1.52 2.57 1.46
AC 2.75 1.60 5.87 1.57 3.92 1.82 3.70 1.82
Negative gossip conditions CM 2.26 1.57 2.85 1.68 6.55 0.89 5.53 1.48
CW 2.04 1.21 2.66 1.65 5.38 1.36 6.17 0.89
Participants were asked to imagine being in a situ-
Notes. AA: agency-assertiveness; AC: agency-competence; CM: commu-
ation in which someone else was transmitting negative nion-morality; CW: communion-warmth.
gossip about them to an audience who believed the
gossip to be true, the target, however, knew that is
Table 2. Study 1: descriptive statistics for the dependent vari-
was false. In the agency-assertiveness condition ables separated by condition.
(n ¼ 50), the target was asked to imagine having had a AA AC CM CW
tough argument with an acquaintance3 during which M SD M SD M SD M SD
they agreed to a mutual compromise. Later the Identity threat 3.07 1.33 2.68 1.27 2.19 1.32 3.15 1.50
acquaintance gossiped to others, telling them that the Reputation threat 4.27 1.35 4.44 1.60 5.05 1.51 4.18 1.21
target had been easily won over. In the agency- Notes. AA: agency-assertiveness; AC: agency-competence; CM: commu-
nion-morality; CW: communion-warmth.
competence condition (n ¼ 48), the acquaintance
gossiped to others, telling them that the target was
than in the other three conditions, all ds > 2.41. And,
lacking the relevant skills to solve a difficult task. In
finally, intelligence was rated to have been more rele-
the communion-warmth condition (n ¼ 50), the target
vant in the agency-competence condition than in the
was asked to imagine that he/she had listened to an
other three conditions, all ds > 1.33. Moreover, within
acquaintance who described a personal problem. Later
the four conditions, the manipulated trait was always
the acquaintance gossiped to others, telling them that rated highest compared to the other three traits (e.g.
the participant had not been supportive and had not in the communion-warmth condition friendliness was
taken his/her problem seriously. In the communion- rated to have been more relevant than morality,
morality condition (n ¼ 49), the acquaintance gossiped assertiveness, and intelligence), all ds > 0.67.
to others, telling them that the target had failed to
pay money back and is denying to have borrowed it Dependent variables: identity threat and reputa-
at all. Complete wording of the stories can be found tion threat
in the supplemental online material. Participants reported their reactions by answering six
items (Hauke & Abele, 2019).5 Three items measured
Pilot study. The aim of the Pilot Study4 was to test identity threat (e.g. “I would think negatively about
the validity of the negative gossip stories in terms of myself if such things are told about me.”; Cronbach’s
agency-assertiveness, agency-competence, commu- a ¼ 0.81). Three items measured reputation threat
nion-morality, and communion-warmth. Using a (e.g. “I would be afraid that people would form a
within-participants design, 53 German participants negative impression of me.”; Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.79).
read the four stories in a randomized order. After The order of these items was randomized, and
reading each story participants rated how much the responses were given on a 7-point Likert scale ranging
traits “friendliness”, “morality”, “assertiveness”, and from 1 ¼ very unlikely to 7 ¼ very likely.
“intelligence” were called into question by the respect-
ive gossip on a scale from 1 ¼ not at all to 7 ¼ very
strongly. Results (means and standard deviations see Results and discussion
Table 1) demonstrated that the stories were appropri- Preliminary analyses
ately targeting the relevant facets. Friendliness, or lack Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables are
of, was considered to have been more relevant in the shown in Table 2. Preliminary analyses showed that
communion-warmth condition than in the other three there were only negligible differences between the
conditions, all ds > 0.48. Morality was considered to four experimental conditions concerning the distribu-
have been more relevant in the communion-morality tion of gender, Cramer’s V ¼ 0.01, and age, g2 ¼ 0.02.
condition than in the other three conditions, all The two dependent variables of identity threat and
ds > 0.99. Assertiveness was considered to have been reputation threat were also moderately corre-
more relevant in the agency-assertiveness condition lated, r ¼ 0.33.
120 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
7 identity threat
reputation threat
6 about communion-morality compared to the other
5
Ratings (1-7)
4
3 somewhat higher than after negative agency-
2 d ¼ 0.55, gossip. The other three conditions did not differ
1 In summary, Study 1 conceptually replicated previ-
AA AC CM
negative gossip
Figure 1. Study 1: identity threat and reputation threat sepa-
rated by condition. AA: agency-assertiveness; AC: agency-com-
petence; CM; communion-morality; CW: communion-warmth.
Hypotheses testing
We conducted a 4 (negative gossip condition: agency-
assertiveness vs. agency-competence vs. communion-
morality vs. communion-warmth) x 2 (type of
reaction: identity threat vs. reputation threat) ANOVA
with repeated measures on the second factor6. There
was a huge repeated measure effect, g2 ¼ 0.58 (identity
threat: M ¼ 2.77, SD ¼ 1.40; reputation threat:
M ¼ 4.49, SD ¼ 1.46, d ¼ 1.20). Most importantly, the
interaction effect of gossip condition by type of reac-
tion was also large, g2 ¼ 0.20 (Figure 1).
We then conducted separate ANOVAs for the two
types of reactions. The ANOVA with identity threat as
the dependent variable showed a medium-sized effect
of condition, g2 ¼ 0.07. Supporting H1, planned con-
trasts revealed that gossip targets had a somewhat
higher identity threat if the negative gossip was about
agency-assertiveness compared to the other three con-
ditions, d ¼ 0.29. Single comparisons supported that
negative agency-assertiveness gossip induced somewhat
higher identity threat than negative agency-
competence gossip, d ¼ 0.30, and considerably higher
identity threat than negative communion-morality gos-
sip, d ¼ 0.67. But unexpectedly, identity threat was
comparably high after negative communion-warmth
gossip, d ¼ 0.05. Negative communion-warmth gossip
also led to a considerably higher identity threat than
negative communion-morality gossip, d ¼ 0.68, and
somewhat higher identity threat than negative agency-
competence gossip, d ¼ 0.33. Identity threat after nega-
tive communion-morality gossip was somewhat lower
than after negative agency-competence gossip, d ¼ 0.38.
The ANOVA with reputation threat as the depend-
ent variable also resulted in a medium-sized effect of
condition, g2 ¼ 0.06. In line with H2, planned
contrasts revealed that gossip targets had a consider-
ably higher reputation threat if the negative gossip was
three conditions, d ¼ 0.53. Single comparisons sup-
ported that reputation threat after negative commu-
nion-morality gossip was considerably higher than after
negative communion-warmth gossip, d ¼ 0.64, and
competence, d ¼ 0.40, and negative agency-assertiveness,
substantially from each other, all ds < 0.19.
CW
ous findings (Hauke & Abele, 2019) that negative gos-
sip about communion-morality was especially
reputation threatening (H2). However, identity threat
was high after both negative gossip on agency-
assertiveness (as expected in H1), but unexpectedly also
after negative gossip on communion-warmth. Thus, H1
could not be conceptually replicated in this study.
Study 2
Study 2 applied the same gossip stories as Study 1.
We again tested if negative agency-assertiveness-
related gossip elicits more identity threat (H1),
whereas negative communion-morality-related gossip
elicits more reputation threat (H2). Moreover, we
tested if communion-warmth also elicits a high
amount of identity threat, as revealed in Study 1. In
addition, Study 2 included a new dependent variable,
i.e. negative affect.
Study 1 has shown that false-negative gossip about
the own person above all leads to reputation threat
(see higher means overall for reputation threat than
for identity threat). Therefore, also negative affect is
expected to be highest when people feel most threat-
ened by the negative gossip. Consequently, our
hypothesis regarding the association between gossip
content and negative affect is the following:
Hypothesis 3: Negative affect is highest if negative
gossip is about a lack of communion-morality (H3).
Method
Participants and procedure
The sample comprised 175 German university stu-
dents (79 women, 96 men) with a mean age of 22.22
(SD ¼ 3.69). The data were collected in a paper-and-
pencil format. As an incentive, participants were given
candies after completing the questionnaire. First par-
ticipants received the experimental manipulation and
after that answered the dependent measures.

Negative gossip conditions
Instructions and negative gossip conditions were the
same as in Study 1 (agency-assertiveness: n ¼ 45;
agency-competence: n ¼ 40; communion-warmth:
n ¼ 50; communion-morality: n ¼ 40). Complete
wording of the stories can be found in the supplemen-
tal online material.
Dependent variables: Identity threat, reputation
threat, and negative affect
Negative affect was assessed as the first dependent
variable. It was measured by means of 12 items
(“afraid”, “angry”, “ashamed”, “depressed”,
“distressed”, “guilty”, “hostile”, “hurt”, “irritable”,
“nervous”, “sad”, “upset”) which are based on appro-
priate negative items of the PANAS (Watson, Clark,
& Tellegen, 1988) complemented by some items suit-
able for the gossip scenarios of the present studies.
Participants answered the items on a 7-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 7 ¼ strongly
agree (Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.81). Identity threat and repu-
tation threat were measured afterward with the same
items as in Study 1. Cronbach’s a was 0.72 for identity
threat and 0.83 for reputation threat.
Results and discussion
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables are
shown in Table 3. Preliminary analyses showed that
there were only negligible differences between the
four experimental conditions concerning the distribu-
tion of gender, Cramer’s V ¼ 0.12, and age, g2<0.01.
Reputation threat and identity threat were moderately
correlated, r ¼ 0.37. Negative affect showed a weak
correlation with identity threat, r ¼ 0.22, and a stron-
ger correlation with reputation threat, r ¼ 0.45.
Hypotheses testing
Identity threat and reputation threat. We conducted
a 4 (negative gossip condition: agency-assertiveness vs.
agency-competence vs. communion-morality vs. com-
munion-warmth)  2 (type of reaction: identity threat
vs. reputation threat) ANOVA with repeated measures
Table 3. Study 2: descriptive statistics for the dependent vari-
ables separated by condition.
AA AC
M SD M SD
Identity threat 2.53 1.19 2.01 1.07
Reputation threat 4.39 1.46 4.00 1.41
Negative affect 3.47 0.95 3.45 0.93
Notes. AA: agency-assertiveness; AC: agency-competence; CM: commu-
nion-morality; CW: communion-warmth.
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 121
on the second factor7. There was a huge main effect
of type of reaction, g2 ¼ 0.65, such that reputation
threat (M ¼ 4.25, SD ¼ 1.43) was higher than the iden-
tity threat (M ¼ 2.35, SD ¼ 1.10), d ¼ 1.48. The inter-
action of type of reaction  condition was of medium
effect size, g2 ¼ 0.05 (Figure 2).
We then again conducted separate ANOVAs for the
two types of reactions. In the ANOVA with identity
threat as the dependent variable, the main effect of
condition was of medium size, g2 ¼ 0.05. Supporting
H1, planned contrasts revealed that gossip targets had
a somewhat higher identity threat if the negative gossip
was about agency-assertiveness compared to the other
three conditions, d ¼ 0.25. Single comparisons sup-
ported that negative agency-assertiveness gossip
induced considerably higher identity threat than nega-
tive agency-competence gossip, d ¼ 0.46, and also
somewhat higher identity threat than negative commu-
nion-morality gossip, d ¼ 0.32. But again, identity
threat was equally high after negative communion-
warmth gossip, d ¼ 0.03. Negative communion-warmth
gossip also led to a considerably higher identity threat
than negative agency-competence gossip, d ¼ 0.50, and
to somewhat higher identity threat than communion-
morality gossip, d ¼ 0.36. Identity threat after negative
communion-morality gossip was slightly higher than
after negative agency-competence gossip, d ¼ 0.20.
In the ANOVA with reputation threat as the
dependent variable, the main effect of condition
was of small-to-medium effect-size, g2 ¼ 0.03.
Nevertheless, the means were in accordance with H2:
Planned contrasts showed that gossip targets had a
somewhat higher reputation threat if the negative gos-
sip was about communion-morality compared to the
7 identity threat
reputation threat
6
negative affect
5
Ratings (1-7)
4
3
2
CM CW 1
AA AC CM CW
M SD M SD
negative gossip
2.20 0.87 2.57 1.14
4.57 1.45 4.07 1.37 Figure 2. Study 2: identity threat, reputation threat, and nega-
3.93 0.79 3.65 0.86 tive affect separated by condition. AA: agency-assertiveness;
AC: agency-competence; CM: communion-morality; CW: com-
munion-warmth.
122 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
other three conditions, d ¼ 0.29. Single comparisons
supported that reputation threat was somewhat higher
after negative communion-morality gossip than after
negative communion-warmth, d ¼ 0.35, and agency-
competence, d ¼ 0.40, gossip, but only very slightly
higher than after negative agency-assertiveness gossip,
d ¼ 0.12. Negative agency-assertiveness gossip also
induced a somewhat higher reputation threat than
negative communion-warmth, d ¼ 0.22, and agency-
competence, d ¼ 0.27, gossip. Reputation threat after
negative communion-warmth and agency-competence
gossip was comparably high, d ¼ 0.05.
Negative affect. We conducted an ANOVA with
negative gossip condition (agency-assertiveness vs.
agency-competence vs. communion-morality vs. com-
munion-warmth) for the dependent variable of nega-
tive affect.8 There was a small-to-medium sized main
effect of condition, g2 ¼ 0.04 (Figure 2). In support of
H3, planned contrasts revealed that gossip targets
reported considerably higher negative affect if the
negative gossip was about communion-morality com-
pared to the other three conditions, d ¼ 0.46. Single
comparisons supported that negative affect after nega-
tive communion-morality gossip was somewhat higher
than after negative communion-warmth gossip,
d ¼ 0.34, and considerably higher than after negative
agency-competence, d ¼ 0.56, and agency-assertive-
ness, d ¼ 0.52, gossip. Negative communion-warmth
gossip led to slightly higher negative affect than
negative agency-competence, d ¼ 0.23, and agency-
assertiveness, d ¼ 0.19, gossip. Negative affect after
negative agency-competence and agency-assertiveness
gossip were comparably high, d ¼ 0.03.
In summary, Study 2 replicated the findings of Study
1 that negative gossip about agency-assertiveness and
communion-warmth led to comparably high amounts
of identity threat. Thus, H1 was not supported. It was
also replicated that reputation threat was highest after
negative gossip on communion-morality (H2). As a new
finding, Study 2 supported H3 that negative affect was
higher after negative gossip about communion-morality
than after negative gossip about agency-assertiveness,
agency-competence, and communion-warmth.
Study 3
Our final study was conducted from the gossip
receiver perspective and tested the follow-
ing hypotheses:
Hypothesis 4a: Gossip receivers have a more negative
impression about the gossip target if the negative
gossip refers to communion-morality than if it refers
to communion-warmth (H4a).
Hypothesis 4b: Negative gossip about both communal
facets leads to a more negative impression than
negative gossip about both agentic facets (H4b).
We based these predictions once on findings showing
that morality information has a higher impact on impres-
sion formation than sociability (here communion-
warmth) information (Abele & Hauke, 2019; Ellemers,
2017). On the other hand, we based the prediction that
negative communal gossip has a stronger influence on
receivers than negative agentic gossip on findings that
communion is generally more important than agency
in the receiver perspective (Abele & Wojciszke, 2014).
We also assessed gossip receivers’ negative affect
toward the gossip target and predicted that it shows
the same pattern as negative impression. That means
negative affect toward the gossip target is also
expected to be highest after negative communion-
morality gossip and in general higher after negative
gossip about communion than negative gossip about
agency, given the primacy of communion, especially
of communion-morality, in the receiver perspective.
This leads to the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 5a: Gossip receivers express higher
negative affect towards the gossip target if the
negative gossip refers to communion-morality than if
it refers to communion-warmth (H5a).
Hypothesis 5b: Negative gossip about both communal
facets leads to higher negative affect towards the
gossip target than negative gossip about both agentic
facets (H5b).
As the aim of Study 3 was to test our hypotheses
not only in a student sample but in a more heteroge-
neous sample which is more representative for the
general population, we tried to get a large sample in
Study 3 consisting also of a substantial number
of employees.
Method
Participants and procedure
The sample consisted of 969 participants (754 women,
215 men) who were M ¼ 27.48 (SD ¼ 8.92) years old.
It was a mixed sample with different educational
backgrounds and with different occupations. The data
were collected online. The link to the online question-
naire was posted on popular internet platforms and
distributed via an e-mail snowball system. Participants
first read the gossip story and then answered the
impression measure and then the negative affect
 BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 123

measure. Participants received no incentive for com- Table 4. Study 3: descriptive statistics for the dependent vari-
pleting the questionnaire. ables separated by condition.
AA AC CM CW

Negative gossip conditions M SD M SD M SD M SD

Participants were asked to imagine a situation in Negative impression 2.84 0.91 2.34 0.99 4.30 1.08 4.01 1.08
Women (n ¼ 754) 2.81 0.88 2.31 0.93 4.42 1.07 4.00 1.11
which an acquaintance tells negative gossip about a Men (n ¼ 215) 2.94 1.00 2.45 1.19 3.91 1.03 4.04 0.96
mutual friend called Christian (for male participants) Negative affect 2.22 1.08 1.82 1.06 3.30 1.28 3.07 1.27
Women (n ¼ 754) 2.23 1.06 1.80 0.99 3.47 1.26 3.16 1.29
or Christina (for female participants). The content of Men (n ¼ 215) 2.18 1.15 1.87 1.29 2.74 1.16 2.71 1.14
the negative gossip conditions was the same as in Notes. AA: agency-assertiveness; AC: agency-competence; CM: commu-
nion-morality; CW: communion-warmth.
Studies 1 and 2 but modified to the gossip receiver
perspective (agency-assertiveness: n ¼ 234; agency-
7 negative
competence: n ¼ 266; communion-warmth: n ¼ 226; impression
communion-morality: n ¼ 243). Complete wording of negative affect
6
the stories can be found in the supplemental
online material.
5

Dependent variables: impression and nega- 4

tive affect
Participants assessed the impression they had about
Christian/Christina on 7 items (male versions: “I
would think negatively of Christian.”, “This would
leave a negative impression of Christian.”, “I would
doubt the impression I have had of Christian so far.”,
“I would think that Christian has done nothing
wrong.” (recoded), “I would not care about what the
acquaintance was telling, my opinion of Christian
would remain the same.” (recoded), “I would shelter
Christian.” (recoded), “I would give Christian a wide
berth.”).9 These items were presented in mixed order
and were answered on a 7-point rating scale ranging
from 1 ¼ very unlikely to 7 ¼ very likely. Thus, higher
ratings represent a more negative impression. The
scale showed good reliability (Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.84).
Subsequently, participants were asked how they would
feel toward Christian/Christina. Their negative affect
toward the gossip target was measured by 6 items
(“angry”, “confused”, “depressed”, “frightened”,
“irritated”, “sad”). This scale also showed good reli-
ability (Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.86).10
Results and discussion
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables are
shown in Table 4. Preliminary analyses showed that
there were only negligible differences between the
four experimental conditions concerning the distribu-
tion of gender, Cramer’s V ¼ 0.02, age, g2<.01, and
education, Cramer’s V ¼ 0.04. The two dependent var-
iables of negative impression and negative affect were
highly correlated, r ¼ 0.66.
3
2
1
AA AC CM CW
Figure 3. Study 3: gossip receiver’s negative impression of
and negative affect toward the gossip target separated by con-
dition. AA: agency-assertiveness; AC: agency-competence; CM:
communion-morality; CW: communion-warmth.
Hypothesis testing
Impression. We conducted a single-factor (negative
gossip condition: agency-assertiveness vs. agency-
competence vs. communion-morality vs. communion-
warmth) ANOVA. It resulted in a large main effect of
condition, g2 ¼ 0.40 (Figure 3). Supporting H4a,
planned contrasts revealed that gossip receivers by far
had the most negative impression if the negative gos-
sip was about communion-morality compared to the
other three conditions, d ¼ 1.22. Single comparisons
showed that the impression after negative commu-
nion-morality gossip was somewhat more negative
than after negative communion-warmth gossip,
d ¼ 0.27, and much more negative than after negative
agency-assertiveness, d ¼ 1.48, and agency-compe-
tence, d ¼ 1.90, gossip. Supporting H4b, the
impression of the gossip target after negative commu-
nion-warmth gossip was much more negative than the
impression after both negative agency-competence,
d ¼ 1.62, and negative agency-assertiveness gossip,
d ¼ 1.18. Moreover, the impression after negative
agency-assertiveness gossip was considerably more
124 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
negative than the impression after negative agency-
competence gossip, d ¼ 0.52.
Negative affect. We conducted a single-factor (nega-
tive gossip condition: agency-assertiveness vs.
agency-competence vs. communion-morality vs. com-
munion-warmth) ANOVA. It resulted in a large main
effect of condition, g2 ¼ 0.22 (Figure 3). Supporting
H5a, planned contrasts revealed that gossip receivers
by far felt the highest negative affect toward the target
if the negative gossip was about communion-morality
compared to the other three conditions, d ¼ 0.80.
Single comparisons showed that their affect after
negative communion-morality gossip was slightly
more negative than after negative communion-warmth
gossip, d ¼ 0.19, and much more negative than after
negative agency-assertiveness, d ¼ 0.92, and agency-
competence, d ¼ 1.26, gossip. Supporting H5b, the
affect toward the target after negative communion-
warmth gossip was much more negative than the
affect after both negative agency-competence, d ¼ 1.06,
and negative agency-assertiveness gossip, d ¼ 0.72.
Moreover, the affect toward the target after negative
agency-assertiveness gossip was somewhat more nega-
tive than the affect after negative agency-competence
gossip, d ¼ 0.38.
Explorative analyses of gender effects
In contrast to Study 1 (where there was no interaction
effect with gender) and Study 2 (where we had an
interaction effect with gender but the sample was too
small for separate analyses), we analyzed interaction
effects with gender in Study 3. The means and stand-
ard deviations for both dependent variables separated
by gender and condition can be found in Table 4.
Impression. We conducted a 4 (negative gossip condi-
tion: agency-assertiveness vs. agency-competence vs.
communion-morality vs. communion-warmth)  2
(gender: female vs. male) ANOVA. It resulted in a
large main effect of condition, g2¼0.29. The main
effect of gender was negligible, g2<0.01. However, the
interaction of gender and condition showed a small
effect, g2 ¼ 0.01. Single comparisons revealed that
women had a considerably more negative impression
of the gossip target after negative communion-
morality gossip than men, d ¼ 0.48. In the other three
conditions, the negative impression of the gossip tar-
get was comparable high between women and men,
all ds < 0.14.
In order to more closely analyze the gender effects,
we conducted two ANOVAS: one for female
participants and one for male participants. The
ANOVA with female participants resulted in a huge
main effect of condition, g2 ¼ 0.43. Supporting H4a,
single comparisons revealed that female gossip
receivers had the most negative impression if the
negative gossip was about communion-morality com-
pared to the other three conditions, all ds > 0.39.
Supporting H4b, the impression of the gossip target
after negative communion-warmth gossip was more
negative than the impression after both negative
agency-competence and negative agency-assertiveness
gossip, both ds > 1.19. Moreover, the impression after
negative agency-assertiveness gossip was more nega-
tive than the impression after negative agency-
competence gossip, d ¼ 0.55. The ANOVA with male
participants also showed a huge main effect of condi-
tion, g2 ¼ 0.29. As expected in H4a, single compari-
sons revealed that male gossip receivers had a more
negative impression if the negative gossip was about
communion-morality compared to the agency-compe-
tence and agency-assertiveness conditions, both
ds > 0.96. However, the negative impression after
negative communion-morality and communion-
warmth gossip were comparably high for male gossip
receivers, d ¼ 0.13. This is in contrast to the results
concerning female gossip receivers and also in con-
trast to H4a. Supporting H4b, the impression of the
gossip target after negative communion-warmth gos-
sip was more negative than the impression after both
negative agency-competence and negative agency-
assertiveness gossip, both ds > 1.13. Moreover, also for
male participants, the impression after negative
agency-assertiveness gossip was more negative than
the impression after negative agency-competence gos-
sip, d ¼ 0.44.
Negative affect. We conducted a 4 (negative gossip
condition: agency-assertiveness vs. agency-competence
vs. communion-morality vs. communion-warmth) 
2 (gender: female vs. male) ANOVA. It resulted in a
large main effect of condition, g2 ¼ 0.13. There was
also a small main effect of gender, g2 ¼ 0.01. Women
(M ¼ 2.64, SD ¼ 1.34) generally felt somewhat more
negative affect toward the gossip target than men
(M ¼ 2.36, SD ¼ 1.24), d ¼ 0.22. The interaction of
gender and condition also showed a small effect,
g2¼0.01. Single comparisons revealed that women
only felt considerably more negative affect toward the
gossip target than men after negative communion-
morality gossip, d ¼ 0.59, and also somewhat more
negative affect after negative communion-warmth gos-
sip, d ¼ 0.36. In the agency-competence and agency-

assertiveness conditions, the negative affect toward the
gossip target did not differ substantially between
women and men, both ds < 0.07.
We again conducted separate ANOVAs for female
and male participants. The ANOVA with female par-
ticipants resulted in a huge main effect of condition,
g2 ¼ 0.26. Supporting H5a, single comparisons
revealed that female gossip receivers felt the most
negative affect if the negative gossip was about com-
munion-morality compared to the other three condi-
tions, all ds > 0.24. Supporting H5b, the negative
affect toward the gossip target after negative commu-
nion-warmth gossip was higher than after both nega-
tive agency-competence and negative agency-
assertiveness gossip, both ds > 0.78. Moreover, the
negative affect after negative agency-assertiveness gos-
sip was higher than after negative agency-competence
gossip, d ¼ 0.42. The ANOVA with male participants
also showed a medium-to-large main effect of condi-
tion, g2 ¼ 0.09. As expected in H5a, single compari-
sons revealed that male gossip receivers felt more
negative affect if the negative gossip was about com-
munion-morality compared to the agency-competence
and agency-assertiveness conditions, both ds > 0.48.
However, the negative affect after negative communion-
morality and communion-warmth gossip did not differ
substantially for male gossip receivers, d ¼ 0.03. This is
again in contrast to the results concerning female gos-
sip receivers and also in contrast to H5a. Supporting
H5b, the negative affect toward the gossip target after
negative communion-warmth gossip was higher than
after both negative agency-competence and negative
agency-assertiveness gossip, both ds > 0.45. Moreover,
for male participants, the negative affect after negative
agency-assertiveness gossip was only somewhat higher
than after negative agency-competence gossip, d ¼ 0.25.
This is again differing from the results concerning
female gossip receivers.
In summary, regarding the whole sample, in the
receiver perspective negative gossip about a target’s
lack of communion led to a more negative impression
than lack of agency (H4b) and lack of communion-
morality to an even more negative impression than
lack of communion-warmth (H4a). Negative agency-
assertiveness gossip also led to a more negative
impression than negative agency-competence gossip.
Negative affect (H5a and H5b) showed the same pat-
tern with the highest negative affect after negative
communion-morality gossip and lowest negative affect
after negative agency-competence gossip. However,
considering effect sizes, the differences between com-
munion-morality and communion-warmth were
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 125
relatively small, whereas the differences between the
communal and agentic conditions, in general, were
large. These findings are in line with the prediction of
primacy of communion in the receiver perspective.
Explorative gender analyses also showed that the
effects concerning the basic dimensions (H4b and
H5b) can be found for women and men, whereas H4a
and H5a could only be supported for female partici-
pants. Male gossip receivers reported a less negative
impression of the gossip target and felt less negative
affect toward the gossip target after negative commu-
nion-morality gossip compared to female participants.
As a consequence, within the male sample, negative
impression and negative affect did not differ between
negative communion-morality and negative commu-
nion-warmth gossip.
General discussion
Our goal in the present article was to analyze the
effects of different content of negative gossip on both
the target and the receiver of the gossip. We applied
the “Big Two” framework of agency and communion
(Abele & Wojciszke, 2014, 2018) with their two facets
each (Abele et al., 2016) to distinguish between four
types of negative gossip (negative gossip about
agency-assertiveness, agency-competence, commu-
nion-warmth, and communion-morality). We studied
how these different types of negative gossip differen-
tially influence both target’s (Studies 1 and 2) and
receiver’s (Study 3) reactions. The present research is
both a conceptual replication and extension of previ-
ous work (Hauke & Abele, 2019), testing the validity
of previous findings and extending them by analyzing
an additional depending variable (i.e. negative affect).
Moreover, combing the results of the gossip target
perspective with the results of the gossip receiver per-
spective underlines the validity of the findings.
Target reactions to negative gossip
Being the target of negative gossip can pose a threat
to a person’s self-concept both regarding his/her iden-
tity and his/her reputation. Extending previous find-
ings (Hauke & Abele, 2019) and in accord with our
predictions, reputation threat (H2), as well as negative
affect (H3), were highest after negative communion-
morality gossip.
Identity threat was always lower than reputation
threat, probably due to the fact that the targets knew
that the negative gossip spread about them was
wrong. Hence, it did lead to reputation threat, but
126 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
only somewhat to identity threat. In both studies,
identity threat was relatively high after negative
agency-assertiveness gossip, but also after negative
communion-warmth gossip. Whereas the first finding
was expected and fits our reasoning that threats to
agency-assertiveness are particularly identity-threaten-
ing (H1), the last-mentioned finding was
not predicted.
We suggest two explanations of why H1 could not
be conceptually replicated by the present research and
why identity threat was comparably high after nega-
tive communion-warmth gossip. One relates to the
specific operationalization: Whereas previous research
used an operationalization of negative communion-
warmth gossip that could be easily verified as being
objectively wrong (gossip of having not been helpful
when in fact the target had objectively helped an
acquaintance), the present operationalization was
more open to debate (negative gossip of not having
been attentive enough to the needs of a friend, but
subjectively having been attentive enough). The nega-
tive gossip in combination with the subjective nature
of judging attentiveness and the divergence in judg-
ments between the target and his/her friend might
lead the target on rethinking his/her attentiveness.
And possibly, the target comes to the conclusion that
he/she might in fact not have been attentive enough
although the target at first thought that he/she has
been sensitive to the friend’s problem. Hence, the
unexpectedly high identity threat after this negative
communion-warmth gossip may be due to the fact
that the target reevaluates his/her attentiveness.
Another point concerning the specific operationali-
zation of the gossip stories could be that the content
of the agency-assertiveness scenario seems to be less
negative than the content of the other conditions, i.e.,
being easily won over in an argument is less negative
compared to denying borrowing money like in the
communion-morality condition. But this is not simply
an unlucky operationalization of the agency-assertiveness
gossip stories, it is rather part of the phenomenon
itself. From the perspective of an observer, like the
reader of this research or the receiver of the gossip,
agentic misbehavior is always rated as less severe than
communal misbehavior (see also DPM, Abele &
Wojciszke, 2014). Nevertheless, identity threat was
relatively high after negative agency-assertiveness
gossip. This can be interpreted as a hint that agency-
assertiveness is in fact of high centrality for the self-as-
identity as stated in H1.
The second interpretation is more general: It could
be that norms or guidelines concerning communion-
warmth behavior are generally less clear than norms
regarding agency-assertiveness, agency-competence,
and communion-morality behavior. What is the
“norm” in case a friend asks you for advice on a per-
sonal problem? How much time should one spend on
this issue? What is expected to be adequate?
These questions do not have a clear-cut answer and
there is much more room for divergent interpretations
than in case someone shows insufficient skill
(agency-competence), is indecisive and hesitant
(agency-assertiveness), or does not give money back
(communion-morality). We will come back to this
issue later.
To sum up the findings for the gossip target per-
spective: Previous findings regarding reactions to
negative communion-morality gossip (Hauke & Abele,
2019) could be replicated and extended. Reputation
threat is highest after negative communion-morality
gossip about the own person. Moreover, negative
affect is also highest. However, the previous findings
regarding identity threat could not be clearly concep-
tually replicated. In line with previous research
(Hauke & Abele, 2019), after negative agency-
assertiveness gossip, identity threat was relatively high
in both studies. But gossip about other facets, espe-
cially communion-warmth, also elicited identity
threat. A possible interpretation of this pattern of
results could be that agency-assertiveness is always
important for self-as-identity, but that other facets are
important as well at least under certain conditions,
e.g. communion-warmth in friendships or agency-
competence in the workplace. To clarify the reasons
for this, future studies with different gossip scenarios
or completely different experimental procedures
should be conducted.
Receiver reactions to negative gossip
The present research also extended previous findings
by analyzing the effect of gossip content from the per-
spective of gossip receivers. Gossip receivers had the
most negative impression about the gossip target
(H4a) and also the most negative affect toward him/
her (H5a) when the negative gossip was about com-
munion-morality. These findings are in accordance
with our hypothesis that communion-morality behav-
iors are most important in the perspective of a
receiver (Abele & Wojciszke, 2014). In general, results
showed that the reaction of the gossip receiver was
more negative when the negative gossip was about
communion (also including communion-warmth gos-
sip) than when it was about agency (both agency-

assertiveness and agency-competence; H4b & H5b).
These findings add evidence to the primacy of com-
munion in the receiver perspective (Abele &
Wojciszke, 2014). Whereas previous theorizing and
findings stressed the particular importance of commu-
nion-morality in judging others (Ellemers, 2017;
Harnick & Ellemers, 2014) the present findings once
support this reasoning and on the other hand extend
it by showing that communion-warmth (particularly if
experienced as negative communion-warmth) has also
impact on evaluating others.
However, explorative gender analyses showed that
this pattern of results only holds true for female gos-
sip receivers. Male gossip receivers also reported a
more negative impression of the gossip target and felt
more negative affect toward the gossip target if the
negative gossip was about lack of communion than if
it was about lack of agency (H4b & H5b). Thus,
although women are expected to show more commu-
nion, while men are expected to show more agency
(Eagly, 2009), there is a primacy of communion in the
perception of others for both genders (see also Abele
& Wojciszke, 2014). But men did not react more
negatively following negative communion-morality
gossip compared to negative communion-warmth gos-
sip. Hence, these results are contradictory to H4a and
H5a and to the results of the female gossip receivers.
Hence, present results raise the question if there is a
primacy of communion-morality only for women, but
not for men. However, these interpretation needs fur-
ther replication and future research (see also section
direction for future research).
Whereas negative reactions upon negative commu-
nion-warmth and communion-morality gossip were
stronger than negative reactions to both negative
agency-assertiveness and agency-competence gossip,
there was a difference in negative reactions to negative
agency-assertiveness versus agency-competence gossip,
i.e., negative agency-assertiveness gossip elicited a
more negative reaction toward the target than nega-
tive agency-competence gossip (at least for female gos-
sip receivers). This unexpected difference could be
explained on the operational level: The negative
agency-competence gossip story told that the target
produced a wrong solution when trying to help
another person. This is a failure of competence.
However, it also entails some communion, as the tar-
get at least tried to help the other person. Such an
element of communion is not entailed in the negative
agency-assertiveness gossip story. On a theoretical
level, this shows that behaviors are open to
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 127
interpretation if regarded from different perspectives
(here: target versus receiver of the gossip).
To sum up the findings for the gossip receiver per-
spective: Negative impression of the target and nega-
tive affect toward the target was highest after negative
communal, especially communion-morality gossip.
Combining the findings of the gossip receiver perspec-
tive with the findings of the gossip target perspective
underlines the validity and reasonableness of the
results: Gossip targets experience the highest reputa-
tion threat after negative communion-morality gossip
because gossip receivers actually have the most nega-
tive impression of them if negative communion-
morality gossip was told about them. These results
show that people take the perspective of others in
order to monitor their reputation.
Altogether, previous research (Hauke & Abele,
2019) in combination with the conceptual replication
of the present research advances theory in the domain
of gossip research by applying the content of the
agency-communion-framework to gossip situations.
Depending on the concrete agentic or communal con-
tent of gossip, gossip elicits different reactions.
Moreover, the present research shows that this is not
only true for cognitive reactions (identity threat and
reputation threat) but also for emotional reactions
(negative affect). In addition, the present research
expanded the focus from the reactions of gossip tar-
gets also to the reactions of gossip receivers.
Theoretical implications
The present results have shown that applying the Big
Two Framework – particularly the facet approach to
the Big Two – to the context of gossip helps to under-
stand how targets of negative gossip, as well as
receivers of negative gossip, will react. According to
the Dual Perspective Model (Abele & Wojciszke,
2014, 2018) actor and observer have different goals in
an interaction: The recipient/observer wants to know
if the actor’s actions are benevolent or harmful to
him/her. Hence, the recipient focuses on actor’s com-
munal behaviors and reacts most negatively (impres-
sion, affect), when the target has committed a failure
in the communal (especially in the communion-mor-
ality) domain. The actor wants to pursue his/her goals
and is therefore oriented at own agentic behaviors.
Hence, negative gossip about his/her agency-assertive-
ness negatively affects his/her self-view, i.e., identity.
However, as stated in the extended Dual Perspective
Model (Hauke & Abele, 2019), the actor not only
wants to pursue own goals as self-as-identity, but also
128 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
wants to be accepted and respected by others as self-
as-reputation. Hence, he/she also has to consider
others’ needs. This is why he/she experiences a repu-
tation threat when negative gossip about morality is
spread. In sum, considering “perspective” (actor ver-
sus observer; actor-self versus observer-self) helps to
understand social evaluation, also in the context of
negative gossip. Moreover, the combination of previ-
ous (Hauke & Abele, 2019) and present research helps
to advance theory in the agency-communion-
framework by resolving inconsistencies regarding the
importance of agency and communion for the self
with the help of the extended Dual Perspective Model:
Why are people more troubled if their communion is
discredited than if their agency is discredited (Ybarra
et al., 2012; Pagliaro et al., 2016) if self-evaluation is
more related to agency than to communion
(Wojciszke et al., 2011)? The answer is that the self
consists of two parts and the relative importance of
the Big Two differs depending on the part of the self
under consideration. Communion is more important
for self-as-reputation while the agency is more
important for self-as-identity. This complex nature of
the self seems to be deeply entrenched in cognition
since different parts of the self are not only related to
different content but are also represented in different
parts of the brain (Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts, 2017;
Fingelkurts, Fingelkurts, & Kallio-Tamminen, 2016).
The present results are also important for the con-
ceptualization of the Big Two into two facets each.
The findings clearly show that the distinction between
agency-assertiveness versus agency-competence and
between communion-warmth and communion-
morality is useful for understanding social evaluation.
Communion-morality is particularly important for
evaluations of others and for self-evaluations regard-
ing the “observer-self”, more important than commu-
nion-warmth. Similarly, agency-assertiveness is
particularly important for the “actor-self”, more
important than agency-competence.
Limitations
The strength of the present studies is that they applied
standardized experimental procedures. However, a
potential limitation may be that participants had to
imagine the respective gossip situations and did not
experience them directly. Even though most experi-
mental research on gossip has used such an approach
and thus far this approach has produced fruitful
results (e.g. Blumberg, 1972; Kuttler, Parker, & La
Greca, 2002; Wilson, Wilczynski, Wells, & Weiser,
2000; for a review see Foster, 2004), and albeit we
know that people are adept at regularly using
meta-perceptions in real life and that even though
when only imagining a situation, people adapt their
behaviors accordingly (see also Pagliaro et al., 2016), an
additional methodology that is closer to real-life situa-
tions would have been desirable. But because of ethical
reasons, we could not expose participants to real nega-
tive gossip (see also Hauke & Abele, 2019).11 However,
a related study (Hauke & Abele, 2019, Study 4) used
an autobiographical recollection methodology which is
closer to real-life situations (Baker & Guttfreund, 1993;
Williams, Conway, & Cohen, 2008) to test similar
hypotheses and found comparable results.
Another potential limitation could be that gossip
usually contains content related to more than one of
the facets of agency and communion. However, our
pilot study demonstrated that the manipulations were
successful and participants correctly recognized the
relevant content.
Directions for future research
We used the same gossip scenarios in the three stud-
ies to conceptually replicate the findings of previous
research (Hauke & Abele, 2019). Of course, it is
always good to have multiple scenarios to enhance
stimulus sampling and increase the generalizability of
the results (Wells & Windschitl, 1999). Thus, future
studies could again use different scenarios.
A point that should be further elaborated on in
future research on gossip is the role of clarity of norms
and guidelines for behavior. As has been argued above,
clarity of norms and guidelines for agency-assertive-
ness, agency-competence, communion-warmth, and
communion-morality behaviors (positive and negative
ones) might be different, and therefore the interpret-
ation of specific behaviors on the side of both actors
and observers (or targets and receivers of negative gos-
sip) might be more or less clear-cut. In the case of tar-
gets of negative gossip, identity threat is expected to be
triggered more easily if the norm is unclear. In con-
trast, in the case of receivers of negative gossip, nega-
tive evaluation might appear more easily in case of
clear norms and violation of these norms.
Another factor that could influence the target’s
reaction to gossip is the (in-)accuracy of the gossip
content. In the gossip studies used in the present
research, the content of the gossip was inaccurate.
Nevertheless, the gossip targets experienced identity
threat to a little extent, especially following agency-
assertiveness- (and communion-warmth-)related

gossip. Although gossip targets clearly know that the
negative gossip about them concerning this special
situation was false, they might ask themselves why
other people are telling such things about them and -
even worse - why gossip receivers believe this infor-
mation about them and therefore start to doubt their
own qualities in general. What if the negative gossip
content is accurate? In this case, levels of identity
threat are expected to generally increase. But we
would still expect identity threat to be highest after
accurate negative agency-assertiveness gossip. In con-
trast, levels of reputation threat should not be mark-
edly influenced by the (in-)accuracy of the negative
gossip since gossip receivers normally do not know
that gossip is false even if it is. Thus, gossip targets
will fear a negative reputation if the gossip is false or
true. And we would expect reputation threat to be
highest after accurate and inaccurate negative commu-
nion-morality gossip.
The gender effects found in Study 3 also need fur-
ther studies to be completely understood. In order to
avoid confounding effects due to gender, the acquaint-
ance in the story was always of the same sex as the
participant, i.e. female (male) gossip receivers read a
story about a female (male) gossip target. We found
that female gossip receivers judged negative commu-
nion-morality behavior even more negative than male
gossip receivers, i.e. they reported a more negative
impression of the gossip target and felt more negative
affect toward the gossip target. But can this effect be
interpreted as a receiver effect, a target effect, or an
interaction of both? This means do women generally
judge moral shortcomings more severely than do
men, irrespectively of the gender of the person who
committed the shortcoming? Or are moral shortcom-
ings conducted by women judged more severely than
moral shortcomings conducted by men, irrespectively
of the gender of the person who judges the shortcom-
ing? Or do only women judge moral shortcomings of
women more severely than do men judge moral short-
comings of men as found in the present research? To
clarify this question, it is worth to conduct the study
with a full 4 (gossip content)  2 (gender of gossip
receiver)  2 (gender of gossip target) design in
future research.
Future research could also investigate the effect of
content of negative gossip on more distal consequen-
ces like behavior or behavioral intensions, for
instance, the desire to keep the gossiper at distance, to
ostracize him/her, or to reestablish a positive view in
the eyes of others. We would expect that these reac-
tions are the highest following negative communion-
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 129
morality gossip since this kind of gossip most strongly
destroys the reputation of the target.
Concluding remarks
In this article, we tested the impact of negative gossip
on the gossip target as well as on the gossip receiver.
We showed that applying the perspective approach to
social evaluation (actor versus observer) and the facet
approach to the Big Two (agency-assertiveness,
agency-competence, communion-warmth, commu-
nion-morality) is a theoretically promising venue for
studying targets’ and receivers’ reactions (both evalu-
ation and affect) to negative gossip. It does not only
matter how negative the gossip is to predict the reac-
tions to it, but you also need to know what concrete
negative content was told to know how targets and
receivers will respond to negative gossip.
Ethical approval
All studies reported in this paper have been per-
formed according to APA ethical standards for the
treatment of human subjects. Since data collection
was anonymously and involved no identifying infor-
mation and no medical treatment, no ethics approval
for the study was needed according to the guidelines
of our university. In the introductions of the question-
naires participants were informed that their participa-
tion is voluntary, that they can cancel their
participation at any time, and that their data will be
treated anonymously. The informed consent of the
participants was implied through survey completion.
Author contributions
NH and AA were both responsible for all parts of the
conducted research and agree to be accountable for all
aspects of the work.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that
could be construed as potential conflict of interest.
Notes
1. Moreover, negative gossip scenarios have been chosen
since the agentic and communal self-concept is
normally positive and relatively high. Thus, negative
information can lead to a decrease in self-concept. In
contrary, positive information could simply lead to
ceiling effects, especially concerning communion.
130 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
2. The data of the three studies can be received upon
request from the authors.
3. In order to avoid confounding effects due to gender,
the acquaintance in the story was always of the same
sex as the participant, i.e. female participants read a
story about a female acquaintance and male
participants read a story about a male acquaintance.
This was applied to all studies reported here.
4. The values for the communion-morality and agency-
competence conditions have already been reported in
Hauke and Abele, (2019, pilot study for Study 2).
5. A confirmatory factor analysis conducted by Hauke
and Abele, (2019) showed that the two factors of
identity threat and reputation threat can be empirically
clearly distinguished. Moreover, a two-factorial
solution allows a better interpretation of the data than
a simple one-factorial solution with “negative reaction
to gossip” as a single dependent variable.
6. In addition, we tested for possible gender effects by
including gender as additional factor in the ANOVA.
There was a small interaction effect of gender and
type of reaction, g2 ¼ 0.04. Women (M ¼ 3.11,
SD ¼ 1.45) showed considerably higher identity threat
than men (M ¼ 2.43, SD ¼ 1.26), d ¼ 0.50. Regarding
reputation threat, means of women (M ¼ 4.55,
SD ¼ 1.41) and men (M ¼ 4.42, SD ¼ 1.50) were
comparably high, d ¼ 0.09. However, the three-way
interaction of gender, condition, and type of reaction,
g2 ¼ 0.01, was negligible.
7. In addition, we tested for possible gender effects by
including gender as additional factor in the ANOVA.
There was a medium-sized two-way interaction of
gender and type of reaction, g2 ¼ 0.08. Women
(M ¼ 4.75, SD ¼ 1.29) reported considerably higher
reputation threat than men (M ¼ 3.83, SD ¼ 1.40),
d ¼ 0.68. Moreover, women (M ¼ 2.49, SD ¼ 1.05) also
reported somewhat higher identity threat than men
(M ¼ 2.23, SD ¼ 1.13), d ¼ 0.25. There was also a
medium-sized three-way interaction of gender,
condition, and type of reaction, g2 ¼ 0.05. But we
refrain from testing our hypotheses separated by
condition and gender because group sizes then would
become too small (15n  25) and because gender
was equally distributed across conditions. Moreover,
the interaction of type of reaction  condition
remained stable when gender was included in the
analysis, g2 ¼ 0.07.
8. In addition, we tested for possible gender effects by
including gender as additional factor in the ANOVA.
The main effect of gender, g2 ¼ 0.07, was of medium
size. Women (M ¼ 3.86, SD ¼ 0.81) generally reported
higher negative affect than men (M ¼ 3.42, SD ¼ 0.92),
d ¼ 0.51. However, the interaction of gender and
condition was negligibly small, g2<0.01.
9. When developing this new measure, we tried to adapt
some of the items to the identity threat and reputation
threat measures used in Studies 1 and 2.
10. The items are partly different from the ones used in
Study 2, because we wanted to shorten the scale and
adapt it to the perceiver perspective.
11. One possible methodology that is closer to real-life
situations would be to expose participants to real
gossip in the laboratory. But since negative
information about the own person told by a stranger
to a stranger would probably not produce the same
reactions as negative information about the own
person told by an acquaintance within the mutual
circle of friends, the participants must be acquainted.
Exposing participants to ostensibly “real” gossip told
by a friend is not acceptable for obvious ethical
reasons. Even if participants are fully debriefed after
being exposed to seemingly “real” negative gossip,
perceptions based on false information can persevere
(Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975).
Acknowledgments
The present research was supported by a grant from the
University of Erlangen-N€ urnberg to Nicole Hauke. We
thank Kim Peters, Daniela Bernhardt, and Tamara
Hagmaier-G€ ottle for helpful suggestions to an earlier ver-
sion of this paper. Antonia Eisele, Jessica Foreman, Yvonne
Kiesel, Juliane Rehm, and Kevin Reichel helped in
data collection.
ORCID
Nicole Hauke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4923-5105
References
Abele, A. E., & Hauke, N. (2019). Comparing the facets of
the Big Two in global evaluation of self versus other peo-
ple. European Journal of Social Psychology, doi:10.1002/
ejsp.2639
Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2007). Agency and commu-
nion from the perspective of self versus others. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 751–763. doi:10.
1037/0022-3514.93.5.751
Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2014). Communal and
agentic content in social cognition: A dual perspective
model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 50,
195–255. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7
Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2018). Agency and commu-
nion in social psychology. London: Routledge.
Abele, A. E., Cuddy, A. J. C., Judd, C. M., & Yzerbyt, V. Y.
(2008). Fundamental dimensions of social judgment.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 38(7), 1063–1065.
doi:10.1002/ejsp.574
Abele, A. E., Hauke, N., Peters, K., Louvet, E., Szymkow, A.,
& Duan, Y. P. (2016). Facets of the fundamental content
dimensions: Agency with competence and assertiveness -
communion with warmth and morality. Frontiers in
Psychology, 7, 1810. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01810
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. An essay
on psychology and religion. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Baker, R., & Guttfreund, D. (1993). The effects of written
autobiographical recollection induction procedures on
mood. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 49(4), 563–568. doi:
10.1002/1097-4679
Baumeister, R. F. (1999). The self in social psychology. New
York, NY: Psychology Press.

Beersma, B., & Van Kleef, G. A. (2011). How the grapevine
keeps you in line: Gossip increases contributions to the
group. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(6),
642–649. doi:10.1177/1948550611405073
Beersma, B., & Van Kleef, G. A. (2012). Why people gossip:
An empirical analysis of social motives, antecedents, and
consequences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
42(11), 2640–2670. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00956.x
Bergmann, J. R. (1993). Discreet indiscretions: The social
organization of gossip (J. J. Bednarz, Trans.). New York:
Aldine de Gruyter. (Original work published 1987)
Blumberg, H. H. (1972). Communication of interpersonal
evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
23(2), 157–162. doi:10.1037/h0033027
Brambilla, M., & Leach, C. W. (2014). On the importance
of being moral: The distinctive role of morality in social
judgment. Social Cognition, 32(4), 397–408. doi:10.1521/
soco.2014.32.4.397
Carrier, A., Louvet, E., Chauvin, B., & Rohmer, O. (2014).
The primacy of agency over competence in status percep-
tion. Social Psychology, 45(5), 347–356. doi:10.1027/1864-
9335/a000176
Dunbar, R. M. (2004). Gossip in evolutionary perspective.
Review of General Psychology, 8(2), 100–110. doi:10.1037/
1089-2680.8.2.100
Dunbar, R. M., Marriott, A., & Duncan, N. C. (1997).
Human conversational behavior. Human Nature, 8(3),
231–246. doi:10.1007/BF02912493
Eagly, A. H. (2009). The his and hers of prosocial behavior:
An examination of the social psychology of gender.
American Psychologist, 64(8), 644–658. doi:10.1037/0003-
066X.64.8.644
Ellemers, N. (2017). Morality and the regulation of social
behavior: Groups as moral anchors. New York, NY, US:
Psychology Press.
Emler, N. (1994). Gossip, reputation, and social adaptation.
In R. F. Goodman & A. Ben-Ze’ev (Eds.), Good gossip
(pp. 117–138). Lawrence, KS, US: University Press of
Kansas.
Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Schultz, M. (2014). Gossip and
ostracism promote cooperation in groups. Psychological
Science, 25(3), 656–664. doi:10.1177/0956797613510184
Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J., & Keltner, D. (2012).
The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing
as prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 102(5), 1015–1030. doi:10.1037/a0026650
Fingelkurts, A. A., & Fingelkurts, A. A. (2017). Three-
dimensional components of selfhood in treatment-naive
patients with major depressive disorder: A resting-state
qEEG imaging study. Neuropsychologia, 99, 30–36. doi:10.
1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.02.020
Fingelkurts, A. A., Fingelkurts, A. A., & Kallio-Tamminen,
T. (2016). Trait lasting alteration of the brain default
mode network in experienced meditators and the experi-
ential selfhood. Self and Identity, 15(4), 381–393. doi:10.
1080/15298868.2015.1136351
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal
dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(2), 77–83. doi:10.1016/j.
tics.2006.11.005
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A
model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 131
and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and
competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
82(6), 878–902. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.878
Fonseca, M. A., & Peters, K. (2018). Will any gossip do?
Gossip does not need to be perfectly accurate to promote
trust. Games and Economic Behavior, 107, 253–281. doi:
10.1016/j.geb.2017.09.015
Foster, E. K. (2004). Research on gossip: Taxonomy, meth-
ods, and future directions. Review of General Psychology,
8(2), 78–99. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.78
Goldsmith, D. J., & Baxter, L. A. (1996). Constituting rela-
tionships in talk: A taxonomy of speech events in social
and personal relationships. Human Communication
Research, 23(1), 87–114. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1996.
tb00388.x
Harinck, F., & Ellemers, N. (2014). How values change a
conflict. In C. K. W. De Dreu (Ed.), Social conflict within
and between groups. (pp. 19–36). New York, NY:
Psychology Press.
Hauke, N., & Abele, A. E. (2019). Two faces of the self:
Actor-self perspective and observer-self perspective are
differentially related to agency versus communion. Self
and Identity, 1. doi:10.1080/15298868.2019.1584582
Hogan, R. (1982). A socioanalytic theory of personality. In
M. Page (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation (pp.
336–355). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Judd, C. M., James-Hawkins, L., Yzerbyt, V. Y., & Kashima,
Y. (2005). Fundamental dimensions of social judgement:
Understanding the relations between judgments of com-
petence and warmth. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 89(6), 899–913. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.
899.
Kervyn, N., Fiske, S. T., & Yzerbyt, V. Y. (2015).
Forecasting the primary dimension of social perception:
Symbolic and realistic threats together predict warmth in
the stereotype content model. Social Psychology, 46(1),
36–45. doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000219
Kuttler, A. F., Parker, J. G., & La Greca, A. M. (2002).
Developmental and gender differences in preadolescents’
judgments of the veracity of gossip. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 48(2), 105–132. doi:10.1353/mpq.2002.0008
Pagliaro, S., Ellemers, N., Barreto, M., & Di Cesare, C.
(2016). Once dishonest, always dishonest? The impact of
perceived pervasiveness of moral evaluations of the self
on motivation to restore a moral reputation. Frontiers in
Psychology, 7, 586. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00586
Paulhus, D. L., & Trapnell, P. D. (2008). Self-presentation
of personality: An agency-communion framework. In
O. P. John, R. W. Robins & L. A. Pervin (Eds.),
Handbook of personality psychology: Theory and research
(3rd ed., pp. 492–517). New York, NY US: Guilford
Press.
Paulhus, D. L., & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic
biases in self-perception: The interplay of self-deceptive
styles with basic traits and motives. Journal of
Personality, 66(6), 1025–1060. doi:10.1111/1467-6494.
00041
Peeters, G. (2008). The evaluative face of a descriptive
model: Communion and agency in Peabody’s tetradic
model of trait organization. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 38(7), 1066–1072. doi:10.1002/ejsp.524
132 N. HAUKE AND A. E. ABELE
Peters, K., & Kashima, Y. (2014). Gossiping as moral social
action: A functionalist account of gossiper perceptions. In
J. P. Forgas, O. Vincze, & J. Laszlo (Eds.), Social cognition
and communication (pp. 185–201). New York, NY, US:
Psychology Press.
Peters, K., & Kashima, Y. (2015). Bad habit or social good?
How perceptions of gossiper morality are related to gos-
sip content. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(6),
784–798. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2123
Ross, L., Lepper, M. R., & Hubbard, M. (1975).
Perseverance in self-perception and social perception:
Biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(5),
880–892. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.32.5.880
Shrout, P. E., & Rodgers, J. L. (2018). Psychology, science,
and knowledge construction: Broadening perspectives
from the replication crisis. Annual Review of Psychology,
69(1), 487–510. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-
011845
Sommerfeld, R. D., Krambeck, H., Semmann, D., &
Milinski, M. (2007). Gossip as an alternative for direct
observation in games of indirect reciprocity. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(44),
17435–17440. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704598104
Spence, J. T., Helmreich, R. L., & Stapp, J. (1974). The per-
sonal attributes questionnaire: A measure of sex role ster-
eotypes and masculinity femininity. JSAS Catalog of
Selected Documents in Psychology, 4, 43–44. doi:10.1037/
0022-3514.64.4.624
Trafimow, D., & Rice, S. (2009). A test of the null hypoth-
esis significance testing procedure correlation argument.
The Journal of General Psychology, 136(3), 261–269. doi:
10.3200/GENP.136.3.261-270
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988).
Development and validation of brief measures of positive
and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. doi:
10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063
Wells, G. L., & Windschitl, P. D. (1999). Stimulus sampling
and social psychological experimentation. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(9), 1115–1125. doi:10.1177/
01461672992512005
Wert, S. R., & Salovey, P. (2004). A social comparison
account of gossip. Review of General Psychology, 8(2),
122–137. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.122
Williams, H. L., Conway, M. A., & Cohen, G. (2008).
Autobiographical memory. In G. Cohen & M. A. Conway
(Eds.), Memory in the real world (3rd ed., pp. 21–90).
Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Wilson, D. S., Wilczynski, C., Wells, A., & Weiser, L.
(2000). Gossip and other aspects of language as group-
level adaptations. In C. Heyes, & L. Huber (Eds.), The
evolution of cognition (pp. 347–365). Cambridge, MA,
US: The MIT Press.
Wojciszke, B. (2005). Morality and competence in person-
and self-perception. European Review of Social
Psychology, 16(1), 155–188. doi:10.1080/104632805
00229619
Wojciszke, B., Baryla, W., Parzuchowski, M., Szymkow, A.,
& Abele, A. E. (2011). Self-esteem is dominated by
agentic over communal information. European Journal of
Social Psychology, 41(5), 617–627. doi:10.1002/ejsp.791
Wu, J., Balliet, D., & Van Lange, P. A.M. (2015). When
does gossip promote generosity? Indirect reciprocity
under the shadow of the future. Social Psychological and
Personality Science, 6(8), 923–930. doi:10.1177/
1948550615595272
Ybarra, O., Chan, E., Park, H., Burnstein, E., Monin, B., &
Stanik, C. (2008). Life’s recurring challenges and the fun-
damental dimensions: An integration and its implications
for cultural differences and similarities. European Journal
of Social Psychology, 38(7), 1083–1092. doi:10.1002/ejsp.
559
Ybarra, O., Park, H., Stanik, C., & Lee, D. (2012). Self-judg-
ment and reputation monitoring as a function of the fun-
damental dimensions, temporal perspective, and culture.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 42(2), 200–209.
doi:10.1002/ejsp.854