Smith 3引5 modelers generally hold that seeking to incorporate all the In so doing.though.you may obtain information that has complexity of real-world behavior risks making the re been distorted or manipulated.For example,one of your fel or a mod el's b lows may ascribe negative be haviors to a perf nocen n)I imiting the model to small numbe obtain the basic processes is essential to generate insights. derived from gossip,while avoiding In this article,this model is adapted to incorporate three being manipulated by false reports? srelevant to the goss a d social targets are evil,displaying rare but extr Overview of the Model ely neo tive behaviors.This is a situation in which we might expect The multiagent model is a modification of the model gossip tobe fun hem ibed in th and Collin (2009)wo1 k.Its assumption (see r erg et a the situ targets.to see whether perceivers can avoid being misled. Details (ODD)protocol (RailsbackGrimm,201:see the Although the functionality of gossip is ofen discussed n appendix).Funda helitcrature,asnoiecag h ide of the coin has r nber）)who exhibit vai ed to ess the effa h ld bea d to he the same individualsa including whether to use gossip at all,whether to solicit go in Smith and Collins,with each observer also a target,but for sip about specific targets o to allow communicators to talk separate sets of people. 1 e nun er. h The hy are the positive valucs indicate liking. ASSU Hypothesis 1:In The core of the model involves wed by Hypothesis 2:Receiving gossip abo communicators Smith and Collins from Denrell(2005),who presents empir more adaptve ev e spe ultiple trials on each trial the Hypothesis3:The content-based strategy of disregarding with a va ncedrawn from a normal distribution mea(+0.5 nc mon assumption that positive (kind.moral acts are To make the issues addressed in the model concrete more frequent than negative (cruel,immoral)ones The magine that you are of a numb I newly hired employ rve e es the new behav an number gp二（odi tion)/2.0.This may seem to be overly recency weig heir interpersonal behavior may be friendly or cold,an Denrell (2005)shows that it is the best fit to empirical data heir may t or less will na agine that a few of these individuals.although ocial iudgn offering useful advice,on occasion fly into a rage,berating Vohs,2001),this model's integration rule does not weight orasking stupi questions ve information more heavily than posit This is your se d like 1 out having to experience it yourself.so that you can avoid eration to be discussed below Denrell (2005)as well as Smith and Collins (2009)fur ello ther heir current impre er to a target on a future 304 Smith 315 modelers generally hold that seeking to incorporate all the complexity of real-world behavior risks making the reasons for a model’s behavior opaque, undermining the objective of understanding the phenomena (see Smith & Conrey, 2007, for an elaboration). Limiting the model to a small number of basic processes is essential to generate insights. In this article, this model is adapted to incorporate three factors relevant to the gossiper’s dilemma described above. First, I examine what happens when a small number of social targets are evil, displaying rare but extremely nega￾tive behaviors. This is a situation in which we might expect gossip to be functional by helping perceivers identify them (see Feinberg et al., 2012). Second, I examine the situation where some gossip is malicious, intended to defame specific targets, to see whether perceivers can avoid being misled. Although the functionality of gossip is often discussed in the literature, as noted above, this side of the coin has rarely been examined. Third, in both of these situations, the model is used to assess the effects of various perceiver strategies, including whether to use gossip at all, whether to solicit gos￾sip about specific targets or to allow communicators to talk about a target about whom they have an especially negative impression, and whether to intentionally disregard gossip that appears to be inaccurate. The hypotheses are the following: Hypothesis 1: Incorporating gossip into their impressions will allow agents to be more successful in identifying evil targets. Hypothesis 2: Receiving gossip about communicators’ especially negative impressions will be more adaptive than asking communicators to report their impressions of specific targets (who might not be particularly negative). Hypothesis 3: The content-based strategy of disregarding gossip that differs too much from a perceiver’s current impression should allow avoiding influence from mali￾ciously manipulated gossip. To make the issues addressed in the model concrete, imagine that you are one of a number of newly hired employ￾ees in an organization. As you seek to learn the ropes, you may approach a number of more senior employees for infor￾mation and advice. Each time you interact with one of them, their interpersonal behavior may be friendly or cold, and their advice may be more or less useful; you will naturally form and update evaluative impressions of these individuals. Imagine that a few of these individuals, although generally offering useful advice, on occasion fly into a rage, berating you as an ignoramus for asking stupid questions, thoroughly shredding your self-esteem. Naturally you would like to know who is prone to such negative behavior, ideally with￾out having to experience it yourself, so that you can avoid being assigned to future projects with them. Thus, you may ask your fellow newbies for their impressions of the old hands, hoping to benefit from their hard-earned experiences. In so doing, though, you may obtain information that has been distorted or manipulated. For example, one of your fel￾lows may ascribe negative behaviors to a perfectly innocent senior employee, motivated by a past misunderstanding or personality conflict. How can you obtain the benefits of valuable information derived from gossip, while avoiding being manipulated by false reports? Overview of the Model The multiagent model is a modification of the model described in Smith and Collins’ (2009) work. Its assumptions will be described under several headings and are summarized using the standardized Overview, Design concepts, and Details (ODD) protocol (Railsback & Grimm, 2012; see the appendix). Fundamentally, it involves 20 targets (an arbitrary number) who exhibit various behaviors, and 20 observers who form impressions of the targets based on those behav￾iors. (These could be assumed to be the same individuals as in Smith and Collins, with each observer also a target, but for simplicity we treat them here as two separate sets of people.) An impression in this model is a single number, representing valence. Zero is neutral, negative values indicate dislike, and positive values indicate liking. Assumptions About the Basic Person Perception Process The core of the model involves assumptions borrowed by Smith and Collins from Denrell (2005), who presents empiri￾cal evidence supporting these specific assumptions and parameter values. Observers and targets interact in dyads on multiple trials. On each trial, the target produces a behavior with a valence drawn from a normal distribution with a fixed mean (+0.5 for “normal” targets but a different value for the evil targets described below), and a standard deviation of 1.0. The slightly positive mean value is intended to represent the common assumption that positive (kind, moral) acts are more frequent than negative (cruel, immoral) ones. The observer averages the new behavioral observation with the observer’s existing impression, using an equally weighted average, new impression = (old impression + new observa￾tion) / 2.0. This may seem to be overly recency weighted, but Denrell (2005) shows that it is the best fit to empirical data on impression formation with sequential observations. Although negativity biases have frequently been documented in social judgments (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001), this model’s integration rule does not weight negative information more heavily than positive. This is mainly because of Denrell’s evidence supporting this simple, unbiased integration rule, but it also reflects another consid￾eration to be discussed below. Denrell (2005) as well as Smith and Collins (2009) fur￾ther assume that observers may use their current impression to decide whether to interact with a target on a future Downloaded from psr.sagepub.com at Remen University of China on September 6, 2015