An Attributional Approach To Workplace Gossip: Recipients’ Perceived Motives and Behavioral Reactions

We examine workplace gossip recipients’ attributions of the senders’ motives. We expect that this attributional process depends on the sender’s motive and elicits corresponding behavioral responses. In experimental studies, we test the hypothesis that gossip elicits perceived motives as prosocial. In turn, perceived motives translate into behavioral responses in the form of cooperation. We discuss implications for practice and research on workplace gossip in terms of status differences in attributions of motives and behavioral responses of gossip recipients.