the researchers found that virtual gossipers not only survived but flourished: Across all the simulations, 90% of agents eventually became gossipers.

Gelfand says. “As more people are thinking about others’ reputations, they’re getting concerned about their own reputations too, and they don’t want to be the subject of future gossip. So that deters them from acting selfishly.”

In a recent article published in PNAS , they conclude that gossipers have an evolutionary edge not only because they spread useful information about people’s reputations but also because they encourage people to behave less selfishly.

“You can go back to the history and see that it was prevalent in Mesopotamia and Greece. Anthropologists talk about it being at the center of life in hunter-gatherer societies,” Gelfand says.