THE ROLE OF TRUST IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
ACHIEVEMENT GOALS AND NEGATIVE GOSSIP SPREADING
Master thesis, MSc. Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 21, 2013
TRUDY KESTENS Student number: 1686933
Laan van de Vrede 89 9728 CD Groningen Tel.: +316 (0)623970410 Email: g.t.kestens@student.rug.nl
ABSTRACT
This study examines the role of trust in the relationship between achievement goals (i.e., performance goals and mastery goals) and negative gossip spreading. Data was collected among 51 participants who have or had a job or internship for at least three months, no longer than a year before filling in this online survey. The results show that performance goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading, but mastery goals are not related to negative gossip spreading. In addition, trust does not mediate or moderate the relationship between achievement goals and the spreading of negative gossip. However, mastery goals are positively related with one dimension of trust – integrity. Moreover, evidence is found that trust – benevolence and liking the gossip receiver lead to more negative gossip spreading. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed and recommendations for future research are made.
INTRODUCTION
Who of the colleagues is having a baby? Who is that new supervisor? Who got promoted to a higher position in the organization hierarchy? Gossip occurs everywhere in our social world (Foster, 2004; Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell & Labianca, 2010); it accounts for approximately 65% of individuals‟ speaking time (Dunbar, 2004). This also signifies that in the workplace a large proportion of conversations are focused on talking about others (Ellwardt, Labianca & Wittek, 2012).
Gossip helps individuals to function efficiently in a complex social environment and can either be positive or negative; both types of gossip can have value for individuals (Foster, 2004). Turner, Mazur, Wendel and Winslow (2003) indicate that positive gossip is mostly spread for approved behavior, whereas negative gossip is mostly spread for disapproved behavior among individuals. Negative gossip spreading has a socially sanctioning effect; by gossiping negatively, the gossip sender aims to decrease the liking of the gossip object, such that the gossip receivers will like the gossip object less (Watson, 2011). Negative gossip provides valuable information on uncooperative behavior and norm violation by other people (Ellwardt, Labianca & Wittek, 2012). Positive gossip may have value because it increases cohesion between group members, and negative gossip may have value because it leads to a positive self-image. Though, in this study, we focus only on negative gossip spreading, since we suggest that individuals use negative gossip spreading not only to serve groups, but also have an important role in achieving individuals‟ goals. Hence, we propose that achievement goals influence the spreading of negative gossip, which may result in better achieving one‟s goals. Achievement goals refer to the different aims individuals have regarding their competence-relevant behavior (Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Grant & Dweck, 2003). Two types of goals are the central point of attention in this study: performance goals (i.e., demonstration of competence relative to others) and mastery goals (i.e., development of competence by engaging in task mastery) (Elliot & McGregor, 2001). In this study we expect that both performance goals and mastery goals lead to negative gossip spreading but for different reasons.
Since negative gossip spreading is sensitive information and involves more risk, the relations gossip senders have with gossip receivers (e.g., colleagues) will affect the spreading of negative gossip. Hence, trust is a necessity for spreading negative gossip (Burt & Knez, 1996). As Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell, and Labianca (2010: p. 181) argue: negative gossip spreading is a „risky social endeavor that requires an assurance of privacy.‟ Therefore, we investigate the role of trust in the relationship between achievement goals and negative gossip spreading.
In line with these notions, my research question is:
Getting insight into negative gossip spreading is important to organizations and managers, because evidence (Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell & Labianca, 2010) indicates that this insight may help managers minimize negative effects of gossip (e.g., lower productivity caused by gossiping) or may help them to take advantage of the positive effects of negative gossip spreading (e.g., maintenance of organizational or group norms). Additionally, when managers know what kind of achievement goals individuals pursue, managers may acquire more understanding in negative gossip behavior of employees. Also, this study may offer an insight in the informal communication processes in organizations by exploring how negative gossip functions and what the role of trust is on negative gossip spreading.
This study may provide new insights into gossiping behavior, since there are no studies about the effects of achievement goals on gossiping behavior, and the role of trust in that relationship. Hence, this study can be utilized to elaborate upon the field of research regarding gossiping behavior. Moreover, previous research (e.g., Feinberg, Willer, Stellar & Keltner, 2012; Kniffin & Wilson, 2010) analyzed the functions of gossip in groups, but less is known about the functions of gossip regarding individuals (Ellwardt, Labianca & Wittek, 2012), which we focus on in this study.
As such, the main contribution of this study will be to show that the achievement goals of individuals enhance negative gossip spreading, such that individuals tend to spread negative gossip to serve their own goals. In addition, we suggest that trust will have an important role in the relationship between achievement goals and negative gossip spreading.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES
Achievement goals and negative gossip spreading
skills, and mastering tasks (Murayama, Elliot & Yamagata, 2011; Poortvliet & Darnon, 2010). Mastery-oriented individuals are not concerned with others‟ perceptions of their ability and use self-improvement to measure competence (i.e., self-referenced focus) (Huang, 2012; Levy-Tossman, Kaplan & Assor, 2007).
These two competence goals (i.e., performance and mastery) may be valenced in terms of an individual‟s focus on success (i.e., approach goals) or failure (i.e., avoidance goals). In other words, approach goals focus on seeking desirable outcomes, whereas avoidance goals emphasize avoiding undesirable outcomes (Huang, 2012). This distinction leads to four different types of achievement goals: performance-approach (i.e., focused on attaining competence relative to others), mastery-approach (i.e., focused on attaining task mastery), performance-avoidance (i.e., focused on avoiding incompetence relative to others), and mastery-avoidance (i.e., focused on avoiding task-based incompetence) (Elliot & Murayama, 2008). In this study, we focus on achievement approach goals (i.e., mastery approach goals and performance approach goals) from the perspective of the gossip sender.
between individuals. The gossip sender may get feelings of jealousy and envy, such that he or she engages in negative gossip spreading to self-enhance (Wert & Salovey, 2004). It should be noted that these reasons are just a selection of why individuals would engage in spreading negative gossip.
Gossip senders engage in negative gossip spreading to self-enhance, which may be linked to individuals‟ performance goals. Since individuals with performance goals want to outperform others (Huang, 2012), they may spread negative gossip to feel better about themselves, and thus, to self-enhance. As stated by Wert & Salovey (2004: p. 125): „making critical evaluations is a way of presenting oneself as smart.‟ Negative gossip may be used in particular by performance-oriented individuals in domains where people are similarly skilled and one considers this domain especially dear (i.e., when there is competition or rivalry). Negative gossip may then function as a way of dealing with the threat to one‟s self-esteem; it is the gossip sender‟s pursuit of a positive self-view (Wert & Salovey, 2004). Moreover, individuals with performance goals have a desire to have friends and to be accepted by others; however, they also have a desire for social visibility, prestige, affiliation with „the popular group‟, and having high social status. Thus, relations with others are characterized by a lower level of intimacy, because performance-oriented individuals are concerned with impression management (Levy-Tossman, Kaplan & Assor, 2007). Therefore, performance-driven individuals behave in more competitive ways in relation to others; they want to present themselves positively (i.e., to project an image to others (Wert & Salovey, 2004), and perceive other individuals as adversaries to some extent. This may suggest that performance-oriented individuals are more likely to engage in negative gossip spreading. In sum, we expect that individuals with performance goals want to self-enhance and to demonstrate their competence (i.e., self-presentation) to gain impression management benefits.
performance with others (Poortvliet & Darnon, 2010). However, if individuals with mastery goals do gossip negatively, we suggest that the following two reasons may be of importance for spreading negative gossip. First, mastery-oriented people may want to gain information back from gossip receivers to learn from, and hence, improve their competence. Individuals with mastery goals have a strong reciprocity orientation; exchanging worthy information will lead to receiving useful information back from others (Poortvliet & Darnon, 2010). Second, as a consequence of the intimate relationships with others, people with mastery goals may gossip negatively for enjoyment. Additionally, exchanging negative gossip will lead to an increase of intimacy of social bonds (Bosson, Johnson, Niederhoffer, & Swann, 2006).
In conclusion, we focus on two types of gossip senders: a) performance-oriented individuals who gossip negatively to self-enhance, and b) mastery-oriented individuals who spread negative gossip, because they are in the center of a social web, talking to and about friends and peers to gain information back they can learn from to improve their competence and to gossip negatively for enjoyment (Farley, Timme & Hart, 2010). Hence, we assume that individuals with either performance goals or mastery goals might engage in negative gossip, but for different reasons. The arguments presented above propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1a. Performance goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading. Hypothesis 1b. Mastery goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading.
Trust
based on benevolence (trust – benevolence), and trust based on integrity (trust – integrity). These three characteristics form the trustworthiness of the trustee and are important when predicting interpersonal trust (Colquitt, Scott & LePine, 2007). According to Mayer, Davis & Schoorman (1995) trust – ability is „that group of skills, competencies, and characteristics that enable a party to have influence within some specific domain‟; it reflects the „can-do‟ component. Individuals are not trusted in every domain. When individuals prove to be very competent in one area, they may be highly trusted by others; however, in another area in which they are less competent, they may not be trusted at all by other individuals. Moreover, trust – benevolence is „the extent to which the trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor, aside from an egocentric profit motive‟, which refers to the „will-do‟ component (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995: p. 718). This type of trust indicates that the trustee is in a specific way attached to the trustor. Lastly, trust – integrity is according to Mayer, Davis & Schoorman (1995): „the perception that the trustee adheres to a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable‟; also a „will-do‟ component. From this last definition appears that it is the perceived level of integrity from the trustor which is important, rather than the reasons why the perception is formed (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995). We choose to distinguish between these three dimensions of trust, since we aim to examine if performance-oriented or mastery-oriented individuals trust some people more than others. Additionally, we investigate the roles of friendship and liking in the relationship between achievement goals and gossip spreading, since these variables are closely related to trust (Ellwardt, Steglich & Wittek, 2012; Nicholson, Compeau & Sethi, 2001), and could be alternatives to trust. Also, friendship and liking have important roles in spreading gossip to others (Ellwardt, Steglich & Wittek, 2012; Turner, Mazur, Wendel & Winslow, 2003).
because the trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor (Fisher & Brown, 1988; Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995), and hence, negative gossip may be spread more easily.
In contrast, as mentioned above, individuals with mastery goals want to improve their own performance; those individuals may not have that much need to gossip negatively to self-enhance or to gain impression management benefits (i.e., self-referenced focus). Mastery-oriented individuals have more intimate relationships with others, such that there exists more interpersonal trust between the gossip sender and receiver. Mutual trust in intimate friendships allows for showing vulnerabilities without risk of betrayal (Levy-Tossman, Kaplan & Assor, 2007). Consequently, this high trust level may lead to negative gossip spreading, since individuals with intimate friendships have the requisite trust level to make them comfortable enough to exchange negative gossip (Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell & Labianca, 2010). Specifically, trust – ability and trust – benevolence are expected to have essential roles in the relation between mastery goals and negative gossip spreading. Since individuals with mastery goals aim to improve their performance by developing competence and mastering tasks (Murayama, Elliot & Yamagata, 2011; Poortvliet & Darnon, 2010), they may be more willing to trust other people based on their abilities. In addition, the same reason about benevolence, as noted in the text above, is also applicable to individuals with mastery goals; benevolence leads individuals to have less fear that other people will exploit their vulnerability, because the trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor (Fisher & Brown, 1988; Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995), and therefore, gossiping negatively may be more obvious. Combining these arguments leads to the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2a. Performance goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading, and this
relationship is stronger when trust is high between the gossip sender and gossip receiver.
Hypothesis 2b. Mastery goals are positively related to trust.
Hypothesis 2c. Trust mediates the relation between mastery goals and negative gossip spreading.
The hypothesized relationships are depicted in figure 1 and figure 2. The conceptual models are based on the individual level.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Conceptual model: mastery goals
In order to investigate the hypotheses, we conducted a correlational study to examine the relations between achievement goals and negative gossip spreading, and the effect of the trust dimensions in this relationship.
METHOD
Participants and procedure
Data was collected among 51 participants who have or had a job for at least three months, no longer ago than a year before filling in this 10–15 minutes survey. Also participants who have or had an internship for at least three months, no longer than a year ago before filling in the survey were eligible to participate in this study. There were a variety of functions of participants of which project leaders, engineers, trainees, technical drawing constructors, sales workers, and administrative workers were most common. Out of the 51 participants, 33.3% were female and 66.7% were male. The average age was 41.43 (S.D. = 12.96) and ranged from 20 to 64 years old. The highest level of education was secondary school for 3.9%, 52.9% of the participants had a MBO degree, 29.4% an HBO degree, 2.0% a bachelor‟s degree, and 11.8% of the participants had a master‟s degree. The majority of the participants (i.e., 88.2%) worked in a company of over 100 employees, whereas 5.9% worked in a company with less than 10 employees. The other participants, 2.0%, worked in a company with 11–30 employees, and 3.9% worked in a company with 31–100 employees. Moreover, 80.4% of the participants had an open contract, 12.7% a fixed term contract, 2.9% was a temporary worker, and 3.9% had another kind of employment contract.
During the survey, participants had to make a list of three persons (i.e., A till C) from their work with whom they had contact most. They had to do this in a descending order, such that person A was the person with whom they had most contact, person B was the person with whom they had second most contact etcetera. After noting these colleagues, the participants had to think only of person „C‟ when answering the rest of the items of the questionnaire. We chose person „C‟, because this is the person with whom the participants probably have not too close contact with (i.e., not necessarily high trust), but do regularly talk with that person.
Measures
The items from the questionnaires contained self-reported items from existing scales and were translated from English to Dutch and back-translated to English. Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with all the items on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (= “strongly disagree”) to 7 (= “strongly agree”).
Achievement goals
The achievement goals were measured by twelve adapted items of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (PALS) developed by Midgley et al. (2000). Originally, it measures three achievement goals (i.e., mastery goal orientation, performance-approach goal orientation, and performance-avoidance goal orientation); however, in this study only the items for mastery goal orientation and performance-approach goal orientation were used. Examples of items of the mastery goals were: “I like a job that I will learn from, even if I make a lot of mistakes” and “I do this job because I am interested in it”. Items of performance goals were for instance: “I want to do better than other colleagues”, and “I would like to show my manager that I am smarter than other colleagues”. Cronbach‟s alpha (α) was .82 for the items of the mastery goals and .93 for the performance goals. Empirical evidence states that Cronbach‟s alpha always need to exceed the value of .70, which is a rule of thumb for sufficient reliability (Cronbach, 1951; Nunnaly & Bernstein, 1994; Peterson, 1994). Hence, the items formed a reliable representation of both mastery goals and performance goals.
Negative gossip
Among the items of the subscale of social information, items were, for instance: “When I talk to C, I contribute negative information about other colleagues”, and “I tend to talk to C about the failures that some of our colleagues have at work”. Examples of items of the subscale physical appearance were: “I like talking to C about how awful other colleagues‟ clothes are”, and “I tend to talk negatively with C about how others look”. We conducted a factor analysis to identify underlying relations between the items and to investigate whether to use the subscales separately when analyzing data (Norris & Lecavalier, 2010). However, no clear pattern is found between the items, as can be seen in table 1 of Appendix A. Therefore, we analyzed all the items together as one scale. The negative gossip scale has high reliability (α = .97).
Trust
The Trust Scale developed by Mayer and Davis (1999) was used to assess trust. Seventeen adapted items were used, which were divided into three subscales: trust – ability (i.e., „that group of skills, competencies, and characteristics that enable a party to have influence within some specific domain‟ [Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995: p. 717]), trust – benevolence (i.e., „the extent to which the trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor, aside from an egocentric profit motive‟ [Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995: p. 718]), and trust – integrity (i.e., : „the perception that the trustee adheres to a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable‟ [Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995: p. 719]). Each item was adapted such that the participant‟s trust in person „C‟ could be measured. Items of the subscale trust – ability were, for example: “C is very capable of performing his/her job”, and “I feel very confident about C‟s skills”. Examples of trust – benevolence were: “C is very concerned with my welfare”, and “C really looks out for what is important to me”. The items of trust – integrity were measured by, for instance: “C has a strong sense of justice”, and “C tries hard to be fair in dealing with others”. As done with the scale of negative gossip, we also performed the factor analysis on the items of trust. As shown in table 2 of Appendix A, a clear pattern can be found between the variables, such that we analyzed the subscales separately. Moreover, one item was reverse-coded and Cronbach‟s alpha (α) was .94 for trust – ability, .82 for trust – benevolence, and .81 for trust – integrity, which indicate high reliabilities.
warm feelings about C”, and “I feel close to C”. Cronbach‟s alpha (α) was .77 for the liking scale, which signifies sufficient reliability.
Control variables
Control variables were included to discover variances explained by other factors. Research on achievement goals (e.g., Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001; Darnon, Dompnier, Gilliéron & Butera, 2010; Levy-Tossman, Kaplan & Assor, 2007) has shown that people often pursue multiple goals (i.e., both mastery goals and performance goals) that interact with one another instead of having „pure‟ goals (i.e., either mastery goals or performance goals). Hence, to rule out any other explanation by one of the goals, we included both mastery goals and performance goals in the analysis. Moreover, since we want to measure the effect of trust, we included trust propensity as a control variable. Trust propensity is a stable factor within an individual that will affect the likelihood that this individual will trust other people. In other words, it is the general willingness to trust others (Lucassen & Schraagen, 2012; Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995). In the case an individual has low trust propensity, trust may not have any effect in the relation between achievement goals and negative gossip. Therefore, we included trust propensity to the data analysis to rule out this possible effect. However, we did not control for trust propensity when analyzing friendship and liking, since these are different concepts, and hence, including trust propensity was not necessary. Trust propensity was measured by eight items developed by Lucassen & Schraagen (2012). Among these items, were for instance: “I believe that most people inherently have good intentions”, and “I become distrustful when someone does me a favor” (reverse-coded). Three items were reverse-coded and Cronbach‟s alpha (α) was .76, which formed a sufficient reliability of the items.
Data analysis
The Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS) was conducted to test the hypotheses as recommended by Aiken and West (1991). Performance goals and mastery goals were identified as independent variables, negative gossip spreading as the dependent variable, and trust (i.e., ability, benevolence, and integrity) was included in the OLS regression as a moderator on the relationship between performance goals and negative gossip spreading, and as a mediator in the relation between mastery goals and negative gossip spreading.
variables, interaction terms were made by multiplying the standardized variables of performance goals and trust.
We ran two kinds of OLS regression analyses: one with performance goals as an independent variable and trust (i.e., ability, benevolence, and integrity) as the moderator and one with mastery goals as an independent variable and trust (i.e., ability, benevolence, and integrity) as the mediator. The first OLS regression (i.e., with performance goals as the independent variable) consisted of four steps. In the first step of the analysis, we controlled for variance that might be explained by mastery goals and trust propensity. Thereafter, in the second step, we entered the independent variable; performance goals. Then, in the third step, we included one of the types of trust and finally, in the fourth step, we entered the two-way interaction term of performance goals and one of the types of trust. In the second OLS regression (i.e., with mastery goals as the independent variable), three steps were performed. In the first step we controlled for variance associated with performance goals and trust propensity. In the next step, we included mastery goals as the independent variable. Lastly, the one of the types of trust were entered to the regression.
RESULTS
Descriptive statistics
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for all variables are showed in table 1. The means from performance goals (M = 5.64, S.D. = 0.94) and mastery goals (M = 4.25, S.D. = 1.48) indicate that participants have on average higher performance goals than mastery goals. In addition, negative gossip spreading has a mean of 1.76 (S.D. = 1.06), which signifies that most participants do not gossip negatively or do not spread negative gossip very often towards person „C‟.
mastery goals and negative gossip spreading. Positively related correlations are found between friendship and trust – benevolence (r = .32, p < .05), and liking and trust – benevolence (r = .46, p < .01). The same holds for the variables friendship and trust – integrity (r = .51, p < .01), and liking and trust – integrity (r = .35, p < .01). However, trust ability has no significant correlation with friendship (r = .25, n.s.) or liking (r = .17, n.s.). Most interesting is the fact that negative gossip spreading is positively related to trust – benevolence (r = .33, p < .05) and liking (r = .36, p < .01).
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Study Variable Intercorrelations
Hypothesis testing
To test the hypotheses, we performed Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS) analyses of which the results are described below.
Performance goals
The Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS) results for performance goals are presented in table 2, 3, 4, and 5. Hypothesis 1a predicts that performance goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading. As was indicated by the correlations, regression analyses show that performance goals are positively and significantly related to negative gossip spreading (B = .38, p < .05, when controlling for the effect of mastery goals, as shown in table 5). The OLS regression confirms our prediction, and hence, hypothesis 1a is supported.
trust dimensions on negative gossip spreading were investigated after controlling for mastery goals and trust propensity (mastery goals: B = -.14, n.s.; trust propensity: B = -.24, n.s.). First, the main effect of trust – ability on negative gossip spreading is not significant, as can be seen from table 2 (B = .16, n.s.). Additionally, when entering trust – ability in the regression, a positive relation still exists between performance goals and negative gossip spreading, however, the relation is not significant anymore (B = .34, n.s.). Second, trust – benevolence has a positive significant relation with negative gossip spreading (B = .35, p < .05, as shown in table 3), which may be due to the fact that trust – benevolence is the only type of trust where the trustee takes into account the trustor, such that this may lead the trustor to spread more negative gossip (i.e., “the extent to which the trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor, aside from an egocentric profit motive” [Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995: p. 718]). Though, the relationship between performance goals and negative gossip spreading becomes non-significant after entering trust – benevolence in the OLS regression (B = .32, n.s.). Third, trust – integrity has a non-significant relation with negative gossip spreading, though the relation is positive (B = .17, n.s.). Nevertheless, table 4 indicates that performance goals still have a positive and significant relation with negative gossip spreading when including trust – integrity as the moderator (B = .42, p < .05). We also performed OLS regressions with friendship and liking as moderators on the relation between performance goals and negative gossip spreading. Results from table 5 reveal that friendship is non-significantly related with negative gossip spreading (B = .03, n.s.). Notwithstanding, liking has a positive significant relation with negative gossip spreading (B = .34, p < .05). This indicates that liking a person is a better predictor of negative gossip spreading than being friends with someone. Moreover, the relationship between performance goals and negative gossip spreading also remains significant (B = .34, p < .05) when entering friendship and liking as moderators. Thus, trust – benevolence and liking both have a positive significant relation with negative gossip spreading.
Table 2
Regression analyses results with trust – ability as a moderator
Note. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented. ** p <.01, * p < .05
Table 3
Regression analyses results with trust – benevolence as a moderator
Note. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented. ** p <.01, * p < .05
Table 4
Regression analyses results with trust – integrity as a moderator
Negative gossip spreading
Step Variables β β β β 1 Trust propensity Mastery goals -.25 .03 -.24 -.14 -.31 -.14 -.32 -.12 2 Performance goals .37* .34 .33 3 Trust – ability .16 .19
4 Performance goals x trust – ability
.21
R2 .05 .13 .15 .17
ΔR² .01 .08 .07 .08
Negative gossip spreading
Step Variables β β β β 1 Trust propensity Mastery goals -.25 .03 -.24 -.14 -.24 -.16 -.24 -.16 2 Performance goals .37* .32 .32 3 Trust – benevolence .35* .36
4 Performance goals x trust – benevolence
-.02
R2 .05 .13 .22 .22
ΔR² .01 .08 .15 .13
Negative gossip spreading
Note. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented. ** p <.01, * p < .05
Table 5
Regression analyses results with friendship and liking as moderators
Note. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented. ** p <.01, * p < .05
Mastery goals
The results of the OLS regression show that mastery goals are not related to negative gossip spreading (B = -.14, n.s.). Likewise, no significant relation with mastery goals and trust – ability (B = .03, n.s.) and benevolence (B = .07, n.s.) is found. Nonetheless, a positive, significant relation is found between mastery goals and trust – integrity (B = .31, p < .05), which may indicate that people with mastery goals appreciate the fact that the trustee adheres to a set of principles which are acceptable in the eyes of the trustor (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995). In addition, we analyzed the effects of friendship and liking as mediators. However, mastery goals were not significantly related to friendship (B = -.02, n.s.) and also not significantly related to liking (B = .05, n.s.). When no relations are found between mastery goals and the types of trust, mediation is almost not possible, which was already indicated before (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Though mastery goals are positively and significantly related to trust – integrity, we also did not find any mediating effects here. Therefore, we can conclude that hypothesis 2b (i.e., mastery goals are positively related to trust) is supported for trust – integrity, though rejected for trust – ability and trust – benevolence. Moreover, hypothesis 1b (i.e., mastery goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading) and hypothesis 2c (i.e., trust mediates the relation between mastery goals and negative gossip spreading) also need to be rejected. Hence, we found no evidence
4 Performance goals x trust – integrity
.07
R2 .05 .13 .15 .15
ΔR² .01 .08 .08 .06
Negative gossip spreading
Step Variables β β β β 1 Mastery goals .39 -.15 -.16 -.17 2 Performance goals .38* .34* .34* 3 Friendship Liking .03 .34* .02 .36*
4 Performance goals x friendship Performance goals x liking
-.08 .08
R2 .00 .09 .20 .21
for a direct effect of mastery goals, nor for a mediating role of the dimensions of trust on negative gossip spreading.
DISCUSSION
The present study assessed the relationship between achievement goals and negative gossip spreading, and the role of trust in this relationship. Performance goals were expected to be positively related to negative gossip spreading, and this relationship would be stronger when trust would be high between the gossip sender and gossip receiver. In addition, it was theorized that mastery goals would be positively related to trust, which, in turn, would have a positive relation with negative gossip spreading (i.e., mediating effect). The results showed that some predicted relationships were confirmed, however, other expected relations needed to be rejected.
Performance goals
The findings are consistent with the expectation that performance goals are positively related to negative gossip spreading (hypothesis 1a). This may be explained by the fact that individuals with performance goals, in comparison with mastery-oriented individuals, are more likely to have self-serving goals; the goal of self-enhancement and gaining impression management benefits in ability terms (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007; Urdan & Mestas, 2006). Performance-oriented people may increase their self-esteem by using the social context (i.e., spreading negative gossip in social interactions) to affirm their sense of the self. Spreading negative gossip is, according to Wheeler (1991), a way to build oneself up. Individuals make themselves feel better than the ones they are spreading negative gossip about. Another explanation for our finding that performance goals are positively related with negative gossip spreading is that individuals with performance goals gossip negatively to have feelings of pride, since spreading negative gossip results in demonstrating superiority to others (Wert & Salovey, 2004). Negative gossip spreading may also contribute to impression management benefits, because sharing negative information about an absent third party may increase attraction to the gossiper (Bosson, Johnson, Niederhoffer, & Swann, 2006). In particularly in the domain of impression management, negative information is more powerful than positive information when talking about an absent third party (Turner, Mazur, Wendel & Winslow, 2003). In addition, sharing valued, negative, information also increases one‟s status and prestige in the eyes of others in the social context (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007), which again can be linked to performance-oriented individuals who like to show their competency to others.
the gossip sender and gossip receiver (hypothesis 2a). Additionally, friendship and liking do not have a moderating effect on the relationship between performance goals and negative gossip spreading. An explanation for the abovementioned findings could be that individuals with performance goals may experience negative interdependence with social exchange partners, since they have an exploitation orientation and want to outperform others (Poortvliet & Darnon, 2010). Therefore, performance-oriented individuals may experience lower levels of intimacy in relations (Levy-Tossman, Kaplan & Assor, 2007), which may indicate why effects of trust, friendship, and liking do not have important roles on the relationship between performance goals and negative gossip spreading. Moreover, as Fisher and Brown (1988) argue, when individuals want to build trust between them and another person, one needs to deemphasize their own interests and work towards achieving interests of the other person. However, performance-oriented individuals are mostly focused on self-serving goals (Kniffin & Wilson, 2010), which may also result in building lower levels of trust with other people. From this base, trust does not have a positive effect on the relation between performance goals and negative gossip spreading. Hence, all these reasons may explain why no moderating effect of trust, friendship, and liking is found in this study.
Mastery goals
The results of this study establish that mastery goals are not positively related to negative gossip spreading (hypothesis 1b). This may suggest that mastery-oriented individuals do not have much need to spread negative gossip, because they have little interest in gaining impression management benefits, but are more interested in personal development and growth (i.e., self-improvement) (Kaplan & Maehr, 2002). By striving for self-improvement, mastery-oriented people may be discouraged to spread negative gossip, since they may be afraid of generating a negative reaction from the gossip receiver. This is called the Minimum Unpleasant Messages (MUM) effect (i.e., individuals refrain from spreading negative gossip, fearing that it might develop negative affect in the gossip receiver) (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007). Consequently, it may lead to the finding of our study, that mastery goals are not positively related to negative gossip spreading. Moreover, people with mastery goals may not be the gossipers, but may be more likely to be gossip receivers instead; they may use the information they get from gossipers to increase their performance and advance their competence (Poortvliet & Darnon, 2010). In addition, having an intimate relation with a (negative) gossiper can be, according to Ellwardt, Steglich, and Wittek (2012), „an efficient instrument to monitor the behavior of others beyond one‟s own circle of influence.‟
people with mastery goals experience positive interdependence with others, and show that mastery goals were positively related to trust, mutual sharing of difficulties, and problem-solving between friends, which would subsequently lead to more intimate relations with others. Moreover, we expected that mastery goals would positively relate to trust – ability and trust – benevolence. However, contrary to our predictions, the results show that mastery goals only have a positive significant relation with trust – integrity (hypothesis 2b). This emergent pattern indicates that integrity of the trustee might be an important factor for individuals with mastery goals when considering the fact that mastery-oriented people aim to improve their competence by having other social exchange partners to help them. Integrity provides a sort of predictability that can help people to deal with uncertainty (Lind, 2001). It may lead people with mastery goals to think that individuals who adhere to a set of principles are more trustworthy, more fair, and consistent in their behaviors. Therefore, mastery-oriented individuals may trust other persons on the basis of integrity, because those other individuals may be more willing to help mastery-oriented people with their problems and to improve their competence in a trustworthy, fair, and consistent way.
The mediating effect of trust between mastery goals and negative gossip spreading was not supported (hypothesis 2c). Since no significant relations were found between mastery goals and trust – ability and trust – benevolence, it is almost not possible for mediation to exist (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Though mastery goals were positively related to trust – integrity, no mediating effect occurred. Perhaps mastery-oriented people are highly against spreading negative gossip, such that no mediator could have an effect. In other words, mastery goals may be related to trust – integrity, however, if individuals with mastery goals do not gossip negatively, hence, investigating a mediating effect does not have any use in this study.
What is especially noteworthy in this study is the fact that a positive significant relation was found between trust – benevolence and negative gossip spreading. A potential explanation for this is that benevolence and showing concern toward the other‟s interest allows people to feel comfortable in the relationships; it frees individuals from the fear that others will exploit their vulnerability (Fisher & Brown, 1988; Larzelere & Huston, 1980). Hence, if one feels comfortable, this may promote spreading negative gossip. In addition, benevolence develops an emotional attachment to the trustee, which generates positive affect (Colquitt, Scott & LePine, 2007). Also this emotional attachment and positive affect may cause negative gossip spreading to arise more easily.
reasons why liking is positively related to negative gossip spreading, and why this may not be the case for friendship. First, if someone likes another person, he or she may gossip negatively to the other to build cohesion (Turner, Mazur, Wendel & Winslow, 2003). Negative gossip spreading communicates to the gossip receiver that he or she is trusted; therefore, it should „help cement and maintain social bonds‟ during friendship formation (Baumeister, Zhang & Vohs, 2004: p. 112). Moreover, when liking another individual, one may spread negative gossip to him or her to learn about the trustworthiness of the gossip receiver as a potential friend; it serves to „test the waters‟ (Bosson, Johnson, Niederhoffer, & Swann, 2006; Ellwardt, Steglich & Wittek, 2012). In contrast, friendship is not related to spreading negative gossip. A potential explanation is that people assume that their friends behave nicely; more is expected from one‟s friends in the sense that friends do not spread negative gossip about other absent third parties. If individuals‟ friends do spread negative gossip, it is likely to result in negative perceptions of individuals about one‟s friends (Turner, Mazur, Wendel & Winslow, 2003).
Theoretical implications
specifically focused on analyzing the functions of gossip on the individual level, instead of looking at gossip functions in groups (e.g., Feinberg, Willer, Stellar & Keltner, 2012; Kniffin & Wilson, 2010). This level of analysis also contributes to previous literature about gossip behavior.
Practical implications
In accordance with the findings, some practical implications can be suggested. For organizations it is important to have a more detailed look at employees‟ achievement goals (e.g., during performance appraisal meetings with the employee), since this may result in having a better understanding of gossiping behavior, in particular negative gossip spreading. Organizations and managers in particular can take into account that employees with performance goals will spread negative gossip more often than mastery-goal employees. Notwithstanding, negative gossip spreading may not be bad, since negative gossip functions as „exerting social control for the purpose of maintaining and promoting an organization‟s values‟ (Ellwardt, Labianca & Wittek, 2012). Moreover, trusting someone on the basis of benevolence will result in a tendency to spread more negative gossip, such that employees will gossip more negatively to individuals when experiencing that others want to do good to the trustor and will not act egocentrically. However, this suggests that trust may not always have an important role when individuals want to spread negative gossip (i.e., only in the case of trust – benevolence). Hence, it may not be close, intimate colleagues per se who talk negatively about others. As was found in the results of this study; if people like other persons, they are more likely to spread negative gossip to them. Therefore, negative gossip spreading may occur more often when employees get to know each other and like each other, such that they are motivated to build cohesion between them. Organizations and managers should bear these findings in mind when understanding gossiping behavior of employees.
Limitations and future directions
previous research mostly analyzed trust as one concept when considering gossiping behavior (e.g., Ellwardt, Wittek & Wielers, 2012; Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell & Labianca, 2010).
Second, the items of the questionnaire in this study are self-reported. This means that, for example, people are inclined to be consistent and rational in their responses (i.e., consistency effect), which results in relationships that would otherwise not exist in real-life (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsakoff, 2003). Additionally, participants answer questions in terms of social desirability (i.e., the need for social approval and acceptance and the belief that it can be attained by means of culturally acceptable and appropriate behavior [Crowne & Marlowe, 1964: p. 109]), which results in presenting themselves in a more favorable light as regards one‟s feelings about a topic than it would be in real-life settings. Moreover, respondents can have a tendency to rate other individuals, they know well, higher than they should (i.e., leniency bias) (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsakoff, 2003). Thus, having other sources of data is a suggestion for future research.
Third, the generalizability of the outcomes of this study may be a limitation. The sample of this study was composed of individuals who have a job or internship, or had a job or internship for at least three months, no longer than a year ago. Therefore, for the purpose of generalization, future research may also collect data from samples of, for instance, students. In addition, the sample of this study was rather small (i.e., 51 participants), and out of the participants, there were more male respondents than female respondents. Hence, this might have influenced the results of this study. Especially the non-significant effects may be due to this small sample. A direction for future research may be to have a larger sample, and to collect more data from females.
Fourth, we only assessed negative gossip spreading in this study. Hence, it will be necessary for future studies to also examine the relations between achievement goals and positive gossip spreading. In addition, we used three subscales (i.e., achievement-related gossip, social information, and physical appearance) of the Tendency to Gossip Questionnaire (TGQ) developed by Nevo, Nevo, and Zehavi (1993). We performed a factor analysis and discovered that no underlying relations between the subscales existed, such that we used all the subscales together in the statistical analysis. However, future research may also examine the three subscales apart from each other to investigate the effects of the subscales independently.
Sixth, self-esteem may have a mediating effect in the relationship between achievement goals and negative gossip spreading. According to Rosenberg (1986), self-esteem is „the feeling of being satisfied with oneself, believing that one is a person of worth.‟ Individuals with performance goals tend to be concerned with their competence, in comparison with others; therefore, they adopt normative standards to achieve their goals. However, this may have an impact on their self-esteem, since failure means inadequacy of the self (Shim, Ryan & Cassady, 2012). Hence, to maintain a positive self-image, negative gossip spreading may increase one‟s self-esteem, because it makes the gossip sender to feel better than the gossip object, as mentioned before (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007). Moreover, self-esteem may also have a mediating effect between mastery goals and low negative gossip spreading. Individuals with mastery goals see mistakes as something that is part of the learning process, such that failure does not threaten the self (DiFonzo & Bordia, 2007), which may indicate having a high self-esteem. Subsequently, since these individuals do not have to engage in downward social comparison (i.e., self-enhance) to feel good about themselves, they may, in turn, spread less negative gossip. It may be interesting for future research to investigate these mediating effects.
Finally, prior research (Urdan & Mestas, 2006) indicates that there are cultural variations in terms of achievement goals; performance goals and mastery goals have different meanings and effects in different cultures. Hence, it may be vital for future research to replicate these findings in different cultures.
CONCLUSION
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APPENDIX A: Factor analysis
Table 1
Negative gossip scale (Nevo, Nevo & Zehavi, 1993)
Items Components Negative gossip 1 .09 .88 Negative gossip 2 -.08 .99 Negative gossip 3 -.04 .96 Negative gossip 4 -.03 .94 Negative gossip 5 .32 .56 Negative gossip 6 .71 .23 Negative gossip 7 .68 .20 Negative gossip 8 .13 .76 Negative gossip 9 .57 .43 Negative gossip 10 .79 .21 Negative gossip 11 1.04 -.15 Negative gossip 12 .61 .41 Negative gossip 13 .98 -.03 Negative gossip 14 1.03 -.12 Table 2
Trust scale (Mayer & Davis, 1999)
Items Components 1 2 3 Trust – ability 1 .84 -.12 .10 Trust – ability 2 .76 .25 .04 Trust – ability 3 .99 -.06 -.14 Trust – ability 4 .82 -.09 .14 Trust – ability 5 .85 .13 -.06 Trust – ability 6 .91 -.00 .01 Trust – benevolence 1 .00 .81 .20 Trust – benevolence 2 .11 .78 .19 Trust – benevolence 3 -.14 .20 .70 Trust – benevolence 4 .03 .62 .57 Trust – benevolence 5 .09 .24 .61 Trust – integrity 1 .07 .25 .75 Trust – integrity 2 .11 -.18 .86 Trust – integrity 3 .08 -.26 .85 Trust – integrity 4* -.02 -.68 .34 Trust – integrity 5 .21 -.12 .61 Trust – integrity 6 .38 .03 .41
