The document discusses how reputation and gossip can help explain cooperation in human societies through social control mechanisms. It outlines how reputation involves reported evaluations of others' character and how gossip allows spreading these evaluations indirectly at low cost, which provides incentives for participation in social control and optimizes the identification of non-cooperators while reducing retaliation risks. Ethnographic examples from various small-scale societies show how gossip typically involves vague or indefinite sources and targets to avoid reprisals.

1. Reputation in Evolution Rosaria Conte LABSS/ISTC-CNR ICORE, Gargonza, Italy March 18-20, 2009

4. Strong Reciprocity

7. Tasks in Social Control

13. A Social Cognitive View of Reputation

14. Types of social evaluations Evaluations Image Reputation Set of evaluative beliefs about a given target Meta-beliefs about others’ evaluation

17. Reputation Transmission in Traditional Societies: An Overview “ Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need”.” Primo Levi "About Gossip," 1986).