Truth, Lies, and Gossip.

It is widely assumed that people will share inaccurate gossip for their own selfish purposes. This assumption, if true, presents a challenge to the growing body of work positing that gossip is a ready source of accurate reputational information and therefore is welfare improving. We tested this inaccuracy assumption by examining the frequency and form of spontaneous lies shared between gossiping members of networks playing a series of one-shot trust games (