Despite the pervasiveness of gossip in the workplace, there is a lack of comprehensive research on how recipients respond to it. It is crucial to consider how recipients interpret the senders’ intentions and their subsequent internal and external outcomes. We develop a process model combining attribution theory, social value orientation theory, and the social functional view of emotions. Specifically, we propose that gossip receivers will interpret and evaluate the intentions, needs, and goals behind the gossip event, attributing them to prosocial or proself motives. These attribution tendencies interact with gossip of different valences, activating receivers’ internal emotions targeting either the gossiper or the gossiped-about, which, in turn, influence the recipients’ own positive or negative behaviors. This attributional process, along with the transformation of intrinsic emotions into extrinsic behaviors, is bounded by the exchange relationships between the parties involved. The proposed model suggests that gossip valence does not always determine its impact, as negative gossip can have beneficial repercussions while positive gossip can have detrimental consequences, depending on the attributed motives of the gossip receiver.
