It's my idea! Reputation management and idea appropriation

Abstract

Accurately assessing others' reputation, and developing a reputation as a competent, honest, fair individual—a good epistemic and moral reputation—are critical skills. In six online experiments (N = 2811), replicated with English and Japanese participants, we found that one way to improve our epistemic reputation is to display our competence by sharing valuable ideas, especially if we appropriate these ideas—i.e. present them as being our own, and not someone else's, whether that is the case or not (H1). But idea appropriation also entails some risks, otherwise it would lose its quality as a reliable signal. In particular, appropriating a bad idea damages one's epistemic reputation (H2), and being caught appropriating someone else's idea damages one's moral reputation (H3). As a consequence, people are more likely to appropriate good ideas when they are motivated to display their competence (H4), and less likely to do so when the odds of getting caught increase (H5). The way people negotiate the tradeoffs of reputation management as they communicate can help explain the spread of information, as well as misinformation.

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