A research team led by Professor Hitoshi Yamamoto of Rissho University explored how people judge others when a person's public reputation doesn't align with their personal experience. Their findings, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior on September 14, 2026, highlight how individuals balance reputation and personal interactions when making decisions about cooperation or non-cooperation. In human societies, people often rely on reputation—what others say about someone—to decide whom to trust or help. This concept, called indirect reciprocity, plays a key role in encouraging cooperation. However, Yamamoto’s team wanted to understand how people adjust their judgments when their own experiences with someone contradict what they've heard about them. They conducted two experiments with Japanese participants, using scenarios involving coworkers at a restaurant and neighbors in a community. In the experiments, participants were shown situations where one person either cooperated or refused a request from another. The researchers manipulated two factors: the reputation of the person making the request and whether that person had previously helped or refused to help the participant. They then asked participants to evaluate the person who responded to the request. The results showed that when someone refused a request, participants’ evaluations of that refusal were strongly influenced by their personal experience with the person, even if the person had a bad reputation. For instance, if someone had previously helped the participant, their refusal was judged more harshly, even if they were known for being uncooperative. On the other hand, if the person had previously refused to help, their refusal was seen more favorably, even if they had a good reputation. Cooperation, by contrast, was generally viewed positively, regardless of the person’s reputation or the participant’s past experiences. This suggests that people may treat cooperation and non-cooperation differently in their judgments. Even when someone had a bad reputation and had previously refused to help, the act of refusing was still seen as neutral rather than positive. This indicates that while people may have good reasons to refuse, they don’t always view such behavior as "good." The study also highlights the complexity of human judgment in real-life situations, where public reputation and personal experience may not align. Previous research on indirect reciprocity has mostly focused on shared reputations, but this study shows how people combine different sources of information—what others say and what they personally experience—to form their judgments. Yamamoto noted that future research could explore how people use reputation in settings where personal experience is limited, such as online reviews or AI-based evaluations.