Loose Lips Sink Ships (Gossip Pt. 2)
I’m going to start out this blog post with a huge task for you.
Think about every conversation you’ve had today. What percentage of those conversations could be defined as gossiping, whether negative or positive?
You might be surprised to find that, according to two different studies from the ’90s, about two-thirds of conversations between both men and women are gossip. [1,2]
While we often think of gossip in a negative way and the people who are partaking in it as having nothing but malevolent intent, I strove to find out if there was a beneficial reason as to why we gossiped.
One of the people at Warren Wilson that I interviewed about what their take on gossiping was told me that they definitely thought gossiping was something that was evolutionary. Research suggests that she may be right, and gossip may have been an adaptation used for us to learn about our culture. One article states that “gossip may serve the function of cultural learning even though people may be drawn to gossip without being aware of any desire to promote cultural learning.” [3]
Another person I interviewed had the opinion that one reason we gossiped was to elicit a response from the audience. I found evidence for this in my findings as well. Because listeners give the gossiper a stronger reaction to what is being said if it is bad news rather than if it is something good, it’s assumed that gossip is mainly going to be about bad things in order to elicit this strong response each time, or to gain the listener’s interest each time.[3] You wouldn’t want to be the center of attention when gossiping and tell something that is of no interest to anyone or tell something that doesn’t cause a stir, right? Then where would you stand?!
Fine and Rosnow state that through gossip, social information is gathered, the competence and reliability of those you inform is tested, and your importance to a certain group is discovered.[4] It can be pretty beneficial, especially when it comes to socializing. Your in-group probably gossips about those around you more than anything, making you feel closer to each other overall.
But, I think the main con to gossip–and one of my interviewees shared this thought process as well–is the idea that gossip changes as it is whispered from ear to ear. Much like the telephone game, as my interviewee brought up as well, where one person starts out by saying a simple sentence such as, “I like pumpkin pie,” to their neighbor, which is then whispered across the area until the final person stands up and repeats what the last person just told them, which usually ends up transformed into something like, “Pumpkin pie is made of boogers and I eat it every day,” or something like that.
This can end up hurtful (well, maybe not the pumpkin pie scenario), especially when there’s been a situation where it turns out the people you trusted the most betrayed you and whispered–or yelled–around them exactly what you said you didn’t want anyone else hearing. So, like Fine and Rosnow concluded, you “test” the informers, which usually end up to be friends.
To end with, like I said at the beginning of this post, just think about how many conversations you had today that were gossip.
Were most of them positive? Probably not. If so, I probably really like you and most people do too.
Were they negative? Don’t be so hard on yourself–we still like you. In fact, maybe you were just conducting some cultural learning.
[1] Emler, N. (1994) Gossip, reputation, and social adaptation. In Goodman, B.F. & Ben-Ze’ev, A. (Eds.), Good Gossip. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 117-138.
[2] Turner, M. M., Mazur, M. A., Wendel, N., & Winslow, R. (2003). Relational ruin or social glue? The joint effect of relationship type and gossip valence on liking, trust, and expertise. Communication Monographs, 70(2), 129-141.
[3] Baumeister, R. F., Zhang, L., & Vohs, K. D. (2004). Gossip as cultural learning. Review of General Psychology, 8, 111-121.
[4]Fine, G.A. and R.L. Rosnow. 1978. Gossip, gossipers, gossiping. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 161-168.
frayednerves 
I wonder if we use gossip as a way to connect and relate with others. As humans, we’re social and feel comfort in having social connections. Gossip (whether good or bad) is a form of conversation in which we don’t have to talk about ourselves, so there’s no worries about giving too much information about our personal lives, and it usually feels more interesting than small talk.
It’s definitely about socialization!
Interesting that you would point out that it’s not about ourselves. I think it’s really because if we did, humiliation wouldn’t be something that would accept you into a group; neither would constantly boasting about what you did that day.
One thing I did come across though, was that some people gossip about others in a way to “test” whether something about themselves is found to be good/bad or socially accepted by finding it in another person and gossiping about them, then seeing how those who are gossiping react. I know I’ve done that myself.
That’s an interesting thought that we’re “testing” when we gossip. I know I’ve done that before, too. I see it when we gossip about celebrities. People ask what you think about so-and-so to see what your reaction is and what your opinions are.