You probably heard about the Will Smith–Chris Rock slapping incident or, more recently, the #portapottydubai scandal? Have you talked about it with friends or family? Have you ever spoken in good or bad about someone who wasn't there? If your answer for at least one of the last two questions is yes (and it is.. probably), then I'm 'glad' to announce to you that.. you (too) are a gossiper. Everyone is. No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that we are not. Everyone is gossiping, at almost anytime, and anywhere. So, the question I asked myself was, is gossiping in our genes? Is it human nature? Why do we ever gossip? Have we nothing better to do? Or can we ever refrain from it? That's what we're going to try to figure out today. Thank you for joining me.
I. Redefine 'gossip'
For most people, myself included, gossiping was associated with rumors. From a societal point of view, gossip is often seen as a negative behavior and gossipers as malicious or evil people who spent their time talking about other people's lives behind their backs. They can be considered jealous, and not reliable. In certain religions, gossiping is even viewed as a sin. See:
James 1:26 (Bible): “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless”
Sura 49:12 (Qur'an): “O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is accepting of repentance and Merciful.”
According to the Greek dictionary, gossip (ψιθυρισμός/Psithurismos) is:
Derogatory information about someone that you have that is shared with others in a tone of confidentiality, that is not motivated by doing good to them, and that you are enjoying in a way that shows your heart is not humble.
In this definition, the focus is on the bad intentions of the gossiper and the lack of humility.
Based on it, you may probably still asking yourself why the Hell am I saying that everyone is a gossiper? But wait... I have something else for you. Let's start by redefining the term 'gossiping'. For Richard Weiner, lecturer, public relations consultant, author of 23 books, and fervent defender of gossiping, by the way, gossip is a written or spoken conversation about the private lives of other people who are not present. He sustained that everyone is a gossiper and even encourages people to do so. He also insisted on the difference between rumors and gossip by saying that: “While rumors have no reliable source and are usually false, gossip has an identifiable source and is based on truth.” For the social scientists who study gossip:
Gossip is any talk about someone who isn’t present, it’s usually about something we can make a moral judgment about (meaning you tend to approve of the information or disapprove), and it’s entertaining (meaning it doesn’t feel like work to do it; you tend to want to share or hear the information).
What makes gossip good, bad, or neutral is how we use the information, not the content of the news itself. We can go from simply talking about someone, to venting, backbiting, etc. But all of this is a kind of gossiping. For Weiner, when we gossip about people we know, we are either positive or neutral. When we talk about celebrities or famous people it's mostly negative.
II. Why do people gossip?
For some psychologists, gossiping is a social skill and can be considered a relic of our evolutionary past. Our ancestors (cave-men) needed gossip for their survival. Gossip is actually one of the societal forces that brings us together and helps maintain social order. Studies have shown that almost 1/2 of our conversation time is about gossiping. “That urge to share a juicy piece of news when you hear it is part of who we are and a natural characteristic of the species we’ve become.” said Frank T. Mc Andrew, Ph.D., the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Although gossiping is often stereotyped as a feminine, low-class, or uneducated pastime, it has been shown that everyone does it. Men and women. According to an IC Africa post, women engaged in neutral gossip more often than men, but women and men engaged in positive and negative gossip at very similar rates. Men usually gossip about sports, politics, and sex. While women mostly talk about fashion, food, sex, relationships, and entertainment.
“The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.” | George Bernard Shaw
For what reasons do you think people gossip? Based on my research and my personal experience, here are the top 10 reasons why people gossip:
To break the ice,
To protect others,
To make time pass,
To feel attached/connected to the people we've gossiped with,
To share pieces of information,
For fun, to get a kind of satisfaction,
To get attention,
To compare to others,
To let out our feelings,
To seek revenge.
III. The science of gossiping:
Gossip and our hormones: A study published in 2017 in the medical journal Psychoneuroendocrinology examines how gossiping affects the hormone levels responsible for feelings of euphoria, love, and trust. This small study concerned twenty-two (22) female college students between the ages of 20 and 22. Students were randomly assigned to a gossip conversation or to an emotional non-gossip conversation. Additionally, all participants underwent a neutral conversation on the second day of the study. Salivary oxytocin and cortisol levels were measured. Oxytocin increased significantly in the gossip compared to the emotional non-gossip conversation. A decrease in cortisol levels was observed in all three conditions (gossip, emotional non-gossip, neutral). Change in cortisol levels was similar across conditions. Psychological characteristics (e.g. empathy, autistic traits, perceived stress, envy) did not affect oxytocin rise in the gossip condition. So their findings suggest that oxytocin may represent a potential hormonal correlation to gossip behavior.
Gossip and our brains: Another study published in 2015 was designed to study the effects of listening to positive and negative gossip about ourselves, our best friends, and celebrities on our brains. The study was carried out on a random sampling of men and women. Findings were arrived at after the subjects were made to fill out a questionnaire and the scientists also carried out fMRI scans of the subjects’ brains. According to the findings from these scan reports, listening to gossip about themselves heightened activity in the superior medial prefrontal cortex of the subject's brains. This region also responded to negative gossip about others.
The subjects recorded increased activity in the orbital prefrontal cortex region of their brains in response to positive gossip about themselves. The neurotransmitter dopamine regulates the functionality of this region and activates the reward system. On the other hand, we tend to think that we are repulsed by negative gossip about others. But the fMRI images got during the above study bust this myth. The activation of the superior medial prefrontal cortex region in response to negative gossip about others shows that although we are not elated by 'black siding stories' of other people, we are amused.
By definition, a good gossiper is someone who people trust with information and someone who uses that information responsibly. The key is that you’re sharing information appropriately that’s helping others. A bad gossiper, on the other hand, is someone who indiscriminately blabs everything he/she has heard to anyone who will listen, or is an individual with a clearly selfish agenda in which gossip is designed to damage the reputations of others.
Sources:
In conclusion, we can say that gossiping doesn't inherently make you a bad person, it makes you human. The point is not about who gossips or who does not, but about why and how to use the information. Since it's almost impossible to not gossip, I hope you try to make the right choice! Thank you for reading. May God bless you, take care! But before you go, have you heard that...?
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