OMG, have you heard?!

I arrive in work, instantly depressed at the thought of filling up yoghurts for the next 8 hours, with a little bit of tills thrown into the exciting mix. However before anything happens, the pre-work chat has to happen.

The first thing I hear is ‘you’ll never guess what happened this week!’. And then we spend a good 30 minutes gossiping.

It got me thinking. Firstly about the arguments, tales of abscesses in areas that not for discussion on stats blogs (his bum, in case you were wondering) and the new chef in the canteen (who is very good), but secondly about why we gossip. We all love a good gossip, and anyone who says they don’t is a liar. So, like a nerdy psychology geek, when I got home I looked up some research into gossiping and what we get from it because my Saturdays are THAT exciting.

So there I am, looking through ScienceDaily and MedicalXpress when I stumble upon some research that was carried out into the benefits of gossiping, and the effects they have on you as an individual. In January’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, psychologist Robb Willer makes the argument that gossip is therapeutic, and that gossiping lowers your heart rate if you can see something happening that requires gossiping about.

He wired 51 participants up to heart rate monitors as they watched two people play a game in which one was clearly playing unfairly. Upon seeing this their heart rate increased. It was suggested that this was because they were seeing behaviour they wanted to share, as it was unfair and cheating. When they were given the opportunity to share the gossip, their heart rate decreased. The ability to share the gossip enabled them to get their frustration ‘out of their system’, and calm them down. They were allowed to do this by slipping a ‘gossip note’ to someone who would soon play against the horrible cheating person.

In a similar experiment, participants were asked if they would give up the money they would receive for taking part in the experiment in order to pass a gossip note onto the next player so they were aware of the actions of the cheating player. Participants were so eager to share the information on the cheat that they did sacrifice money in order to share their news so that future players were aware of the devious way in which the other player was playing. That’s all well and good, but it’s very ‘instant’. These participants would never see each other again so as nice and fuzzy inside as this type of ‘pro social’ gossiping is, it doesn’t actually explain why we gossip about the stuff we generally gossip about.

But what does this research actually tell us about the social benefits of gossiping? Unfortunately I am unable to get hold of the full paper from home, so I’m basing my arguments on the two articles I’ve found which report almost the same thing.

Some social psychology research has found that the threat of gossip actually works in a positive way on our behaviour. The study (which you can read here) describes how people were asked to sell a portion of lottery tickets, or could keep loads for themselves. When how many were being kept by the seller was private, people were very selfish and kept l0ads back. However when they were under the belief their sales would be public, they became much more selfless and sold lots more tickets. Beersma and Van Kleef suggest this is because the threat of being gossiped about is something that no one wants, so will do what they have to to make sure they aren’t gossiped about – while at times it may be malicious, it can have social benefits as it can bring out the best in some people in their attempt to avoid it.

Tim Hallett carried out research into gossip in the workplace, and found that it was generally negative. He found in both formal and informal settings people were inclined to talk about certain people who were not present in a sarcastic, critical or negative way. What he did find though was that when gossip was used as a tool to compare one colleague with another, it was beneficial to the colleague being praised and they were viewed in a much better light.

So, what does research into gossiping show us? Well, we all do it, and it appears that there may be strong social benefits in gossiping. It appears, according to research that (and I’m going to keep stressing that) gossip is actually a form of helping someone, by warning them of a potential threat. Whether it be through a cheat note or by gossiping in a meeting, it seems to be that the act of gossiping is positive. I still think the research lacks a lot as there’s still loads of gossip that takes place which does not seem to have the same social benefit as the research I’ve highlighted has shown. Take for example your ‘friend’ who’s just got with this new girl and everyone is talking about it. There’s not social benefit to this, it’s just… well, good to know?! There still seems to be a lot of research to do if we are to fully understand how and why we gossip, but I think it’s one of those things we will struggle to measure.

Anyway, nearly 1000 words there and I need a cup of tea. I’ll leave you with this:

“We shouldn’t feel guilty for gossiping if the gossip helps prevent others from being taken advantage of” is Matthew Feinberg’s take on this research, and that is EXACTLY the reason I gossip.

Here’s my links and stuff:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120117145103.htm

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-gossip-purpose.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110712094207.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091028090526.htm