doi: 10.1080/10887150902886423, De Backer, C. J., Nelissen, M., Vyncke, P., Braeckman, J., and Mcandrew, F. T. (2007). As outlined earlier, gossip appears to be a painless-and-quick mean to get information about the social surrounding and oneself; either by explicitly using gossip to validate and gather information or by trying to foster relationships in order to have an audience to act. The jealous gossip is perhaps the most common gossip. When my husband first became a pastor, he quickly learned frustration, disappointment, and hurt sometimes came with the territory. Focusing on the social functions, that can be understood as not necessarily intended social consequences of gossip behavior, research clearly paints a positive picture of gossip. Manag. All rights reserved. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. 55, 323. Contemp. Synonyms for GOSSIP: gossiper, informant, gossipmonger, informer, yenta, circulator, newsmonger, quidnunc; Antonyms of GOSSIP: shut up, clam up 8, 7899. 8, 111121. All rights reserved. However, whereas individuals scoring high on narcissism appear to use gossip in a malicious way in private settings, individuals scoring high on Machiavellianism tend to bad-mouth others in professional settings. Spreading tales about a coworkers sex life, criminal background, suspected company policy infractions, or medical problems are all examples of harmful workplace gossip. 85, 842860. Individ. They also found that people with higher incomes tended to gossip more neutrally than people with lower incomes. IGum Informationen ber die abwesende Person zu sammeln. According to Bayesian repeated ANOVA, the model containing the two main effects and the interaction effect received overwhelming support from the data with a BF10 = 6.33 1079. Regression analysis with motives as dependent variables and dark triad personality traits as independent variables (N = 134). The motivational pattern was highly similar between private and work context. Foster, E. K. (2004). (2018b). Moreover, to create a concise measure three items were chosen from the respective subscale to represent the social enjoyment motive and the negative influence motive. So, keep on talking. The ugly truth: negative gossip about celebrities and positive gossip about self entertain people in different ways. Natl. Also, post-hoc power analysis for the two regression analyses not reaching conventional levels of significance (i.e., for information gathering and protection in private setting) revealed that the F-tests did not achieve sufficient power (0.13 for protection and 0.58 for information gathering). Instead, If your enemies are hungry, feed them. Here's how to get better at it. Internal consistency was highly satisfactory for all subscales (see Figure 1) and, if applicable, comparable to those of Beersma and Van Kleef (2012). 11 Habits of Needy People. The potentially more competitive professional setting elicited more malicious gossip only by people scoring high on Machiavellianism. As the common core the tendency to deceive, manipulate, and exploit others for one's own benefit has been suggested (Lee et al., 2013; see also Jones and Figueredo, 2013). To make it even more complicated, it is plausible to assume that people have different motives at the same time. The logician wants to stand out from the crowd. (The researchers also polled how the subjects felt, in addition to studying what their brain images revealed. Pum die Person, mit der ich gesprochen habe, vor der abwesenden Person zu schtzen. Psychol. Bless her heart.. The findings suggest that the negative reputation of gossip is not justified. B., Niederhoffer, K., and Swann, W. B. Jr. (2006). Predictably, the study showed that people felt happier when they heard positive gossip about themselves and felt more agitated when they heard negative gossip about themselves. The gossiper begins by saying something positive about the gossipee. (2013). Psychol. Examining these three categories separately, they found that younger people tended to gossip more negatively than older people. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1977.tb01812.x, Swann, W. B., Stephenson, B., and Pittman, T. S. (1981). Dif. Psychologists have traditionally looked to the "Big Five" personality traits -- which consist of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience -- as a means of taking a thorough assessment of a person's attitudes and behaviors. If this explanation sounds overwhelming, the good news is that it's time to get practical. A social network analysis of positive and negative gossip in organizational life. Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity. We tend to think of gossip as a negative behavior when, for instance, we tattle on someone or share information behind someone elses back that may show them in a bad light. In the work setting, Bayesian linear regression analyses show that all models received support from the data with BF10s varying between BF10 = 2.30 for social enjoyment and BF10 = 122473.60 for relationship building. Thus, exchanging information about others enables us to learn without direct interaction and observation. Empirical findings have shown that people take the presumed motivation of a gossiper into account when judging the morality of the respective gossiper, for instance (Beersma and Van Kleef, 2012). When someone always tells the truth, honesty is one of their personality traits. In contrast, the Bayes factor (BF) provided in Bayesian analysis is comparative as it weighs the support for one model against that of another. However, one might also evaluate gossip with respect to other dimensions such as positivity or negativity of the transmitted information or the intention of the gossiper (Eckhaus and Ben-Hador, 2018). Behav. Gen. Psychol. Gossip as social comparison. Is that news going to stop something bad from happening? Another reason to exchange information about a third person was to build trust to one's gossip partner. Hearing information about others serves important social functions such as learning without direct interaction and observation. Dif. Validating their view of the social world and gaining information through gossip is likely to help the individual to form a map of their social environment and their position within that social environment in the long run (Suls, 1977; Baumeister et al., 2004; Foster, 2004; De Backer et al., 2007; Sommerfeld et al., 2007; Martinescu et al., 2014). A man who spends most of his time gossiping about other people and even his friends usually has a general feeling of inadequacy in his own sphere of life. Jonason and Schmitt (2012) argued that being surrounded by a lot of (potential) friends is a way to satisfy the continuous need for self-validation; likewise, it may serve the need for external self-affirmation and appreciationyou need audience when you want to shine on stage (Morf and Rhodewalt, 2001). doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00956.x, Behling, O., and Law, K. S. (2000). Encourage them to find a healthy balance between pushing themselves and making mistakes. doi: 10.1177/107179190601200401. Gossip refers to the exchange of information about characteristics and behaviors of an absent person (Dunbar, 2004b; Foster, 2004; Peters and Kashima, 2015). 9, 189201. Avoider gossip is based in fear, not love. J. Pers. This means, people instigate gossip to gather information and compare their ideas about others, to enjoy themselves, to spread negative information about a third person, and/or to protect the person they are talking with. It appears that we do not learn only about extraordinary experience made by others but also about more trivial things such as dressing style (De Backer et al., 2007). Gaining social information and knowledge about people surrounding us provides us with a sense of control and advantage over others (e.g., Swann et al., 1981; Fiske, 2004). Also, the p-value in classical analysis provides the information about the probability of obtaining results as least as extreme as those observed given that the null hypothesis is true; the alternative hypothesis is left unspecified (Wagenmakers et al., 2018b). Characteristics of gossips are: insecurity, jealous of others, low self esteem, angry at the world, have too much idle time on their hands, usually don't have any hobbies or activities they could be doing instead of rumor mongering, unhappy with their lives, don't like to see other people happy, attention seekers, like giving the illusion that Psychol. doi: 10.1348/000712605X85871, Michelson, G., and Mouly, V. S. (2004). 73, 2938. In a 2019 meta-analysis published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, Robbins and a colleague found that, of the 52 minutes a day on average the 467 subjects spent gossiping, three-quarters of that gossip was actually neutral. Soc. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. When we notice something unjust in the world, our natural instinct as a Libra is to want to correct it, to create balance and harmony. Psychol. Halter, C. (2018). PLoS ONE 13:e0203891. Bless her heart. My neighbor will sure have her hands full with another baby on the way, so close to the youngest. Most start with the same basic idea: Gossip is a conversation between two people that concerns a third person who is not present. Gossiping comes naturally and most of the time occurs almost unconsciously to break up the monotony of routine activities or simply to spice up conversations. Acad. He is reluctant to be usually to be called. Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby is like that friend. Not surprisingly, they were happier to hear positive gossip about themselves, and more irked by hearing negative gossip about themselves as opposed to hearing gossip about others.). A good gossiper is someone who people trust with information and someone who uses that information in a responsible way. Scold them a little and you might just have tears streaming down their tiny little faces. Gossiping as moral social action: a functionalist account of gossiper perceptions, in Social Cognition and Communication, , eds J. P. Forgas, O. Vincze and J. Laszlo (New York, NY: Psychology Press), 185202. Dark and immoral: the links between pathological personality features and moral values. There, for all to see, was her concern, written next to her name. (2015). Bayesian analyses were conducted using the JASP statistic package (version 0.9.2). Dif. (2013). Its harmful because without firsthand knowledge, those who are in a position to intervene in dangerous or destructive situations are unable to do so in a timely manner. Table 1. Who are the objects of positive and negative gossip at work? The dark triad personality traits were measured using the German version of the Dirty Dozen scale (DD, German version: Kfner et al., 2014; original version: Jonason and Webster, 2010). Fiske, S. T. (2004). 27, 169184. That means, when broadening the view and evaluating gossip not only with regard to social functions but also with regard the intention of the gossiper a positive impression of gossip emerges. Rev. Interpersonal chemistry through negativity: bonding by sharing negative attitudes about others. doi: 10.1016/j.avb.2014.04.006, Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A., and Dunbar, R. (2006). Dif. Thirdly, the present study has been conducted as an online study warranting complete anonymity. Pers. Events that are unusual, dramatic, or lasting ensure that a rich representation is formed and are stored in the long-term memory. But if youve ever lived anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, you are already nodding your head. Gossip differs from the human tendency to talk about other people in that gossip focuses on negative information. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.045, Jonason, P. K., and Webster, G. D. (2010). Whether behavior can be judged as good or bad depends, at least in part, on the intention of the individuals engaging in that behavior. She was speechless. When you find out the person your friend has a crush on has a bad reputation. Think about how you feel when someone pokes their nose into your personal affairs. van de Schoot, R., Kaplan, D., Denissen, J., Asendorpf, J. Thus, calibrating the own perspective and gathering information about other people, and thereby about the self, appears to be important when gossiping, specifically for people who shy away from more direct forms of social comparisons due to a vulnerable self-concept. Baumeister, R. F. (1998). One might speculate that the positive social functions of gossip depend on a moderate use of gossip be it with regard to the amount or the valence of gossip. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(07)00003-2, Kfner, A. C., Dufner, M., and Back, M. D. (2014). A personality trait describes how a person tends to think, feel, and behave on an ongoing basis. Due to parsimonious reasons, we only report the results not controlling for gender. J. Occup. And indeed, a post hoc power analysis for the repeated ANOVA revealed that the F-test of the main effect situation did not achieve sufficient power (0.40) to detect an effect. php global variable not working in function / how to knit checkerboard pattern with two colors / personality traits of a gossip. Authors use character traits, also known as characterization, to guide story development and to move their plot forward. Torres research has found that gossip can stave off loneliness, while other studies have found it can facilitate bonding and closeness and serve as a form of entertainment. People usually gossip spontaneously and in private, so it's almost impossible to study gossip in a laboratory setting. doi: 10.1016/j.socnet.2011.11.003, Ellwardt, L., Steglich, C., and Wittek, R. (2012b). 7 Articles, This article is part of the Research Topic, https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-68883, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), Faculty of Communication and Environment, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany. Exp. Constructing Reality and Its Alternatives: An Inclusion/ Exclusion Model of Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Social Judgment (ZUMA-Arbeitsbericht, 1991/05). The Motives to Gossip Questionnaire contains 22 items tapping into four different motives, namely the information gathering and validation motive (nine items), the social enjoyment motive (five items), the negative influence motive (five items), and the group protection motive (three items). Extroverts are social, assertive, socially confident and love interacting with people.. Individ. On the contrary, each participants was first asked to think about a gossip event in private setting and then in a professional setting. Bless Your Heart gossip is manipulative, spiteful, and mean. Research on gossip: taxonomy, methods, and future directions. Eur. Dif. If knowledge is power, gossip is turbocharged power. Its more difficult for real people to grow and change their personality traits (Wouldnt it be nice if we could resolve our biggest personality flaws in a few pages?). Differentiating the Dark Triad within the interpersonal Curcumplex, in Handbook of Interpersonal Psychology: Theory, Research, Assessment and Therapeutic Interventions, eds L. M. Horowitz and S. Strack (New York, NY: Wiley and Sons), 249269. Hence, to evaluate whether a certain behavior is good or bad, the underlying reasons or the intentions should be taken into account. People hearing gossip good and bad about themselves, as well as negative gossip in general, showed more activity in the prefrontal cortex of their brains, which is key to our ability to navigate complex social behaviors. But rather than going directly to the offending party as Matthew 18 instructs, or going to a person who can help (the parent, a pastor, law enforcement), they pass on the information in hopes the right person will somehow hear the right information, and do the right thing. Sci. Accordingly, more narcissistic individuals have a higher need for a superior identity. Creative Minds Press. doi: 10.1080/09585192.2014.985329, Lee, K., Ashton, M., Wiltshire, J., Bourdage, J., Visser, B., and Gallucci, A. Eleven participants had missing values varying between 1.80 and 35.70%. In contrast to our expectation, we did not find any negative relationship between the dark triad and the protection motive. The self, in The Handbook of Social Psychology, eds D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, and L. Gardner. Evol. Gossip and the Reasons Why We and Individuals With Dark Personalities Talk About Others. Research on organizational features that hinder or facilitate workplace bullying suggest that organizations may vary on enabling structures and processes (e.g., perceived power imbalance, frustration), on motivating structures and processes (e.g., internal competition, reward system), and on precipitating processes (e.g., organizational changes; Salin, 2003; Crothers et al., 2009). doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2007.00665.x, Lyons, M. T., and Hughes, S. (2015). Second, even people with so called dark personalities are not invariably triggered by malicious motives when talking about others. While the Bless Your Heart gossip cloaks negative information about others in a guise of compassion, the bitter-vengeful gossip makes no attempt at hiding his or her glee at others misfortune. 19, 196199. The Dark Triad of personality: a 10 year review. doi: 10.1108/14777260510615404, Wagenmakers, E. J., Love, J., Marsman, M., Jamil, T., Ly, A., Verhagen, J., et al. Shes the author of Seek: A Womans Guide to Meeting God, Raising Kids with Good Manners, and Taming Your Family Zoo, and has been a guest on numerous radio and television shows including Focus on the Family, At Home, Live! doi: 10.3758/s13423-017-1343-3, Watson, D. C. (2011). doi: 10.1037/a0016338, Barrett, L., Dunbar, R., and Lycett, J. Thus, sharing information about others is a way to build and maintain relationships and networks. Autor de l'entrada Per ; Data de l'entrada ice detention center colorado; https nhs vc hh cardiac surgery . Third, the order in which participants had to report on gossip in a work and in a private setting was not varied between participants. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12255, Yukl, G., and Falbe, C. M. (1990). Which brings us to the heart of gossip. Neurosci. This indicates that that the data are 4.48 1082 times more likely under the model that assumes differences between motives than under the model that assumes no such differences. Positive gossip. Participants have to consult their autobiographical memory to identify relevant behavioral events, and, in addition, remember in detail the reasons for this behavior (e.g., Sudman et al., 1996). It depends on whom you vent to, and how you vent. Soc. Sometimes jealous gossip stems from wanting to be right, or best, or number one. Highly toxic people don't give constructive criticism as a way to help you - they throw nuggets of disdain rather than wisdom your way in order to make you double your efforts to please them. All other motives were equally important in private and work settings (p > 0.49; see Figure 2). Heres how to make sure youre gossiping in a responsible, trustworthy way: Whether youre gossiping in a responsible way or not is all a matter of when youre doing it and with whom youre sharing the information, McAndrew says. A close friend of Daisy Buchanan's, Jordan dates Nick Carraway during the novel and plays a crucial role in reuniting Daisy with the titular Jay Gatsby. However, if even individuals with dark personalities rarely use gossip with the intention to harm others, the positive aspects of gossip would be underlined. J. Psychol. 4. Malicious mouths? Importantly, even individuals that are willing to dismiss commonly accepted social norms, act selfishly, and harm others for their own good appear to use gossip to tune their picture of other humans and themselves and not to harm others. The acquaintance put the concern on the church prayer chain. Read on to learn the top 10 types of gossip. In addition, it has been suggested that, at the group level, gossip leads to group specific knowledge, norms, and trust, in turn supporting group cohesion and bonding (e.g., Dunbar, 2004b; Foster, 2004; Peters et al., 2017). This might be due to similar gossip behavior across different situations or due to the fact that the distinction between work and private situations has not been precise enough. 26, 22882307. Gossip never blesses anyoneeven if bless your heart is tagged on at the end. Everyone has that one amazing friend whos funny, smart, generous, and creative in fact, just being around them makes you feel funny, smart, generous, and creative too. The exchanged information enables individuals to get a map of their social environment and their position within that social environment (Suls, 1977; Baumeister et al., 2004; Foster, 2004; De Backer et al., 2007; Sommerfeld et al., 2007; Martinescu et al., 2014). It's important that psychologists understand a patient's emotional pain and to show compassion. (2015). Gossip doesnt do a lot of good if its informational content is unreliable, he says. Such individuals are often in a state of depression and do not know how to enjoy life. Unpublished Research report, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany. It was kind of boring, Robbins says, not salacious and negative at all. Miss Emily Grierson Character Analysis. Individ. Pers. She is mom to their three wildly funny young adult kids, who frequently sit on her kitchen counter, just to chat. For example, if they are talkative at home, they tend also to be talkative at work. Gossip and emotion in nursing and health-care organizations. Why people gossip: an empirical analysis of social motives, antecedents, and consequences. Knowing what you value will help you build the most meaningful life possible. Women engaged in more neutral gossip than men, but the amount of negative and positive gossip shared among men and among women was fairly consistent.