When I think about gossip, I think about the harms it can cause. I think about betrayal and secrets shared between two people in regards to someone else. I think about the recklessness of gossip, how it can shred trust. How it can estrange one person from a crowd or turn an individual against a group. I think about the aftermath of gossip—the disaster it leaves in its wake, and the reverberations of inaccuracies being magnified with each additional share.
I sat down to write this piece, driven by a strong inclination that gossip is a negative thing. I have witnessed the detrimental effects of gossip within friendships and work environments. I have seen false stories circulate that have caused harm to a person’s reputation, and I have seen privacies invaded and put on display for prying eyes, all in the name of shock and awe. These unpleasant experiences seem to bear more weight in my mind when I think about gossip. But I think my perception is skewed, perhaps by the very sound of the word. The very hiss of it. Gossip arrives in the wake of its own reputation, to be sure.
While my initial impression was that gossip is destructive, I must admit that such storytelling is influential. We are responsible for the words we choose, how we share them, and with whom we share them. Sometimes it might feel good to gab and blah without direction. However, gossip wields a lot of power, which can be used in various ways, depending on the underlying intention.
People generally don’t like finding out that other people have been talking about them in negative ways. It’s even more hurtful when people find out the rumors about them have been circulating for a while behind their back. Rumors always return to their subject eventually.
I think one reason people don’t like to be talked about in a negative way is that they are afraid of being abandoned or rejected. Perhaps the information being spread about them is inaccurate and could damage their reputation and credibility. Or perhaps they feel guilty for something wrong they actually did. What if we communicated with each other rather than about each other? When it comes to addressing problems, what if we confronted rather than avoided?
Our survival instincts are strong. We want to be admired and respected, for this will bring heightened chances for success. Creating positive gossip about ourselves by doing big things in front of lots of people might seem the way to go. But insecurity can cause us to believe that we will only survive socially if we are magnified at all times—if we are seen as better than other people—if we are elevated. The truth is, we don’t really need to be elevated above others in order to survive. We just need the support of a community. More than anything, we need collaboration.
Can gossip lead to collaboration?
Sometimes people use gossip as a way of bonding with one another. Getting together and assessing someone else’s behavior and coming to a shared conclusion can feel special. A social discovery is made, accompanied by an agreeable feeling of unity. Michal Leibowitz wrote a piece for the New Yorker about a series of interviews she conducted in the community. Reflecting back on one conversation, she noted, “We were talking about what happens in the best kinds of gossip sessions, the ones where you playact as psychologists…I thought of how accomplished I sometimes feel at the end of such a session, as if I’ve unlocked a secret of the human psyche” (2024). Maybe we gossip to help figure things out, both for ourselves and others. We want to understand. We all learn from our own wins and mistakes, so it’s perfectly natural that we would want to study other people’s wins and failures, take note, and then spread the word as a kind of learning resource. What do you think?
Fear of gossip can drive people to do some pretty strange things. Relying on molding other people’s perceptions, a person might build themself up to seem amazing. They spend so much time constructing the image and the illusion, until they have no energy left to build up the actual content of their character that makes them who they truly are. Social media is a hyper-speed form of gossip, relaying everything all at once. People discuss other people, all while defending their own external personas, wearing masks over their masks and shields over their shields. They think they are expressing themselves, but lose touch with what it means to be genuine.
Alternately, the fear of gossip might hold a person accountable and keep them in check. David Gilson wrote a thought-provoking piece for Stanford Business, in which he featured some interesting research on gossip, which was conducted by Professor Michele Gelfland. Gelfland asserts that, “‘Gossip is helpful because it disseminates information about people’s reputations, and that can help recipients of this information connect with more cooperative people” (2024). The professor conjects that people will behave less selfishly if they know they are in the proximity of someone who gossips. When the information being shared by the gossip-minded individual is generally accurate, then a form of moral moderation occurs within the group. Their awareness that a gossiper is in their midst could induce not simply a group consciousness, but a group conscience-ness.
In fact, Kathryn Waddington speaks on the duality of gossip, noting that, “Popular stereotypes of gossip overemphasise the negative judgments made in gossip, but it can be associated with compassion, empathy, and noticing suffering” (2022). Spreading information about a concern or broadcasting good news or a severe need can be heroic. On the other hand, Waddington adds that, “There are times when gossip can do harm to the reputation of people and organisations. Negative gossip is a form of bullying, which is detrimental to people’s wellbeing” (2022). Like any form of communication, the strength and dependability of gossip is based on a hearty blend of intention and truth. We can’t control the outcome of how people digest certain information and consequently how they rephrase it, but we can avoid fueling mean gossip.
Prior to my time spent writing this piece, I hadn’t heard about gossip being a positive thing. However, after contemplating the above references, I realize that usually within a group, there tends to be at least one person who is more social and potentially even nosy or intrusive. It could be that other people are wary about what they say around this person, or they are more concerned about how this person views them. Gossip relays its navigation as an all-seeing eye, like an undercover spy. Therefore, all in the vicinity are under scrutiny. It’s like when the teacher enters the room and the whole class suddenly gets quiet and stops throwing their paper airplanes and making their fart sounds. Perhaps every community needs a gossiper. On the other hand, if the gossiping individual is out to scavenge for exciting morsels of bad news simply to cause harm in the sharing, it would be better if they don’t hang around.
If negative gossip can have negative impact, common sense says that positive gossip would point to positive impact. It might even provide some benefit to society at large.
After all, gossip is really just a form of communication. That’s what it comes down to. It consists of people talking about people. I’d say when vocalizing our thoughts, if we imagine the person we’re talking about is in the room with us, and we realize that we would still feel comfortable saying what we are saying about them in front of them, then it’s probably positive gossip we are relaying. We can focus on spreading good news about people we admire and if we must spread negative concerns, this should be done in order to land solutions through supportive action.
I really didn’t expect to sit down and write something positive about gossip. As you can see, I started out chiding the very practice. I was framing gossip in a completely negative light. As I wrote, I researched, and as I researched, I learned. Now my perspective has grown and my opinion has shifted. I am excited to have landed upon something new, and I hope you did too. At the very least, you can observe my gradual evolution along the gleaning of fresh knowledge.
We influence one another with everything we say and everything we do.
Spread some kindly gossip today!
—
P.S. Are you just so intrigued that you’re craving further studies on gossip?
Check out this piece featured on the University of Maryland’s news page: Can’t Stand Gossip? New Research Suggests That Gabbing About Others Is ‘Not Always A Bad Thing’. The research that enriched this piece is laid out in an article on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) page, entitled Explaining the Evolution of Gossip.
And check out this informative NBC lifestyle piece: Psychologists say gossip is a social skill. Here’s how to know if you’re doing it right.
Leave a Reply