Positive Aspects of Gossip
Humans are brought up with teaching that gossip is bad. The loose lips have the capability of sinking ships as was mentioned in the poster of the 2nd World War. Relationship experts the same way have mentioned that the 66 percent to 80 percent of the daily conversation emphasizes on the other people. Robin Dunbar in his book titled “Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language” has mentioned that the activity of speaking of other person’s life and rumours is a major instrument of social bonding and social order. Dunbar mentions that the reasons and the facts that are not actually clear acquires the shape of a gossip and also takes the shape of a shady reputation. However, initially the term gossip did not carry the meaning that it carries now. Initially it was meant an activity with a close person that they are close with (Dunbar). The study will emphasize on the question “Does gossip serve a useful social function”? and it will be present both he positive and the negative aspects of gossip.
If gossip can be used as it was intended, then it can have several benefits. The arguments that poses gossip to be beneficial for the society can be enumerated in the following way. Firstly, gossip can help in identifying the things that needs to be changed. Gossip is considered to be a moral issue; however, it can be used to solve issues or problems. Gossip is a perfect indicator of the lack of workability and if a person identifies what is coming out of his or her mouth then the battle is half won already. Secondly, gossip helps in protecting the society. Gossip can be constructively to alert the person that is unprepared and may be victimized later. In a similar way, the activity of the offender can also be ostracized. This finding has be conducted at the Stanford University and the work was published in the Psychological Science (Beersma and Van Kleef). Groups that allow their members to gossip help in sustaining the cooperation and at the same time deter selfishness. Furthermore, the groups that allow their team members to gossip and ostracize the members that are untrustworthy serve the important functions for both the society and groups. Thirdly, one of the biggest benefits of gossiping is that it relieves anxiety. Research conducted at the University of the California, Berkley has highlighted that the participants experienced increase in the heart rate and stress when he saw some misbehaving. However, when the participant shared the same incident with the other participants, the effect reduced. Thus, it can be concluded that by spreading information of a person that behaved badly make others to feel better and it reduced the frustration that led to the initiation of the gossip (Giardini and Conte). Fourthly, gossiping brings the option of improving oneself because all the gossips are not always negative. Research conducted at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have found that the hearing good stories about others acts as a useful source of motivation for the self- improvement. While the negative gossip also provided the information on what a person must not do to jeopardize his or her reputation (Martinescu, Janssen and Nijstad). Furthermore, hearing gossip can also help in gaining knowledge of oneself, because of the fact that humans can indirectly compare themselves with the person they are hearing the gossip on. Fifthly, gossip act as a key factor in the development of cooperation and trust. Sharing of private information helps in the establishment of relationship between two people and the information shared remains confined within themselves. This brings a coherence between two people in which they try to work together on activities. Furthermore, it can be said that the people that hear gossip on the behaviours of other people can use the same information to align their own actions (Peters and Kashima).
Negative Aspects of Gossip
The benefits of gossips have been already emphasized and the major issue with the people that gossip is that they never look towards the dark side of gossip. The consequences of the gossiping are not felt then and there, but they are rather felt later on. When one thinks deeply regarding the negative aspects of gossiping, the intentions of gossiping become quite clear. It is true that some people receives the desired and gained satisfaction through the gossiping habit. However, that does not guarantee the intentions of the person clearly. The main fact is the majority of the people gossip about the person in the absence of that person. While, the person on which the gossiping is carried on is their friend (Smith). For an example, a couple in a relationship broke up because the boy heard a gossip that the girl was having a relationship with another boy. However, later on it was found that the whatever gossip and rumours that the boy have heard are all lies. The worst situation is that the person from whom the boy had heard the gossip is his friend and thus the boy trusted his friend. Gossiping can act badly on a person and one of the disadvantage is that it can render a person be nobody and leave the person to be a gossiper. It can be noticed that when someone tries to gossip with another person, the listener tends to feel uneasy with the gossiper. From the psychological point of view, when a person gossips of another wrongfully the gossiper in his or her subconscious mind believes that the facts are not true (Giardini). The gossiper will eventually develop the guilty feelings whenever he or she will see the person. The gossiper tends to live with fear of whether the person has come to know about all the untruthful things. Thus, gossip be unhealthy for some people and it can hamper their inner self. Gossiping has the capability of destroying the self-esteem of the gossiper. Gossiping is not good because the it destroys the capability of the person from doing anything on their own. It is a common phenomenon that people that love to gossip always indulge with the groups that actively participate in gossiping (Robinson). This is a common phenomenon because when a person develops a habit of gossiping, he or she will always find the scope of indulging into short ways and means of solving his or her problem. The reason is that the act of gossiping of erodes the self-esteem and the self-confidence which has been destroyed due to the repeated act and habit of gossiping. Therefore, it can be concluded that gossip in any form is not good and it does not destroy the physical person but it destroys the person from inside. Thus, it is a big realization and if everyone can understand it then there will be no need for people to gossip (Peters and Kashima).
Conclusion- From the above discussion it can be concluded that the gossip is undeniably an intrinsic part of the human life even if it carries some bad reputation, gossip serves some of the important functions in society. If the mindless and the empty talk are kept aside, the consequences and the motives if gossip is complex than what majority of the people can realize. Even sometimes gossip can be troublesome and hurtful, but there are several positive benefits associated with even negative gossip. Thus, the question asked in the beginning of the study clearly establishes the fact of gossip both from the positive and negative sides.
References
Beersma, Bianca, and Gerben A. Van Kleef. “Why people gossip: An empirical analysis of social motives, antecedents, and consequences.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 42.11 (2012): 2640-2670.
Dunbar, Robin. Grooming, gossip, and the evolution of language. Harvard University Press, 1998.
Giardini, Francesca, and Rosaria Conte. “Gossip for social control in natural and artificial societies.” Simulation 88.1 (2012): 18-32.
Giardini, Francesca. “Deterrence and transmission as mechanisms ensuring reliability of gossip.” Cognitive processing 13.2 (2012): 465-475.
Martinescu, Elena, Onne Janssen, and Bernard A. Nijstad. “Tell me the gossip: the self-evaluative function of receiving gossip about others.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 40.12 (2014): 1668-1680.
Peters, Kim, and Yoshihisa Kashima. “Bad habit or social good? How perceptions of gossiper morality are related to gossip content.” European Journal of Social Psychology 45.6 (2015): 784-798.
Peters, Kim, and Yoshihisa Kashima. “Gossiping as moral social action: A functionalist account of gossiper perceptions.” Social cognition and communication. Psychology Press, New York (2014): 185-202.
Robinson, Brian. “Character, caricature, and gossip.” The Monist 99.2 (2016): 198-211.
Smith, Eliot R. “Evil acts and malicious gossip: A multiagent model of the effects of gossip in socially distributed person perception.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 18.4 (2014): 311-325.
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