Why gossiping is good and how to do it right

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Discussing others is perfectly natural. But it's important not to go overboard.

Back in the 1990s, researchers found that more than half of our communication is discussion of other people and their actions, that is, just gossip. Women's conversations consist of 67%, and men's - 55%.

Gossip is often considered bad, stupid and unworthy, and is associated with undercover intrigue and malice. In fact, although such conversations are far from highly intellectual conversations, there is nothing terrible about them most often. Gossip can even be good for us, especially if we follow the rules.

Why Gossiping Isn't Always Bad

In 2019, an interesting study was published in the American scientific journal on social psychology and personality psychology. Professor Megan Robbins and her colleagues hung up tape recorders on 467 volunteers and recorded the conversations they had.

First, it turned out that people devoted an average of 52 minutes a day to gossip. Secondly, two-thirds of these conversations were not negative. However, they did not wear a positive one either. The participants were simply discussing people they knew and did not know and, according to the researchers, these discussions were more boring than angry for an outside listener. So the image of a gossip, or rather a gossip, as a harmful and envious person is far from the truth.

The author of the study, Megan Robbins, believes that gossip is just talk about a person who is not present during these very conversations. So a gossip is literally every one of us.

Why do we gossip and why it is sometimes useful

Gossip is an ancient survival mechanism

Previously, a person without other people nowhere, and the luxury of being a social phobia-hermit was available to few people. So that you would not be thrown out of society like you, you had to actively interact with them and be as pleasant for them as possible.

And gossip and other easy conversations make it possible to establish and maintain contact with many fellow tribesmen at once. This is much easier than talking about quantum physics: the conversation is quickly struck up and easily maintained, the participants almost always leave happy with themselves and each other.

This idea was first expressed by evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, comparing gossip and retelling different tales to each other with grooming, with the help of which monkeys forge connections within their groups.

In addition, in times without the media, telephones and the Internet, gossip served as almost the only channel for disseminating important information. Of course, now it is possible to establish communication without gossip, and in general, personal interaction with other homo sapiens has become not so vital. And yet, lightweight discussion of celebrities, bosses, colleagues, husbands and neighbors remains a simple and affordable way to establish contact and spend a few minutes pleasantly.

Gossip is nice

When we hear scandalous facts about acquaintances or, for example, celebrities, a reward center is activated in our brain - and we get some pleasure.

Gossip is a way to learn

In particular, we can understand what is acceptable in a particular society and what is not. For example, you have come to a new job and do not yet understand how everything works. And now you hear Ira and Misha discussing Vasya, who has the audacity to go home at exactly six in the evening and heats the fish in the microwave in the shared kitchen. It immediately becomes clear to you that workaholism and overwork are held in high esteem, while fish is not at all held in high esteem. And you can adjust your behavior. Or think about changing jobs.

Seriously, it is precisely this function - teaching - that some researchers attribute to gossip. Today there are many other opportunities to find out the rules of the game, but earlier everything was much more complicated, and gossip helped a lot.

Gossip is an opportunity to let off steam

Scientists have compared the experiences of people when they only listen to exciting or terrible news about scandals, injustice and lawlessness, and when they themselves take an active part in the discussion. It turned out that in the first case, their heart rate increases, and in the second, on the contrary, decreases. That is, gossip has a calming effect.

How to gossip correctly

All this, of course, is great, but gossip is still not entirely harmless. They can ruin your reputation, upset relationships, and make you really nervous. So you can gossip, moreover, we can't get away from it - it's part of our nature. But it's better to follow a few rules.

1. Do not talk about who the interlocutor knows personally

Ideal if only you are familiar with the subject of discussion. Or is it generally a celebrity who is neither cold nor hot from talking about her.

It's one thing to complain to a colleague about the husband's brother's wife, and then discuss her bad behavior together, and quite another thing to talk about the chief accountant. In the first case, no one will give anything to the "victim" of gossip, and your indignation will not harm her in any way. But in the second, options are possible.

2. Don't give out secrets

If you have been given personal and sensitive information, and you have spilled it out without permission, this is, to put it mildly, inappropriate behavior. So you can ruin the life of both the one who trusted you and yourself: everyone will know that you are a very unreliable person.

3. Don't lie

It's okay to discuss the other person's behavior. To come up with a couple of stories or fried facts about him is no longer there. This is called spreading rumors.

4. Be correct in your statements

It is better to choose neutral expressions and refrain from rude and offensive epithets. Firstly, they can reach the object of discussion, and it will be unpleasant. And secondly, it doesn't paint you either.

5. Think ten times

Make sure that washing the bones does not harm anyone, neither you, nor the person you are about to discuss. And the conversation will not hurt his reputation, will not spoil his relationship with someone and that he will not be given the content of your conversation.