SYSK TRENDING - Why Gossip Is Actually Good for You

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1:22Gossip. It has a bad reputation. We're told it's petty, mean, and something decent people shouldn't do. But here's the thing. Everybody gossips, and it turns out there may be some very good reasons why. Gossip helps us figure out who we can trust, who we should avoid, and what the unwritten rules are in the groups we belong to. In fact, our fascination with other people's lives may have played an important role in human survival. And that's why today's SYSK trending topic is why gossip is actually good for you. So why are we drawn to gossip? When is it actually good for us? And when does it cross the line?

2:05My guest is psychologist Frank McAndrew, who has spent years studying gossip. And he's going to explain what gossip reveals about us and why life without it might be a lot more difficult than you think. And we'll get to those insights in just a moment. There's probably no better endorsement for a company than this. I keep buying their stuff. That's exactly what's happening with me and Quince. It started with their clothes. I've bought sweaters, polos, pants, jeans, shoes, a belt. And Quince has become one of the first places I look when I need something new to wear. And my wife and son buy from Quince, too, all the time.

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3:59As you know, people gossip. It's just kind of what people do. And when you say the word gossip, it does seem to have kind of a negative connotation to it. Gossip is really talking behind someone else's back. It's tacky. It's not the classy thing to do. And yet we all gossip to some extent. And it may in fact be a positive thing that offers real benefits. Frank McAndrew is one of the leading researchers on the topic of gossip, and he is a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois. Hey, Frank, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks, Mike. Happy to be here. So maybe before we start talking about gossip, we should have like a working definition here.

4:46What is it? Well, it is a word that gets misused a lot, and I'm always entertained by people who claim that they never gossip. but people who are in the gossip business usually define it in the following ways. First of all, it's talk about a person, and it has to be an individual that isn't present at the moment. So if I'm talking to you, I can't really gossip to you about yourself. It wouldn't qualify as gossip. Thirdly, it's usually information that we can make some kind of judgment about. We can approve or disapprove of the information that we're talking about. And finally, by definition, it's fun.

5:26We can't resist it. Nobody ever says, oh, I've got to go and gossip with my friends now. It's just inherently entertaining. And it does seem that if you get more than one person together, meaning two or more, gossip will ensue. It seems like it will almost always happen. Well, absolutely. The thing that probably matters the most to most of us in our lives are other people. What are other people doing? What are the implications for me? What are these other people thinking or saying about me? So social talk is really the most entertaining and important talk. And some have argued that it's one of the reasons we have language in the first place, so that we can keep up with each other.

6:12Well, when you describe it that way, that we're keeping up with people. It sounds very benign, but when I think of gossip, there's a nastiness to it. There's a negative connotation to it that isn't just keeping up with other people. It's talking about people behind their back, usually not in a very nice way. Is that fair? Oh, it's very fair. Whenever I talk to people who find out that I'm a gossip researcher, and that they hear that I sometimes say gossip isn't all bad. I get these frowns. And the problem is, I think people define gossip in a very narrow way. They only think of it as negative talk.

6:51And interestingly, they often define it as something that other people do. If they're talking about somebody, they're expressing concern, you know, Mary, oh, bless her heart, or they're sharing important information. They don't think of it as gossip. But in fact, most gossip is actually pretty benign. It serves a very valuable social function. For example, one of the things that may be a good citizen is that we know that other people are monitoring what we're doing and that they're talking to other people about it. So if you're at work and you're tempted to sort of slack off and let other people pick up your share of the load, one of the things that makes you be a good citizen is the fear of having your reputation solid.

7:35So in some ways, it's a way of keeping people in line. And it also creates a bond of trust. If I share some sensitive information with you, what I'm saying to you is, I trust you with this. I do not think you're going to use this information in a way that's going to come back to hurt me. And that creates a bond between us. So there are a lot of positive functions of gossip. And if we're talking about information that's positive. If you and I are discussing our coworker, Joe, and we're wondering if he's going to get that promotion that just opened up, that's not negative information about Joe, but we're gossiping.

8:10I think what people immediately do is they go to that dark place where they think of gossip as just you're making up information that's negative for the sole purpose of stabbing somebody in the back so that you can get ahead. And I'm not denying that gossip can be used that way. But that's not all that it is. Since you're a gossip researcher, what do you research and what do you find? I mean, what is there new to know about gossip? Being something of an evolutionary psychologist, when you see something that seems to be universal and that people do everywhere, you think that you're on to something about human nature.

8:50So if there was something adaptive about gossip, we ought to be able to make some predictions about what kind of information we like, what kinds of people we like to hear it about, who we would spread it to. So I set up some very simple experiments where we basically asked people, we'd give them samples of different gossip stories and ask them to rate which ones they'd want to read more about, which types of people they'd want to read them about, who they would tell them about. And to make a long story short, as you might expect, we are in fact interested in gossip about other people of our same sex that are close to us in age.

9:27We also found that we like dirt about powerful people and rivals, because this is the stuff that we can use to get ahead. On the other hand, we like good information about allies, friends, relatives, because that's stuff that we can use to get ahead. So we're drawn to information that we see as being useful to us. And unfortunately, that is often dirt. Yeah. Well, it seems to me it's interesting that you say that because a lot of gossip seems idle. Like it's just gossip for gossip's sake and, ooh, did you hear about Betty? And, oh, Bob did this. And there's no real usefulness to it. It's just, ooh, did you hear?

10:13No, and there may not be any usefulness in the immediate situation. But by engaging in this on a regular basis with people, you're sort of greasing the skids for other people to trust you with information that might be more important and useful down the line. So what you're really doing is setting up the channels and maintaining the relationships that keeps you in the network. And that's one of the reasons why gossip is just inherently entertaining. It's fun to talk about Bill and Betty, even if you're just kind of engaging in idle chit chat, because you never know where that's going to lead next.

10:45It's just a very engaging sort of thing. But isn't there gossip that is basically used as a weapon? Absolutely. And a lot of damage is done by that. And the whole social media world that we live in now with Facebook in particular and Twitter are ways of spreading gossip on a scale that we're just completely unprepared to deal with. I'm talking about gossip so far as if, oh, it's this wonderful thing that keeps society humming. But there's no doubt about it. it can be used as a weapon. And in fact, the stereotype has more than a grain of truth to it. Females are more likely than males to use gossip as a weapon to ostracize their rivals, to destroy their reputations.

11:30It's not that women are nastier people than men. This just happens to be their style of aggression. Males are much more likely to come up and punch in the face or engage in some sort of physical violence, but it's called relational aggression. Women use this kind of tactic to deal with people that they want out of their social circle. Is most gossip negative? No, I think most gossip is positive. And many studies that have been done on gossip in the last 20 years indicate that most of the talk that people engage in that can be classified as gossip is harmless or even positive. There is certainly an element of negativity, and it can be used in a disruptive sort of way.

12:19But when I see offices or workplaces that try to set up no gossip rules, I think you might as well ask people to stop breathing is to ask them to stop gossiping. It's just so much part of who we are. It's kind of a showstopper when it comes to conversation. Right, because sooner or later, almost, well, almost any, but many conversations slip into gossip, or at least gossip becomes part of the conversation. Absolutely it does. It's hard to imagine a conversation that you're going to have for more than a minute or two, where another person doesn't come into the topic as part of the story. As you said in the beginning of this discussion, you can only gossip about someone who isn't there.

13:04And what so often happens, and I guess where the meanness of gossip comes, is when you talk about someone behind their back because they're not there, and then they hear about it. And then that's what really causes the pain. Yes, it does. And one of the things I've done when I've written about gossip is to describe it as a social skill rather than a character flaw. It's not that it's good or bad necessarily to gossip, but it's bad to be a bad gossip, and it's to your advantage to be a good gossip. A good gossip is actually usually a popular person. They have a reputation for knowing stuff but sharing things very discreetly.

13:47They can keep secrets when you need them to, and they're part of the network. Bad gossips are, there's two different types. One is the type who just instantly blabs any new information that they've gotten indiscriminately. They don't care who's listening and who isn't. They just come out with it and they can't keep a secret. And then the other kind of bad gossip is the one that is using it as a weapon, almost like a dagger that they're keeping hidden under a coat to bring out at a moment's notice and do damage with it. So you want to establish your reputation as being a good gossip rather than a bad gossip.

14:24And you don't want to get a reputation as the person who's holier than thou who refuses to be part of the gossip network at work, for example. Because if you go to work and just announce to people, I'm not going to be part of this, what you're saying to them is, I don't trust you. I don't want to be part of your network. And this isn't going to really win you many, very, very many friends in your workplace. My guest is Frank McAndrew. He is a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois, and we are talking about gossip. A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call someday clothes.

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16:16Pink Panther us here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com. so frank you said it's probably not a great idea to announce in an organization that you have no interest in the gossip going on in that organization but there are some people who are not comfortable with gossip and who seem to steer clear when they hear gossip they leave they don't they just don't want to get down in the dirt because because often it seems that it just does no good, that no good will come from this, so I'm going to not participate.

17:15That's right. And the key is to distinguish between doing that selectively when it is negative, nasty, dirty stuff versus just extricating yourself whenever any kind of lighthearted social conversation comes up. One of them is going to work in your favor, the other one is not. When people talk about, oh, Betty did this thing, or she wore that thing, or Bob, you know, had too many drinks and did this thing. I mean, it's hurtful. I mean, the only, what's the point of bringing it up other than, you know, you and I are going to bond over the fact that this guy's an idiot? Well, certainly the person who's being talked about as an idiot is never going to think it's good, but it can serve positive functions for some people.

18:04So imagine yourself getting a new job. You're a young person right out of college. You're starting to work in an office. There are a lot of things people don't tell you right off when you start a new job. How formally should you dress? Is it okay to use the boss's first name when you're talking to him or her? When five o 'clock comes around, can you just leave or are You're supposed to hang around a little bit longer. So by tuning into the gossip network and hearing what's being said about people who engage in behavior A or behavior B, the new person is getting socialized into the rules of the group.

18:41They're learning how to be an employee there. So yes, if Joe's an idiot and we're talking about what an idiot he is, maybe that's not really doing anything for you or I and certainly not for Joe. but it may be serving a positive social function for some of the people involved. Often you hear when people hear that they are being gossiped about, they will say to the person, if you have something to say about me, have the guts to say it to my face. Don't go around my back and gossip. Is that a legitimate request? Well, it depends upon what the information is. But a lot of times the gossip is you're talking about something the person already knows to be true about themselves.

19:32What you're trying to do is alert other people to the dangers perhaps that this person poses. So if somebody is a cheater or an undesirable social partner in some way or other, you want to put people on alert about that. If you're in an office where there's a guy who sexually harasses female employees, going and saying to his face, you shouldn't be doing this probably isn't going to change his behavior. But you at least want to give a heads up to some of the people who may be potential victims if you have reason to think that they're in danger. People who are known as gossips, is it because they do it too much or they do it incorrectly?

20:13correctly and how much is too much? What are the parameters? What are the rules of gossip? Yeah. And I think that goes back to the question. I don't think it's a question of too much or too little as much as a question of doing it well versus doing it poorly. So the person who gets labeled with that tag, you're a gossip, is often the person who's engaged in a lot of mean-spirited backstabbing, or they're just cluelessly going around saying inappropriate things about people for no good reason. Those are the people that we would refer to as gossips. The person who's doing it well stays under the radar, and we don't think of them as a gossip.

20:58We think of them as a good social companion, a good team player. And that's where you want to be if you can keep yourself in that zone. Well, it almost seems like if you want to live by the rule of if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all, you're not much of a gossip then because it does seem that so much gossip is that stuff under the rug that people don't talk about because it isn't real nice. That's right. And I don't think it's as important to be the person who spreads gossip, but you certainly need to be tuned in to the gossip network. When I talk about this as an evolved human trait, I use the example of the societies that we evolved in through most of human history.

21:49We lived in relatively small groups, maybe 150 people or so. To be successful in this group, to achieve status, to get mates, to be able to hang on to allies, you had to know what other people were up to. You had to know who was sleeping with whom. You had to know who had powerful friends and allies. You had to know who had access to resources. And if you were unconcerned with those things, if you just didn't care, you didn't do very well. You got left behind. We're the descendants of busybodies. The people who were fascinated by what was going on behind the scenes with other people are the ones who did well.

22:28They knew when there was an opportunity to exploit. They knew who they could trust and who they couldn't trust. And people who weren't interested in gossip, people who just were out of the loop, fell behind. So I say we're descendants of busybodies because by definition, our ancestors were successful enough to keep passing those genes on and here we are. I always wonder in any social circle, the person who is considered the gossip, does that person know that other people think of them as a gossip? Do people know what they're doing? And usually when somebody's labeled a gossip, it's not a compliment.

23:06It's somebody who's got their nose in everybody's business and they're talking about it behind their back. Do they know they're perceived that way? If they've been bad enough at it that they've been labeled a gossip, my guess is they probably aren't aware that other people are gossiping about them for being a gossip because we do use that as a negative label. You never use that as an adjective for somebody in a complimentary way. Now, I think there are people who are aware that they're kind of gossipy and they may sort of playfully or self-deprecatingly say about themselves, oh, I'm a terrible gossip.

23:41But I think people who have a really bad reputation are probably walking around oblivious to the fact that other people think about them this way. It does seem that there's like two kinds of gossip. There's gossip about people we know, people we work with, people we work for, but people in our circle. And then there's celebrity gossip. And people seem to be real into like what are celebrities up to. So what's going on there? What's going on there is our brains are unprepared for mass media and celebrities. Celebrities didn't exist in the world that we evolved in. If you knew a lot about somebody, by definition, that was a socially important person.

24:28It was somebody that was in your life, that had an effect on your life, and what they did mattered to you. Well, in the 21st century, we live in this world of celebrities where we know an awful lot about these strangers. You probably know a lot more about a great many celebrities than you do about your next door neighbor. And this tricks our brains. Consciously, we know these people shouldn't matter to us. But the fact that we know a lot already feeds the beast. It makes us want to know more. We can't help ourselves. And we develop a one-sided, what's called a parasocial relationship with these people.

25:11They don't know we exist, but we sure know a lot about them. And so I think this fascination we have with the lives of celebrities is kind of a byproduct or an accidental side effect. But there is kind of a side effect of that. You and I have never spoken before today, but I think we could probably go out to lunch together and sit down and talk about Donald Trump or other politicians or movie stars or people that we sort of know in common. I guess you can think of them as friends-in-law. And so they provide a segue into real relationships with real people in your life. Well, I certainly appreciate the explanation and the depth you went into about gossip, because I think most people, like me, think of gossip as relatively unnecessary, pretty nasty, and something that people probably shouldn't do.

26:00But clearly, there are benefits to gossip, and it's good to hear both sides of the story. Frank McAndrew has been my guest. He is a leading researcher on the topic of gossip, and he is a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois. Thank you, Frank. Thanks, Mike. Best part of my day today. Thank you. And that's today's SYSK Trending episode. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know.