Why is gossiping so tempting? Is it wrong to gossip? Why did humans evolve to gossip anyway?
In this article, we’ll answer all these questions and more. Plus, we’ll review some tips to help you create a healthy relationship with your gossiping habits.
What is Gossiping?
Gossiping is when you talk about people you know to somebody else. Gossip usually has a negative connotation related to spreading rumors or slandering someone’s reputation; however, gossip can be positive, neutral, or negative.
Positive gossip might be admiring a friend—”I felt so inspired by Tina’s wedding speech.” It can also be neutral, which usually means sharing updates about a friend with another friend.
Watch the video below if you feel like people are talking about you behind your back:
Most People Gossip
Researchers estimate that anywhere from 65% to 80% of conversations are gossip (i.e., talking about others we know). As social creatures, we focus much of our attention on other people, which comes through in what we talk about.
One study estimated that fewer than 1 in every 10 people don’t regularly gossip. And those of us discussing others behind their backs often speak neutrally about them (e.g., “Oh, did you hear Zach got a new job?”).
The same study found the following:
- Extroverts tend to gossip more than introverts
- Women engage in more neutral gossip than men
- Younger people engage in more negative gossip than older people.
While much of our gossip is neutral, there is a definite dark side to negative gossip.
In the next section, we’ll go over the personal question of whether you might want to engage in gossip. Is it ethical to gossip about others? What should you do if you can’t stop gossiping?
Let’s dive in!
Should You Gossip or Not?
Remember, gossip can be positive, neutral, or negative. Generally, neutral and positive gossip are harmless. So, if you want to appreciate someone behind their back or share something neutral and non-private, you’re probably good to go.
But if you have something negative you feel an impulse to share about someone, it’s usually good practice to first ask yourself, “Why?”
Why do you want to gossip about this person?
There may be countless motivations, but see if yours matches up with any of the following.
These motivations might be good cause to carry forth with the gossip:
- Someone did something harmful, and you want to protect others from them
- You need help understanding your feelings about a person in your life and need someone to hold space for you to talk about them
- You want to report unethical behavior in the workplace
- You’re worried about someone threatening the safety of themself or others
- You want to speak with a group about a member who is behaving toxically
The following motivations might be worth reconsidering if you want to share your gossip or not:
- You want to feel better about yourself by speaking poorly of another person
- Do you want to stir up drama
- You have an unresolved conflict with someone, causing you to badmouth them.
- You are gossipping purely out of habit.
Action Step: If you are considering gossiping about someone else, first consider what your motivations are and if those are motivations that you can stand behind.
Tips To Stop Gossiping
Consider these tips if you want to reel back your gossiping or bring more mindfulness to how you talk about others when they aren’t present.
How would they feel if they knew what you were saying about them?
When you are about to talk about someone, pause and ask yourself, “How would my friend feel if they knew I was sharing this information about them in the way I’m about to do it?”
This question can help clarify your motives and strengthen your integrity. If it might not be in your friend’s interest to talk about them in this way, asking this question can help prevent you from gossiping.
Action Step: If you’re considering gossiping about a friend, first ask yourself how they’d feel if they were listening to what you said on speaker phone.
Notice how the gossip feels.
If you are about to gossip, see if you can pause for a moment, feel into your body, and notice what it feels like to engage in the gossip. If anything in you feels contracted, it might be best to pause before spilling the tea. However, if you feel open and expansive when considering sharing the information, consider going ahead with it.
Sharing gossip of any kind can be SO tempting. However, if you really slow down, you might notice that the idea of spreading a rumor about someone doesn’t actually feel good in your body.
Especially if you are someone who might gossip out of habit, slowing down and becoming more mindful can help clarify your behavior.
Action Step: Take three slow breaths. Notice how your body is feeling. Then, consider sharing the gossip and see how your body reacts.
Be aware of the power of gossip.
Don Miguel Ruiz, author of the iconic spiritual text The Four Agreements, refers to gossip as “black magic.” He calls gossip a form of “magic” because, with your words, you can change how another person views themself.
For example, let’s say I tell you and everyone else that Dina is lazy. Now, you and everyone I talked to started to perceive Dina as lazy. This has quite an impact in itself—Dina must contend with a group of her friends seeing her negatively.
Further, it is possible that Dina will actually view herself as lazy and then act lazily. There is a psychological principle called “the looking glass self” that suggests that our self-image is shaped by how we believe others see us. So, if everyone thinks you are lazy, you might start to match your behaviors to their image of you.
All this to say, your words hold great power. They can shift others’ reputations and even how they see themself.
So before talking negatively behind someone’s back, be aware that words are not harmless; they can carry great weight and can shift a person’s self-image.
Action Step: Before talking about someone behind their back, take a moment and ask yourself if everything you’re about to say is true. And if you want to share perceptions and judgments of another person that aren’t true or false per se, first embark on the thought experiment that what you say could alter their reputation (and self-image).
Dealing with Toxic People
If you are in a friend group or workplace where people gossip about you, it can be a nightmare.
In fact, when I asked my Twitter followers who felt paranoid that people were gossiping behind their backs, 30% raised their hands.
If you are in a toxic workplace with gossippers and politicians, you might appreciate this free guide on how to deal with difficult people at work.
How to Deal With Difficult People At Work
Do you have a difficult boss? Colleague? Client? Learn how to transform your difficult relationship.
I’ll show you my science-based approach to building a strong, productive relationship with even the most difficult people.
The Science of Gossipping
Many psychologists believe that gossip evolved alongside human tribes as a way to keep the group functioning. Let’s dig into the science of gossip from a few different angles.
Gossiping evolved to protect groups.
Psychologists theorize that talking about other people is a habit that likely evolved as a safety mechanism for group protection. Thousands of years ago, when humans lived in small hunter-gatherer societies, people’s survival depended on them knowing who they could trust and who they should avoid.
According to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, gossip allows humans to have an understanding of others in their network without having to meet everyone.
Gossiping helped people keep tabs on who was the most volatile and likely to betray members of the group, who was the most dependable, and whose families were the healthiest and best to reproduce with.
What’s even more powerful is that our brains pay more attention to people we’ve heard negative gossip about. Talking about others behind their back gives people a greater sense of awareness so they can be on guard around potentially threatening individuals.
Gossipping as a way to enforce social norms
Some academics believe that gossip serves as a way to enforce social norms.
For example, let’s say you join a new yoga community and hear two members engaging in an emotional and distraught conversation.
When you inch your ear closer, you hear them venting frustrations about Dave, who always subtly bends his knees on his downward dog to seem more flexible than he is to post on his Instagram.
You might infer from this exchange that this community highly values flexibility, and you’ll feel implicitly warned of the dangers of cheating to achieve this goal.
In this way, gossip can protect the social values and shared ethics of a group. If Dave catches wind of what others are saying, you can bet he’ll straighten those knees!
Gossip encourages good behavior.
Gossip can actually encourage selfless behavior.
In one study by Matthew Feinberg, researchers set up a cooperation game where participants were put on teams and could either cooperate or act selfishly.
As the game went on, people moved to new teams and could talk about who had been stingy with their points before. They could even vote to leave out anyone who had been too selfish previously.
By removing these less cooperative individuals, the remaining team members worked better together and grew their shared pot of points. People who had been a bit selfish at the start began giving more as the game went on.
Even those who were initially left out for being too selfish started giving more when they rejoined, adopting the more generous ways of the group.
While this is just one study, it does suggest that our shared negative perceptions of others can serve as a sort of policing to keep people in line and acting virtuously.
Gossiping helps us understand people.
As humans, we want to understand the other humans around us. So, we tell stories and speculate with others to make sense of the people in our lives.
Researchers believe that when we talk about people behind their backs and understand them more, it gives us a feeling of certainty. And who doesn’t want a little more certainty in this highly uncertain world?
Maybe you can relate to this—where you and a close friend share your intuitions and perceptions of another person you know. Not necessarily with the intent to judge that third person but more to understand them better.
Gossipping can calm us.
Given all these studies that suggest that gossip supports the evolution of groups and tribes, it would also make sense that our brains should be wired in a way to encourage gossip.
And this is the case!
One fascinating study found that when a person heard that someone else was acting selfishly, that first person experienced physiologically unpleasant emotions, and their heart rate went up.
But when they shared the information about the selfish person with someone else, their heart rate and body normalized and calmed.
In other words, witnessing a social transgression creates stress, and gossiping about that transgression relieves the tension.
Gossipping can create social bonding.
Another study found that our oxytocin levels go up when we hear gossip.
Oxytocin is a hormone that stimulates trust and connection with others, so this study could suggest that we are wired for gossip to feel good and to help us bond.
And on some level, this makes sense. You’d typically only gossip with someone who you feel close to and who you can trust. It can bring forth a certain closeness and intimacy to unpack and calibrate your perceptions of other people.
Frequently Asked Questions About Gossipping
To stop gossiping at work, it’s helpful to shift your focus to more positive or task-related topics during conversations. When you’re about to gossip, see if you can catch yourself and talk about something neutral or say something positive about the person.
To quit gossiping, start by reflecting on why you’re tempted to gossip and try to address those feelings directly or find healthier ways to cope. Also, recognize that gossip can harm others and your relationship with them. Surrounding yourself with people who value positive communication can also help change your habits.
Gossiping is not good because it can damage relationships, create mistrust, and contribute to a hostile environment. It’s one thing to say truthful remarks, but gossip often distorts the truth and can unfairly harm others’ reputations and self-image.
Tell someone to stop gossiping about you, approach them in a calm and direct manner, and express how their words affect you and your relationships. Request that they speak to you directly about any issues instead of talking behind your back.
To stop gossiping and complaining, try focusing on the positive aspects of your life and others, and engage in more constructive conversations. Recognize when you’re about to gossip or complain, and consciously choose to steer the conversation in a more positive direction.
Takeaways on Gossipping
Gossipping can feel good, likely because it evolved to help tribes promote positive behavior.
But there are times when gossiping can do harm.
If you want to cut back on gossip, consider the following:
- Explore your motivations for gossip: Before gossiping, it’s good practice to ask yourself why you’re tempted to talk about someone.
- Considering others’ feelings: Think about how the person would feel if they knew what you were saying about them to understand the impact of your words.
- Physical reaction to gossiping: Pay attention to how your body feels when you gossip; discomfort might indicate it’s time to stop.
- Power of gossip: Recognize that gossip has the power to change how others view someone and even how that person sees themselves.
Hopefully, this article helped you understand gossip better and gave you some ideas on how to relate to gossip in your own life!And if you are in a workplace that is rampant with gossip, here are six ways to handle it without the drama.