The psychology of gossip..and it’s not good
We all claim to hate it, we all say we despise it. But really we all do it. Why is gossip so tempting? And if it’s so good, why do we want to deny engaging in gossip?
The fact that we all claim to hate gossip, proves that gossip doesn’t sit well on our conscience. Because if it did, we wouldn’t deny gossiping so vehemently, would we?
Thanks to social media, we are now all too comfortable discussing the lives of others publicly. Gossip is now almost normalized.
I want to take you back to my 20s.
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Method To Madness: The psychology behind gossip
The ignorance of my 20s
So those days, I used to think I had a special instinct about evaluating people’s characters. I used to think that just by observing somebody’s body language, facial expressions, tone of voice I could glance inside their actual true characters. With each such hunch proving to be true, I became more confident of my instinct.
Once, there were two gentlemen who walked into our office. Without ever meeting them, I judged one of them to be untrustworthy. Why? I just thought he was talking too much, claiming too many big things. I promptly asked my brother to not trust him. Sure enough, the deal eventually turned sour and once again my instinct was proven right. Or so I thought. My brother met this same gentleman again after many years. He offered another lucrative deal. This time he was prepared, and had a solid plan. Ofcourse I was skeptical again, but this time Abhishek trusted facts. Abhishek and this man are today not only business partners but also genuinely good friends. Abhishek even counts him as one of his biggest well-wishers.
My instinct remained the same for this guy twice, and yet only one of the times I was right. With age and experience I am realizing, knowing when to trust your instinct comes with maturity, and what you think about a person at first sight may be glaringly wrong.
Gossip is entitlement
I shared this story because gossip is also like that. We have a tendency of trusting any gossip no matter how outrageous it may sound. And that has something to do with what’s going on deep inside our hearts and minds.
Yes, our tendency to gossip says more about the state of our own heart than others.
First of all, what is gossip? And if you think you have never gossiped in your life or that you don’t like gossip, well think again.
Sharing information about others when they are not present is gossip. And we all have done that, haven’t we? But, this information is not always negative or malicious or slanderous.
You should know that not all gossip is bad, but all slander is gossip. Slander is when you spread unconfirmed negative report or information about someone without attaching any proof of truth. Yes it is equivalent to lying.
However, even when you are sharing true information about somebody publicly, despite knowing that this person may not be comfortable sharing that information publicly, you are engaging in harmful gossip.
Why do we gossip?
Now lets understand why we gossip? It is said that two people become best friends when they have a common enemy. Often great friendships begin with a common dislike for something or someone.
When you have nothing else to offer, you bring in juicy details of someone else’s life into the conversation, and pretty much every person at the table falls into the temptation.
Understand that gossip is a fundamental human function. Sharing general well-being about friends and family, sharing details about your daily life, your problems etc with friends in confidence is NOT gossip. It is only when you start to indulge way too much into other people’s lives, and that becomes your single or most go-to source of happiness or topic of conversation it becomes a problem.
Gossip shows low self-esteem
Research has proven that people who spend a large portion of their daily conversation talking about other’s lives, particularly personal details or negative aspects of other’s lives, are actually suffering from a low self-esteem. They draw validation to themselves from others’ misery. So when they share information about others not doing well in their lives, they are validating that their life is so much better.
On Valentine’s day, there would be couples who would do those peculiar lovey-dovey things for each other. Then there will be others who would sit in judgment of how other couples were doing cringe-worthy things on Valentine’s Day. Very few of those judgy couples realize that in doing so, they are only re-assuring themselves that their relationship is better than others, and there may be deeper issues within their relationship that they are failing to address.
A research done on more than 100 couples by a university states that If in your relationship, you find yourselves often talking about other couples and how they do things, this may be your way of avoiding the real conversation, and failing to address your actual issues.
Yes we must count our blessings, and compare ourselves with other less fortunate people to be able to appreciate our situation. However, if our source of happiness is solely based on other people’s less than perfect lives, then we may have poor self-image. Research tells us that gossip releases serotonin, and dopamine — the two hormones that create a sense of happiness in our brains. These hormones are like drugs, and addiction can be dangerous.
So how do we resist the urge of always gossiping?
Take this example. Susan and Hannah are two close friends. Hannah has lately been lying to her husband about finances, and she shares it with Susan. Susan asks Hannah to come clean with it but Hannah wouldn’t budge. Susan tries this several times, and then leaves Hannah to her decision.
But Hannah’s plight is constantly bothering Susan. She feels what Hannah is doing is not good for her future relationship with the husband, so she shares the concern with another of their mutual friends Amanda. When Susan is sharing this little detail about Hannah’s life with Amanda, she is sharing it out of love for Hannah, and out of frustration that Hannah wouldn’t listen. Susan is also making her moral stand clear before Amanda to get her support and validation.
Up until this point, this is seeking empathy from a fellow friend about a serious situation, and I dont think this is bad gossip.
But if Susan goes around sharing about Hannah’s lie with several other people in their group, just to prove herself right or better than Hannah, it borderlines on gossip even though the information is true.
So what’s the difference? Is it the number of people you are sharing the information with? No, everything zeroes down to the intention. In the first situation, Susan’s intention was not to defame Hannah in any way. She was genuinely concerned about her and badly needed to get that concern out with another friend. In the second situation, however, she didn’t need to share that information with many people since her intention wasn’t concern, but she was passing information without a valid reason.
Whenever you are tempted to share intimate or personal details about someone with others, weigh your intentions and ask yourself some hard questions -
1] How does passing this information help you or that other person? Why do you so badly want to share this information? Without a valid reason, don’t share this information.
2] Are you sharing this information out of malice or envy? Or simply because you want to validate your own life? If yes, stop yourself right there.
3] Are you sharing the information out of enmity? If yes, you know what exactly you are doing. ANd this is neither good for your enemy nor you, because it is damaging for your heart and soul.
Passing on personal details about someone else’s life without a good intention seems like a harmless exercise.However, in the long run, it not only affects our credibility, it also damages our sense of well-being. We start to depend on gossip and slander for our happiness, and validation. And this is neither healthy nor good for our personal growth.
My suggestion: avoid gossipping, and open up to others about your and their ideas, dreams, hobbies or ambitions. Sharing concern about your friends or family is normal and I encourage you to do that. But as far as possible, keep away from slander or negative information about other’s lives.
Is this really necessary?
I follow a personal rule. Before sharing about someone’s life, I ask myself — is it necessary? How would I feel if someone were to share such kind of information about me? Do I have something better to do right now? Or do I have something more positive, or worthy to share?
If I feel like I am sharing this information about someone’s life to warn the other person, or just get my concern out, I usually share it. But if I feel like I am sharing just so I will get the information out of my system, then I refrain.
The art of NOT gossipping often lies in knowing what to share with who and why. But most importantly, it is about when NOT to pass on a piece of information.
I sincerely hope that after reading this blog, you will re-consider sharing details of someone’s personal life publicly. This blog personally gave me a chance to evaluate myself. I hope it helped you too.
