What’s The Tea: The Science Behind Gossiping
Human beings are sociable organisms. Anthropologists suggest that when the early humans began to develop the simplest of languages, gossip was one of the first conversations. What is gossip? Gossip has a negative undertone because of what it could be. But this form of conversation is when people talk about others, their actions, appearances, and news about them. They are not necessarily harmful words. For example, telling your friend that another friend just got accepted to a new internship is actually a form of positive gossip. Because humans love to talk to others, news past from person to person can easily be tainted with new and interesting details that extend the truth. So why is gossiping so common and why do humans love to gossip?
The reason why gossiping is “so much fun” is because of the way our brain has enlarged and developed throughout evolution. As the Homo genus evolved, our brains developed more abilities such as logic, language and communication, and more complex problem solving. But because we are social organisms, we require social bonding. Social bonding comes from confiding in others, building trust, building relationships, and maintaining these formed bonds. Doing all of the above releases endorphins which help us feel good about ourselves, the other person, and overall just happier. In the past, early humans such as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis would gossip with simple language to bond with each other. Even before that, primates (before language was formed), groomed each other to create their needs of a social bond with others.
Being sociable aside, another reason for gossip is competition. Organisms are constantly competing for resources. While today, people are not in a constant battle to hunt and gather food, people are, though, in a constant battle to be “better” than others, have a higher social status, be viewed better by others, make money, and to be well liked. While gossip brings people closer, language can easily be abused. This is part of the reason why negative gossip is more appealing to people than positive gossip. We’ve all heard of stories of people being fired from a workplace or banished from a friend group and many other cases, from gossip. The whole reason why people are removed from certain groups due to gossip is because that group is attaining its need to hold a clean image and attain their credibility to others and a higher social status. Gossip therefore, allows us to build bonds with others but also allows us to cut bonds with others as well.
Building off of cutting bonds, gossip between trusted groups also warns people who to trust and who not to trust. People who trust each other will gossip to warn others about people they do not trust. This builds off of forming relationships and bonds and also competition. This explains why people in groups and cliques are more likely to gossip to each other than to other people that are not part of their group.
While gossip involves at least another party, the gossip also affects the person who is gossiping. Talking about others serves the purpose of self validation and self-promotion. Mentioned previously, gossiping serves the purpose of getting ahead of other people. The brain loves to negatively gossip about others because doing so brings assurance to the self. At the same time, it brings self-evaluation in the interest of bettering the self. For example, someone who gossips about someone else may internally be jealous and come to realization he/she (the gossiper) needs to focus more on something for improvement. A scenario can be given for this example. If person A talks negatively to a friend group about person B’s recent promotion at the company they all work at, person A most likely is insecure about their position at this company and may feel the need to improve their own work ethic to also move higher up in the company.
Gossiping was one of the first conversations since language has been introduced in this world. This form of conversation can be both positive and negative. Negative gossip is more attractive because they serve a purpose to us social beings. From building social bonds to self-promotion to deciding who is good and who is bad, gossip is statistically seen to be one of the most common parts of day to day conversation. While language and conversations are vital for humans, information is easily lost and altered for self-promotion. In today’s world, it is important to bond with others but it is also important to carefully bond.
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