magazine issue 2 2012 / Issue 14

The dish on gossip: Its origins, functions, and bad reputation

• written by Ashley Waggoner Denton
• edited by Namkje Koudenburg

Gossip is ubiquitous – chances are that you have shared, heard, or been the topic of gossip today. Why do we love to talk about other people? Is gossiping part of our human nature? Are there benefits of gossip, to either the individual or to society? In this article I will review what researchers have learned about the nature of gossip, its bad reputation, and the numerous functions it serves in society.

The dish on gossip: Its origins, functions, and bad reputation

Think about the last conversation you had. What did you talk about? Was the conversation focused on yourself, or your conversation partner? Did someone else come up in the conversation? It has been estimated that most of our daily conversation is social in nature (that is, about people, rather than. say, work or the weather) and that gossip makes up a large part of this social talk (Emler, 1994; Foster, 2004). What’s more, this is true not only in industrialized societies, but across cultures (Ben-Ze’ev, 1994; Dunbar, 2004). Even those who may adamantly deny ever gossiping about others would no doubt have to admit that they have listened to gossip, or been the target of gossip, at some point in their lives. Gossip is ubiquitous, yet it remains largely misunderstood by most people. The goal of this paper is to elucidate what psychologists and other researchers have learned about gossip and its role in society, while also clearing up some common misperceptions about gossip (e.g., that it is completely meaningless, or always negative). To this end, the paper is framed around three main questions: Why does gossip have such a bad reputation? Is gossiping part of our human nature? And what functions does gossip serve? But first, let’s take a closer look at what is meant by the term “gossip” in the first place.