The Complexity of Gossip

A recent study published in the May issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology outlined how gossip can help build cohesion in a social group.

In essence, a social group is strengthened when they can protect each other and enrich each other. Gossip delivers and enforces the codes of conduct to the group members. As long as you abide by the code, your self esteem will increase and you will thrive.

Everyone has experienced what happens when an implied rule is broken. The gossip becomes negative in tone and the dynamic of the group will change. To at least some of the group, they feel will feel the need to protect themselves by excluding that person..

At times, the person who initiates this type of gossip does so out of self interest rather than protecting the group. If they can successfully create a new rule and have others abide by it, it empowers them and raises their self-image. Unfortunately, this type of personality has difficulty with other aspects of group dynamics, so they rarely get traction out of doing this. The result is that the initiator of the gossip has lower self esteem as they are still not accepted into the group while the target of the gossip is hurt.

Gossip makes up about 90% of interpersonal communication. If you accept the prevalence of it, you can learn to manage and control it. Here are some suggestions on how:

1. Conduct yourself in a manner such that any gossip about you will be mostly positive or supportive.
2. Friends are not therapists. Keep your relationships light and positive.
3. Speak well of others when you have occasion to gossip or choose to keep silent if you can’t.
4. Never start a sentence with “I heard”.
5. Learn to quickly identify the people who are not well skilled socially and avoid them.

Social creatures don’t like being pushed out of the group, regardless of the reason. We are hard-wired to feel anxious and tend to panic when we feel it happening. If you learn to recognize this predisposition and how gossip can affect it, you can actually use it to raise your own self-esteem.