Amazing, gossip has hidden benefits

[FlyJ]

 

Who hasn’t gossiped before, be it listening to or talking to someone about the personal lives or affairs of other persons? In case you have done it before, then you may have helped yourself one way or the other, and if you haven’t, then you may be missing something nice.

 

It is simply an idle talk or a rumour about the affairs of others, usually about their private lives. Regardless of whether the subject of the discourse about the person is positive or negative, almost everybody gossips, including men and women.

 

As condemnable as the act could be, there are certain derivable benefits, according to a research by some scientists.

 

As much as many would not own up to having talked about others without the other’s consent or awareness, scientists have proved that gossiping, which involves hearing or talking about other people, is good and has some benefits.

 

They claim gossiping is good, healthy and may not even be a bad idea because it boosts self-esteem when we hear things about other people and compare with ourselves. The researchers say gossiping is a valuable source of knowledge about the way people are, largely because of the comparison.

 

The study, which was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and reviewed by Daily Mail, was aimed at exploring the effect; positive and negative, that gossip has on those involved in it and how they evaluate themselves. It also examined why people want to know about other people’s achievements and failures.

 

The scientists found that talking about others boosts self-esteem because it lets those involved to compare themselves with others, thereby enhancing the need for appraisal and self-confidence. The researchers note that hearing positive and negative gossip about another individual boosts self-reflection and self-evaluation but that the stories heard about others need to be treated with a critical attitude because of the impact they may have on them.

 

Even though some people have said that gossip fills the heart with bitterness when they feel lesser than the person being discussed, in terms of level, status or achievement, hearing or discussing about others who have achieved less could also boost their spirit.

 

One of the researchers, Prof. Elena Martinescu, who is a researcher at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, says gossip provides individuals with indirect social comparison information and provides an essential resource to reflect on their behaviour and performance. She points out that gossiping has different effects on men and women.

 

She says, “Women who gossip negatively about others experience higher self-protection concerns possibly because they believe they too might experience a similar fate as the person being talked about.

 

“While men who hear positive gossip about others experience higher fear, perhaps because social comparisons with competitors or contemporaries are threatening.”

 

In other words, men and women feel good and protected when they hear a negative rumour about a contemporary issue while an intimidating, cheering news tend to unsettle them, hence, gossip allows for self evaluation and improvement.

 

Martinescu advises that, “Rather than trying to block out gossip, people should accept it as a natural part of their lives and receive it with a critical attitude regarding the consequences it may have on them and on others.

 

In the study, the 183 participants were asked to recall an incident where they received either positive or negative gossip about another individual. After that, they were asked some questions to help the researchers in measuring their self-improvement, self-promotion, and self-protection value of the information they received from the gossip.

 

When the results were analysed, those who received positive gossip had increased self-improvement value, whereas those who received negative gossip had increased self-promotion value and self-protection concerns.

 

“For example, listening to positive stories about others may be informative, because they suggest ways to improve oneself and that is why such people tend to have increased self-improvement value. While hearing negative gossip may be flattering, because it suggests that others may function less well than them and that is why there would be increased self-promotion value and protection concerns.

 

“However, negative gossip may also be threatening to those listening to it because it suggests that they may easily fall victim to such negative experience if it has to do with the same environment, and that is why gossipers need to treat the information they hear with a critical attitude,” Martinescu adds.

 

Interestingly, some psychologists had earlier said gossip plays a critical role in the maintenance of social order and that it made people feel better. They added that women are happier and healthier if they enjoy regular chat with their friends or peers.

 

“This is because doing so boosts levels of progesterone, a hormone known to reduce anxiety and stress, and gossip provides people with information to compare themselves to others indirectly, thereby providing an essential source for self-evaluation,” they explained.

 

No doubt, some people see gossip as a sweet adventure and many have admitted to be entertained by gossip, but it is worthy of note that as interesting as some see it, the person doing the gossiping tends not to be trusted by others. Invariably, the lack of trust makes listeners to such gossip to keep away from the person who always gossips because of the fear of being a victim someday.

 

Reacting to the study, a psychologist, Prof. Toba Elegbeleye, said gossip is no doubt an esteem booster, noting that it is not a booster on its own but a mechanism by which individuals who engage in it want their self-esteem to be boosted.

 

He said, “Gossip comes in as a result of envy, so when people gossip about somebody who is better than them, they talk about the person’s weak side or anything else that would reduce the person to their level, so they tend to believe they are better.

 

“And that is why each time people engage in such a gossip, they feel like a better person and somehow satisfied after the exercise. So, in a way, it reduces tension and it enables people who indulge in it to blow up some steam.

 

“In gossiping, most of the content are not factual, most of the pictures painted are likely going to be painted in their extreme and fact is the first thing to be slaughtered. That is why if a poor man is talking about a rich man, he may want to argue that the source of his wealth is not clean, which is a way of self-consolation.

 

He added that gossiping about positive stories could be informative and then make such gossipers make positive self-statement, like ‘I can do it’.

 

Also reacting, another professor of psychology, Oni Fagboungbe, said regardless of the way people frown at gossiping, those who gossip about others usually see themselves as masters of information, which increases their perception of dominance and self worth.

 

He explained that the fact that they give information about others, whether right or wrong, is a source of satisfaction for them because they feel they know what others don’t know.

 

“If you have information that others don’t have, it places you on a high pedestal that makes you feel you are above them, which increases your perception of who you are, which we call self-esteem. If it becomes a habit, then, it graduates from self-esteem to self-efficacy because you have the feeling that you can do what others cannot do,” he added.

 

Fagboungbe explained that gossiping tends to make people, especially women, feel better and relaxed because talking reduces pent-up aggression.

 

“Pent-up aggression is diffused when you talk because talking reduces aggression and that is why people categorise people who don’t talk as dangerous. When people gossip, they laugh, their muscles relax and that relaxed atmosphere assists the production of the stress-reducing hormone, so they feel happier. That is why women become more elated when they see their friends with whom they can really talk,” he added.

 

Source

[dequeen]

Yesterday while reading some book, I learnt that a person could use gossip to get ahead by spreading false malicious gossip about a competitor and a person could sniff out their enemies by spreading false gossip about themselves and then waiting to see who swallows it and acts on it. crazy stuff.