personality traits of a gossip personality traits of a gossip

doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069996, Harvey, M. G., Heames, J. T., Richey, R. G., and Leonard, N. (2006). Gossiping about deviance: evidence that deviance spurs the gossip that builds bonds. personality traits of a gossip. The logician wants to stand out from the crowd. Gossip was shown to be more emotionally salient than non-social . Individ. It would be nice if we could capture the entire human experience into five simple words. EAR is a portable device that continuously samples sound from a wearer's immediate environment. One strength of the present study is that it extends previous research through the comprehensive assessment of gossip reasons. I want to receive exclusive email updates from YourDictionary. Libra personality traits, characteristics, what they're into and which other star signs they get on best with, according to our expert tarot reader. Faced with the concern that information about negative behavior runs through the grapevine and may consequently lead to the loss of reputation or even social exclusion, it prevents people from acting against social norms and the good of the group (Piazza and Bering, 2008; Beersma and Van Kleef, 2011; Feinberg et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2016). Friendship-selection in the shadow of the Dark Triad traits. Ratings were provided on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). Assess. Thus, it appears that people, regardless of being on the dark side of personality or on bright side, mainly use gossip to tune their picture of other humans and themselves. Second, to examine whether the bad reputation of gossip is justified or not, we explore the role of the dark personality traits in gossip motivation. A. Taken together, the results suggest that gossip is better than its reputation as people report to mainly use gossip for informational reasons and not to ruin the reputation of others. 27, 169184. Its just social information and we learn a lot about the social world around us when we gossip., What makes gossip good, bad or neutral is how we use the information, not the content of the news itself, McAndrew says. Its just social information and we learn a lot about the social world around us when we gossip. Extroversion. Like this: Compliment: Jim and Mollys new house is amazing., Response: It should be. Thinking About Answers: The Application of Cognitive Processes to Survey Methodology. Biblically, a gossip is defined as a tale-bearer, a whisperer, a secret slanderer. Anytime we say anything about someone privately that we wouldnt say publicly, its gossip. This indicates that that the data are 4.48 1082 times more likely under the model that assumes differences between motives than under the model that assumes no such differences. This unsolicited interference often manifests as questions and comments relating to our personal matters such as our health, career, and relationships. 97, 405423. Read on to learn the top 10 types of gossip. Is this wrong? Contrary to that perspective, gossip is considered as a form of passive-aggressive form of workplace bullying in work and organizational literature (e.g., Lewis and Gunn, 2007; Crothers et al., 2009; Privitera and Campbell, 2009). Psychol. (2018a), a BF > 100 shows extreme evidence for H1. Eur. People tend to think of gossip as synonymous with malicious rumors, put-downs or the breathless propagation of a tabloid scoop. The Motives to Gossip Questionnaire contains 22 items tapping into four different motives, namely the information gathering and validation motive (nine items), the social enjoyment motive (five items), the negative influence motive (five items), and the group protection motive (three items). Soc. In contrast, hard tactics are tactics which the user forces their will on another person with (Yukl and Falbe, 1990). 88, 7377. Gossip frequently involves inconsequential topics such as a coworkers new hairstyle, weight reduction, weight gain, or a recent trip to Vegas. Respondents indicate the degree to which they agree on a 7-point scale (1 = trifft berhaupt nicht zu, 7 = trifft voll zu). Aggress. Mannheim: Zentrum fr Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen -ZUMA-. 8, 100110. Gossip is not inherently bad; it plays an important role in keeping our society connected. What have you done for me lately? Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, The Science Behind Why People GossipAnd When It Can Be a Good Thing. If anything, the results suggest the opposite. The INTP personality at a glance. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital (2004b). 2. Noticeably, the results revealed that the importance of motives mainly depends on the gossiper's narcissism both in work settings and in private settings. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.12.002, Privitera, C., and Campbell, M. A. All regression analyses were also calculated including gender as control variable. 34, 193205. The standardized factor loadings for the six-factor model are presented separately in Figure 1 for both settings. Filipinos have been described as friendly, outgoing, sensitive, easily offended, nosy, garrulous, direct, hospitable, feisty, irreverent, good natured, clever, witty, gregarious, happy, generous, easy to laugh, gracious, easy to befriend, casual, fun loving, sensitive and hospitable. Miss Emily Grierson. It's a tricky phenomenon to study, though. To make it even more complicated, it is plausible to assume that people have different motives at the same time. And indeed, a post hoc power analysis for the repeated ANOVA revealed that the F-test of the main effect situation did not achieve sufficient power (0.40) to detect an effect. Out of a Bad Heart Gossip arises when something has gone wrong with us at the worshiping core of our beings. In contrast, in the private setting the picture is not that clear-cut. Gossip doesnt do a lot of good if its informational content is unreliable, he says. Curious. At the end of a grueling day, hed give me enough details to empathize, but never reveal names. Jealous gossip worms its way into the workplace, into friendships, into families, and even into places of worship. Bad habit or social good? doi: 10.1177/1059601109360389. Dear friends, never take revenge. Pers. The inverse relationships between gossip, power, and likability. Psychonomic Bull. However, to fully understand the complex interplay between personality, gossip behavior and long term effects of gossip (i.e., social functions such as facilitation of relationship building, protection, facilitation of social learning) longitudinal studies are needed. 67, 1116. Psychol. The study also found that the caudate nucleus, a reward center in the brain, was activated in response to negative gossip about celebrities; subjects seemed to be amused or entertained by salacious celebrity scandals. Decoding the narcissismpopularity link at zero acquaintance. Assimilation and contrast effects in part whole question sequences: a conversational logic analysis. Psychology Today 2023 Sussex Publishers, LLC. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(07)00003-2, Kfner, A. C., Dufner, M., and Back, M. D. (2014). J. Commun. The present study revealed less consistent evidence for evaluative gossip and therefore did not support the notion that women evaluatively gossip more than men.". Needless to say, it created a relational mess. Supporting the bad reputation, some researchers suggest that gossip is a covert form of aggression (i.e., non-confrontational) especially used by women (e.g., McAndrew, 2014). The chi-square statistic was significant for the work setting (2(120) = 190.92, p < 0.001) but not for the private setting 2(120) = 131.37, p = 0.22). regular fantasies about personal power, intelligence, success, or attractiveness. Its pretty generally accepted among social scientists (at least those who accept the theory of evolution) that gossip is likely a relic of our evolutionary past, McAndrews tells NBC News BETTER. One might speculate that more Machiavellian individuals use gossip more strategically to gain long-term, higher order goals in domains of competition and performance (Jones and Paulhus, 2011). No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Research has shown that the dark triad personality traits are related to a variety of negative social and non-social outcomes (e.g., Baughman et al., 2012; OBoyle et al., 2012; Wisse and Sleebos, 2016; Muris et al., 2017; Deutchman and Sullivan, 2018). (2018). doi: 10.1177/00187267035610003, Schafer, J. L., and Graham, J. W. (2002). Peters, K., and Kashima, Y. Great listener (read: a bit of a gossip) Soc. Neuroticism. doi: 10.1002/per.1893, Jones, D. N., and Paulhus, D. L. (2011). Validating their view of the social world and gaining information through gossip is likely to help the individual to form a map of their social environment and their position within that social environment in the long run (Suls, 1977; Baumeister et al., 2004; Foster, 2004; De Backer et al., 2007; Sommerfeld et al., 2007; Martinescu et al., 2014). These 5 Strategies Could Help, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. For instance, gossiping just for fun might serve a recreational function, and, at the same time, create trust and closeness facilitating relationship building. Accordingly, more narcissistic individuals have a higher need for a superior identity. Dunbar, R. (1998). The Dirty Dozen aims to capture the core aspects which are the grandiose self-view for narcissism, exploitation of others for Machiavellianism and the callousness for psychopathy (Kfner et al., 2014). (2016). That knowledge helped people get ahead socially; and people who were not interested in it were at a disadvantage, McAndrew says. People will ask you for favors in life. 7 Articles, This article is part of the Research Topic, https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-68883, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), Faculty of Communication and Environment, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany. To distinguish between information gathering and information validation, three new items were generated to capture information gathering; three items of the information gathering and validation subscale were chosen to represent information validation. They should be self descriptions that are specific about what makes your character stand out. Specifically, examining the different facets and subtypes of narcissism would facilitate the interpretation of the relationships found between narcissism and gossip motives. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12018, Grosser, T. J., Lopez-Kidwell, V., and Labianca, G. (2010). This approach might harbor potential threats. Gossip never blesses anyoneeven if bless your heart is tagged on at the end. Compass 7, 199216. Yet our favourite pastime is complete character assassination. Did you hear how much they paid for it? doi: 10.1007/BF02912493, Eckhaus, E., and Ben-Hador, B. Social Beings: A Core Motives Aaproach to Social Psychology. For example, a cowardly character may finally find the bravery they need by the end of a story. Are you naturally inquisitive? Approximately 1520 min were required to answer the questionnaire. Here's how. 55, 323. Cliques, rumors, and gossip by the water cooler: female bullying in the workplace. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-23550-3, Baughman, H. M., Dearing, S., Giammarco, E., and Vernon, P. A. Tell me the gossip: the self-evaluative function of receiving gossip about others. J. Occup. 81, 102106. It depends on whom you vent to, and how you vent. Old Medication, New Use: Can Prazosin Curb Drinking? This holds true in two fundamental domains of life, namely the private and the work context. Hum. 19, 196199. Pers. J. Appl. In addition, around 30% of our participants were students for whom private and work life are not that distinct and merge. It appears that people mainly gossip for informational reasons and only marginally to harm others. Psychol. PMandR 9, 12781282. In a study published earlier this year in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science 467 adults wore electronic recorders over the course of two to five days, which collected samples of their verbal conversations over that time period. J. Soc. Focusing on one of these dimensions of gossip might change the evaluation and emphasize the negative reputation of gossip. In the present study, we examined the differential importance of reasons to engage in gossip behavior. However, correlations are not displayed due to clarity reasons. Bitter-vengeful gossip usually stems from being hurt or harmed. Due to clarity reasons the inter-factor correlations are not displayed in Figure 1. Soc. Some modifications were made to the original version. (2014). Is that news going to stop something bad from happening? Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., and Teicher, E. A. Perspect. A bias for social information in human cultural transmission. 99, 122126. Bless Your Heart gossip is manipulative, spiteful, and mean. In accordance with the national and institutional guidelines, ethical approval was not required for this study. Which means they gossip. Health Organ. How the grapevine keeps you in line: gossip increases contributions to the group. We asked them to think about the reasons they had for that conversation and to answer the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire-Revised accordingly. They call this type of gossip prosocial gossip because it serves to warn others which has the effect of lowering overall exploitation in groups, Willer says. Jonason and Schmitt (2012) argued that being surrounded by a lot of (potential) friends is a way to satisfy the continuous need for self-validation; likewise, it may serve the need for external self-affirmation and appreciationyou need audience when you want to shine on stage (Morf and Rhodewalt, 2001). In both domains the importance of motives mainly depends on the narcissism of the gossiper whereas psychopathy appears to be irrelevant for gossip motivation. Gossiping comes naturally and most of the time occurs almost unconsciously to break up the monotony of routine activities or simply to spice up conversations. However, at the same time the rich representations of these unusual events of gossip make it more plausible that participants have a vivid and detailed memory and can therefore recall related aspects such as motivations for behavior more easily (Tourangeau, 2000). Scold them a little and you might just have tears streaming down their tiny little faces. (2014). Whereas, individuals scoring high on psychopathy and Machiavellianism pursue goals of a concrete, instrumental nature, individuals scoring high on narcissism aim for goals that are of an abstract, symbolic nature (Jones and Paulhus, 2011, p. 258). People whose lives lack meaningful work or transcendent purpose, often seek to find significance by discussing the lives of others. The sword of a woman: gossip and female aggression. Rather, negatively influencing the reputation of others is the least important reason to gossip. A pastors wife and national speaker, Donna Jones travels from coast to coast, guiding women to the wisdom they need, for the life they want. To gossip or not to gossip: reactions to a perceived request to gossip a qualitative study. For instance, asking individuals to rate their tendency to gossip, they rate themselves to be less gossipy than an average peer of the same sex, suggesting that gossiping is perceived rather negatively (Hartung and Renner, 2013). Pers. Gaining social information and knowledge about people surrounding us provides us with a sense of control and advantage over others (e.g., Swann et al., 1981; Fiske, 2004). Can Humans Detect Text by AI Chatbot GPT? Based on the work of Mischel (1977), researchers differentiate between strong situations with normative expectations and clear roles that constrain behavior, and weak situations which do not provide normative expectations, and, therefore, allow for more freedom in behavior and the expression of personality. Years ago, one of the associate pastors of our church became the subject of gossip. Noseyness is when someone whom we don't want to interfere in our life does so. Individ. According to standard procedures, missing values were imputed prior to forming scales using the EM method in SPSS 24 (Schafer and Graham, 2002). They are quick to blame and short on responsibility. 34, 13031314. The underlying motive is the same as all other forms of gossip: lack of love and respect for another human being. Gathering information about others was also a more important motive for individuals scoring higher on narcissism than for those scoring lower narcissism, however, only in work settings (p = 0.006). Bivariate correlations between all variables are displayed in Table 1. Gossiping gives people a sense of power. For snowball sampling they were asked to distribute the link to colleagues and other employees. Remembering what happened: Memory errors and survey reports, in The Science of Self-Report: Implications for Research and Practice, eds A. Foster, E. K. (2004). Pride is crouching inside our belittling of the struggles of others. She is mom to their three wildly funny young adult kids, who frequently sit on her kitchen counter, just to chat. Neurosci. What then? doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.022, Crampton, S. M., Hodge, J. W., and Mishra, J. M. (1998). 3) You have a good sense of humor Not only do you like to laugh, but you like to make people laugh. God isnt fooled by our attempts at dressing up gossip in religious jargon. Psychology Today 2023 Sussex Publishers, LLC. PLoS ONE 8:e69996. Taken together, both classical linear regression and Bayesian linear regression show that the importance of motives mainly depends on the gossiper's narcissism. Interestingly, the motivation to negatively influence the reputation of somebody else is not solely associated with narcissism but also with Machiavellianism. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version. Until that day, shed always thought gossip was simply part of normal conversation. Are they just a generally cool person, or is their particular set of personality traits just irresistible? Welche Motive Fhren zu Gossip und Welche Emotionen Begleiten uns Dabei und Resultieren Daraus? Thats because were human beings and sharing information about one another is part of what we do, explains Frank T. McAndrew, Ph.D., the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois: Everyone gossips.. 8, 7899. Did You Know Anxiety Can Enhance Our Relationships? This indicates that the data are about 124 times more likely under the model assuming an association between narcissism and gossip validation than under the model assuming no such association (BF10 = 123.92). Facing them and coming to terms with their attitude and letting yourself know it is a weakness in them, which in time hopefully they will overcome and still hanging around them can be challenging. Ill never forget my seeking friends response when she first learned gossip is a sin: utter shock. Photo courtesy: Thinkstock/Wavebreakmedia. Pers. The effects of truth teller gossip are equally harmful: damaged reputations. In contrast, relationship building (M = 3.16, SD = 1.70), protection (M = 3.10, SD = 1.58), and social enjoyment (M = 2.83, SD = 1.64) did not differ significantly from each other (ps = 0.351.0). When we engage in bitter-vengeful gossip we dont simply want vindication for wrongs done to us (real or perceived); we want vengeance. In many cases, this is a defensive mechanisma way to seem vulnerable (Ill share a prayer request), while keeping others at arm length (as long as the prayer request is not about me). Internal consistency was highly satisfactory for all subscales (see Figure 1) and, if applicable, comparable to those of Beersma and Van Kleef (2012). Gossiping is rewarded, so people will continue to gossip as long as they do not hear anything negative about themselves. Therefore, it is plausible to assume that individuals scoring higher on the dark traits are also more ready to use gossip for their own sake without caring about potentially negative effects for others. Psychol. Thus, trait psychology rests on the idea that people differ from one another in terms of where they stand on a . Together the evidence suggests that gossip may play an important role in maintaining social order, Willer says. People who do not like a person will typically seek out other people who share a mutual dislike for the same person. Psychol. How Psychologically Conditioned Rats Are Defusing Landmines, The Innate Intelligence Observed in the Dying Process. In clear contrast to the bad reputation, gossiping is not mainly driven by malicious reasons. First, share personal requests. Dif. Soc. Six distinct reasons have been identified that underlie gossip behavior: information validation, information gathering, relationship building, protection, social enjoyment, and negative influence. Gossip and the self. And indeed, research has shown that people give consideration to the fact that gossip differs and also gossipers differ from each other (Farley, 2011; Beersma and Van Kleef, 2012; Peters and Kashima, 2015). The ones who werent interested in the goings on of other people sort of got weeded out.. They also found that people high in the personality traits of extraversion and agreeableness tended to gossip more than others. Cyberbullying: the new face of workplace bullying? Bull. An avoider gossip learns something negative about someone, but fears addressing the issue face to face. When this happens in isolation, it doesn't reflect a personality trait. Interpersonal chemistry through negativity: bonding by sharing negative attitudes about others. Thus, there is much more research needed to uncover the complex interrelations between the diverse motives and social functions.