J. Soc. 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). The underlying motive is the same as all other forms of gossip: lack of love and respect for another human being. Cyberbullying: the new face of workplace bullying? 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). Which means they gossip. She's so fetch. However, jobs, workplaces, and organizations are highly different in terms of normative expectations and competitiveness. In a second step, we did not look at the models containing all three personality traits but at the models reaching the highest BF10 (see Table 2; B: BF10). Its not necessarily negative, adds David Ludden, professor of psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College and the author of The Psychology of Language: An Integrated Approach. 10. Thus, when thinking about the second gossip event participants might have explicitly thought about a gossip event differing from the previous one. J. Pers. They were not good at attracting and keeping mates, or maintaining alliances. doi: 10.1348/000712605X85871, Michelson, G., and Mouly, V. S. (2004). Personal. It has been shown that the three traits are overlapping, but are nevertheless distinct concepts (e.g., Furnham et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2013; but see also Muris et al., 2017). Halter, C. (2018). Is that news going to stop something bad from happening? Struggling to Get Back Into a Workout Routine? No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Psychol. doi: 10.1002/per.1893, Jones, D. N., and Paulhus, D. L. (2011). Interestingly, the importance of motives mainly depends on the gossiper's narcissism both in work and in private settings. The aims of the present study are 2-fold. Empirical research has already shown that gossip activity at the workplace depends on variables such as trust in management (Ellwardt et al., 2012c), psychological contract violations (Kuo et al., 2015), leadership (Kuo et al., 2015), ambiguity of formal communication within organizations (Crampton et al., 1998), and perceived stress and anxiety (Waddington and Fletcher, 2005). Something dark in the human soul (sin!) Pers. But the study's authors say a sixth dimension, Honesty-Humility, should be . 105, 10131037. Knowing what you value will help you build the most meaningful life possible. Eleven participants had missing values varying between 1.80 and 35.70%. Valuing myself over others: the Dark Triad traits and moral and social values. Did You Know Anxiety Can Enhance Our Relationships? Empirical findings have shown that people take the presumed motivation of a gossiper into account when judging the morality of the respective gossiper, for instance (Beersma and Van Kleef, 2012). doi: 10.1177/1948550611405073, Beersma, B., and Van Kleef, G. A. RBum mich mit der Person, mit der ich geredet habe, gut zu stellen. Using diaries to explore the characteristics of work-related gossip: methodological considerations from exploratory multimethod research. Pers. Relatsh. doi: 10.1007/s12110-007-9023-z, Deutchman, P., and Sullivan, J. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. (Psalm 142:1-2) The need to get something off our chest while avoiding slander and gossip can be accomplished by pouring out our complaints to God, before we pour out our complaints to people. Baumeister, R. F. (1998). (2018). However, when someone's typical behavior is to snap at people rather than communicating politely, then irritable is likely one of their personality traits. (2018a) a BF10 > 100 indicates extreme evidence for H1, a BF10 = 30100 indicates very strong evidence for H1, a BF10 = 1030 indicates strong evidence for H1, a BF10 = 310 indicates moderate evidence for H1, a BF10 = 13 signals anecdotal evidence for H1, BF10 = 1 indicates no evidence for H1, BF10 = 0.31 signals anecdotal evidence for H0, BF10 = 0.10.3 indicates moderate evidence for H0, BF10 = 0.030.1 signals strong evidence for H0, BF10 = 0.010.03 indicates very strong evidence for H0, and a BF10 < 0.01 indicates extreme evidence for H0. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. A lot of gossip is driven by concern for others and has positive, social effects., Work from his group has also found that engaging in gossip can actually temper some of our frustrations and other negative emotions we feel when we find out someone has behaved in a deviant way. Behav. 9, 189201. Matthew Feinberg, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management, and his colleagues explored this in a 2012 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Psychol. It was kind of boring, Robbins says, not salacious and negative at all. Encourage them to find a healthy balance between pushing themselves and making mistakes. The role of social. Also, individuals scoring high on narcissism show more indirect bullying than physical bullying (Baughman et al., 2012). J. Pers. I want to receive exclusive email updates from YourDictionary. Soc. Thirdly, a growing number of researchers assume that gossip serves as an informal policing device for controlling free riders and social cheats (Dunbar, 2004b; Keltner et al., 2008; Feinberg et al., 2012). 12, 97110. Each participant could contribute these points to their group in which case, the points would be doubled and redistributed equally or keep them for themselves. Instead, they told a friend, who told a friend, who told my husband. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1977.tb01812.x, Swann, W. B., Stephenson, B., and Pittman, T. S. (1981). Armed with the knowledge of their peers decisions, participants then played the game over again in different groupings. 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). However, men and women differ significantly with regard to psychopathy (women M = 2.50, SD = 1.58 vs. men M = 3.08, SD = 1.73; t(132) = 2.01, p = 0.05, Cohen's d = 0.35). To examine whether the importance of motives depends on the gossiper's personality, multiple regression analyses were conducted for both work and private situations. 40, 635. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.40.4.635. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.03.046, Sommerfeld, R. D., Krambeck, H.-J., Semmann, D., and Milinski, M. (2007). Morf, C. C., and Rhodewalt, F. (2001). As outlined earlier, gossip appears to be a painless-and-quick mean to get information about the social surrounding and oneself; either by explicitly using gossip to validate and gather information or by trying to foster relationships in order to have an audience to act. And overall people who were more extroverted tended to gossip more than those who were more introverted. The more narcissistic a person is, the more they tend to use gossip in order to validate information about others and also to gather information (at least in the work setting). It's not inherently bad; and plays an important role in keeping our society connected. Accordingly, two thirds of adult conversations in public settings involve gossip (e.g., Levin and Arluke, 1985; Dunbar et al., 1997). Anton Hout, founder of OvercomeBullying.org, identifies these eight bully types: 1. 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. They're experts at laying guilt trips. In sum, there is work and organizational literature conceptualizing gossip outside the bullying framework but rather as a channel of informal communication and information exchange (Michelson and Mouly, 2004; Michelson et al., 2010; Kuo et al., 2015) underlining the notion that the negative reputation of gossip is not justified. Am. Also, frequent gossipers are perceived as less likable and less popular than people gossiping less frequently (Farley, 2011; Ellwardt et al., 2012b). Gossip was shown to be more emotionally salient than non-social . Soc. Extroverts are social, assertive, socially confident and love interacting with people.. Rather, negatively influencing the reputation of others is the least important reason to gossip. Concerns about reputation via gossip promote generous allocations in an economic game. Gossip never blesses anyoneeven if bless your heart is tagged on at the end. Thus, the positive social function view is not mirrored in the reputation of gossip and gossipers. The positive BF10s indicate that the data are more likely under the model assuming associations between the three personality traits and the respective gossip motive than under the model assuming no association. She was speechless. Contrary to conventional wisdom, gossip may not be as negative as we tend to think. Gossip typically centers on the negative aspects of a persons personal appearance, personal achievements, or personal behaviors. Psychol. The underlying thought behind this type of gossip is Its about time they finally got what they deserve.. Psychol. Neuroticism. (2016). Dif. 8, 111121. To have a personality trait, individuals must be somewhat consistent across situations in their behaviours related to the trait. The effects of truth teller gossip are equally harmful: damaged reputations. Finally, it has been suggested that gossip has an entertainment function providing recreational value and considerable stimulation for very little costs (Foster, 2004; Peng et al., 2015). Appl. 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. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12255, Yukl, G., and Falbe, C. M. (1990). Hum. Part II: Example applications with JASP. The researchers listened to the sound files of the totality of those conversations and anything they classified as gossip (any talk about other people who werent part of the conversation) was coded as either positive, negative or neutral according to a standardized scale. The inverse relationships between gossip, power, and likability. Six distinct reasons have been identified that underlie gossip behavior: information validation, information gathering, relationship building, protection, social enjoyment, and negative influence. Can Humans Detect Text by AI Chatbot GPT? Who Gossips and How in Everyday Life?. How the power of storytelling can change the course of your career, What's the difference between a lame excuse and good one? Scandals and the public's trust in politicians: assimilation and contrast effects. Mannheim: Zentrum fr Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen -ZUMA-. 75:132. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.75.2.132. But researchers often define it more broadly: as "talking about. They also dispelled another common misconceptionthat poorer, less educated people engage in gossip more than the affluent. Fiske, S. T. (2004). Events that are unusual, dramatic, or lasting ensure that a rich representation is formed and are stored in the long-term memory. Taken together, we assume that the work context reflects a rather strong (i.e., clear normative expectations) and competitive situation; and the private context reflects a rather weak and more cooperative situation. Table 2. According to Bayesian repeated ANOVA, the model containing the two main effects and the interaction effect received overwhelming support from the data with a BF10 = 6.33 1079. Public Opin. This reaction also occurred when the participants heard negative gossip in general. Dunbar, R. (1998). An avoider gossip learns something negative about someone, but fears addressing the issue face to face. 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. Soc. (2006) argues in his social gossip theory of language that human language evolved in order to keep track of complex social networks and to ensure the cohesion in large social groups. Pers. However, they do note that the majority of gossip (75%, to be exact) is non-evaluative, or neutral, in nature. Ratings were provided on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). This way, to gain social comparison information minimizes the potential psychological cost. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. So, keep on talking. If you arent from the South, this one might not make sense to you. We were studying the chapter called Why Are There Jerks in the World, and Could I Be One of Them? in my book Seek: A Womans Guide to Meeting God. Not one person with firsthand knowledge ever contacted my husband. Torres research has found that gossip can stave off loneliness, while other studies have found it can facilitate bonding and closeness and serve as a form of entertainment. The models predicting information validation (BF10 = 6.09), relationship building (BF10 = 25.36), and negative influence (BF10 = 123.43) show moderate to extreme evidence for the H1 indicating that the data are more likely under the model assuming associations between the three personality traits and the respective gossip motive than under the model assuming no association. (2013). Libra personality traits, characteristics, what they're into and which other star signs they get on best with, according to our expert tarot reader. Even though it appears that the reasons to gossip correspond to the social functions of gossip, we do not suppose that the different gossip motives act in the service of a single function exclusively. Like this: Compliment: Jim and Mollys new house is amazing., Response: It should be. In fact, even dark personalities appear to use gossip to tune their picture of other humans and themselves and not to harm others. Assuming that gossip is a soft tactic or a form of indirect aggression (McAndrew, 2014), one might speculate more narcissistic individuals to be especially prone to use these methods in order to manipulate others while maintaining their social standing. A personality trait describes how a person tends to think, feel, and behave on an ongoing basis. Sci. This activity indicated the subjects responded to the gossip and its insight. The Screaming Mimi. The 2 Most Psychologically Incisive Films of 2022, The Surprising Role of Empathy in Traumatic Bonding. Spontaneous "let's hang out" invitations. Different researchers then add a range of stipulations, such as: The conversation takes place in private. Interestingly, with regard to the dark triad personality traits, only narcissism shows consistent associations with motives to gossip. 54, 93105. Das Dreckige Dutzend und die Niedertrchtigen Neun. If anything, the results suggest the opposite. Thus, both kinds of analyses draw a very similar picture of the results emphasizing their reliability. J. Appl. Theory of mind and the evolution of language, in Approaches to the Evolution of Language, eds J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert-Kennedy, and C. Knight (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 92110. Noseyness is when someone whom we don't want to interfere in our life does so. After all, theyre just telling the truthor at least, what they think is true. Magazines, Digital Who hasnt wanted to get something off their chesteven if that something painted someone else in a negative light? (If any of these sound familiar, consider them an opportunity for personal growth.). Bull. Ratings were provided on a 9-point rating scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 9 (agree strongly). Individ. Friendship-selection in the shadow of the Dark Triad traits. Instead of picking fleas and dirt off one another to bond, Ludden explains, we now talk, which is where gossip comes in, because chit-chat is mostly talking about other people and conveying social information., Gossiping, Dunbars work argues, gives humans the ability to spread valuable information to very large social networks. Group Organiz. The core of darkness: uncovering the heart of the Dark Triad. Peng et al. J. Hum. Building new traits into your character is incredibly simple and has five foolproof steps: Step 1: Identify Character Traits That Inspire You. 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. When we engage in bitter-vengeful gossip we dont simply want vindication for wrongs done to us (real or perceived); we want vengeance. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00772.x, Williams, K. M., Nathanson, C., and Paulhus, D. L. (2010). There are a number of explanations for this phenomenon. In addition, we examine the reasons of individuals scoring high on the dark triad personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) as they are known to ignore commonly accepted norms and to act selfishly (e.g., OBoyle et al., 2012; Muris et al., 2017). Compass 7, 199216. 7 Ticking Time Bombs That Destroy Loving Relationships, An Addiction Myth That Needs to Be Revisited, 5 Spiritual Practices That Increase Well-Being. The DSM-5 lists nine key narcissistic traits: exaggerated feelings of superiority and self-importance. Suls, J. M. (1977). In each group, there is a gossiper, a receiver, and the gossipee. Spreading tales about a coworkers sex life, criminal background, suspected company policy infractions, or medical problems are all examples of harmful workplace gossip. Thats not a responsible way of sharing information. In the light of these findings one might speculate that for dark individuals gossiping about cheaters and free-riders removes potential rivals and creates a climate of trust. The presence of gossip depends in large measure on how you talk about people who are not present and why you talk about them. It works like this: Did you hear the Johnson girl got into trouble again? First, the researchers reported that females gossiped significantly more than males (no big surprise here, as this is consistent with past research as well as lay beliefs on gossip). doi: 10.1002/9781118001868.ch15, Keltner, D., Van Kleef, G. A., Chen, S., and Kraus, M. W. (2008). One subject for example, spoke about someone who was watching a lot of movies to stay current. In another of Feinbergs studies, a group of participants identified members who behaved selfishly via gossip, and promptly kicked them out. To gossip or not to gossip: reactions to a perceived request to gossip a qualitative study. Malicious mouths? doi: 10.1177/0146167214554916, McAndrew, F. T. (2014). Cliques, rumors, and gossip by the water cooler: female bullying in the workplace. Dif. God isnt fooled by our attempts at dressing up gossip in religious jargon. Most gossip was coded as neither positive or negative the majority of gossip recorded in this study (75 percent) was neutral. However, they do note that the majority of gossip (75%, to be exact) is non-evaluative, or neutral, in. Means, standard deviation (in parenthesis), and error bars for the different motives displayed separately for work and private setting (N = 134). 73, 2938. Bless her heart.. To examine whether the importance of motives depends on the personality of the gossiper, multiple regression analyses were conducted with the dark triad personality traits as independent variables and motives as dependent variables for both work and private situations, respectively. 41, 574579. But the bottom line is this: be aware of the fine line between venting emotions and tarnishing reputations. Missing data: our view of the state of the art. 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. To arrive at this conclusion, researchers at the University of California Riverside analyzed daily conversations of 467 people over a multi-day period using an Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR, for short). However, only four participants had missing values between 28.60 and 35.70%. Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: a mixed blessing? 31, 97122. A pattern of positive behavior and attitude leads to a positive personality, marked by positive personality traits. 8, 231246. Why people gossip: an empirical analysis of social motives, antecedents, and consequences. Creative Minds Press. Consequently, participants might have selected highly salient examples of gossip events that are not representative of more frequent gossip sessions. Also, qualitative research show that people, even though enjoying gossip, restrict themselves because they are afraid of becoming a gossip target themselves (Rodrigues et al., 2019). The time working within an organization is probably related to the amount and intensity of relationships somebody has to others in that organization; and, therefore, might be related to the motives that steer gossip behavior. 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. Soc. To consider a relationship building motive of gossip, three respective items were generated. More specifically, it is easy to imagine that individuals scoring higher on the dark triad readily use gossip to negatively influence another person's reputation (i.e., potential competitor or rival) to push through self-beneficial agendas. They thrive on the notion that others fear them. Nat. Of course, talking about other peoples lives isnt always negative, nor is it always gossip; but it can be the gateway to meddling and gossip. Mirroring the results of the classical repeated ANOVA, the Bayesian repeated ANOVA revealed that the situation as well as the interaction were not meaningful. It works like this: Susans a super star with her clients. Soc. A proud woman born to a highly respected Southern family, Miss Emily seems frozen in the past, bearing herself aristocratically even when she is impoverished after her controlling father's death. 25, 3557. Before you share personal information about someone, pause long enough to ask yourself, Do I really need to share this information? Psychol. Pers. Proverbs 11:13 says, A gossip goes around telling secrets, but those who are trustworthy can keep a confidence. The one thing we can know for sure about an in the know gossip, is that they are not trustworthy. For the Scriptures say, I will take revenge ;I will pay them back, says the Lord. 29, 172178. Using gossip to build relationships was more often rated as relevant by individuals scoring higher on narcissism than by those scoring lower on narcissism both in work (p < 0.001) and private (p = 0.007) settings. Since they derive personal value from being in the know, they arent content to simply know the private information of others; they are driven to let other people know they know. Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? And although Gretchen Wieners is a mean girl, she is definitely very relatable. 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. We asked them to think about the reasons they had for that conversation and to answer the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire-Revised accordingly. Talking about other people gives an individual a sense of relief because he or she is not experiencing the same calamities. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12169, Waddington, K. (2005). doi: 10.1108/13563280410551114, Michelson, G., Van Iterson, A., and Waddington, K. (2010). And Feinberg notes that there are some types of gossip that should be avoided, such as gossip that is purely harmful and serves no greater purpose like mean comments about someones looks. Personality traits imply consistency and stabilitysomeone who scores high on a specific trait like Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different situations and over time. If we get into an argument with our partner, we'll subconsciously want to find a fair outcome. PMandR 9, 12781282. 27, 521531. Bivariate correlations between all variables are displayed in Table 1. (2010). 1. 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). In my 20-plus years of ministry, Ive noticed that people share prayer requests about others, more often than share requests about themselves. Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., and Teicher, E. A. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-23550-3, Baughman, H. M., Dearing, S., Giammarco, E., and Vernon, P. A. Her child struggles in school, you know.. And being the scapegoat might have disastrous effects on the individuals as, in addition, their relationship to colleagues appears to be characterized by difficulties (Ellwardt et al., 2012a). The repeated ANOVA was also calculated including gender as a between subject factor. Even though the Dirty Dozen Scale has shown convergent validity with comprehensive measures, using more complex measures for the respective three traits would allow deeper insight into the associations.
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