Netw. Also, frequent gossipers are perceived as less likable and less popular than people gossiping less frequently (Farley, 2011; Ellwardt et al., 2012b). Despite these important functions, gossip has a rather bad reputation since it is perceived as inherently malicious harming people and society (e.g., Farley, 2011; Hartung and Renner, 2013; Peters and Kashima, 2013). B., Niederhoffer, K., and Swann, W. B. Jr. (2006). Thirdly, the present study has been conducted as an online study warranting complete anonymity. So how could it be wrong? Who are the objects of positive and negative gossip at work? Workplace bullying in the public sector: understanding the racial dimension. On being eager and uninhibited: narcissism and approachavoidance motivation. Approximately 1520 min were required to answer the questionnaire. 34, 623633. Isnt it okay to vent every now and then? As in the present sample more participants are employed than in the sample of previous research (Beersma and Van Kleef, 2012), individuals are presumably more occupied and have less time for gossiping just for fun. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. It is a meta-analysis of gossip as a behavior, not a study. 4. The potentially more competitive professional setting elicited more malicious gossip only by people scoring high on Machiavellianism. As individuals scoring high on narcissism are characterized by a grandiose (and sometimes vulnerable) self-concept that causes them to search for external appreciation (Morf and Rhodewalt, 2001; Jones and Paulhus, 2011; Back et al., 2013), one might speculate that gossip is a low risk method to gain information about the self. Eavesdropping in public settings reveals that people devote a substantial part of their conversations to gossip (e.g., Levin and Arluke, 1985; Dunbar et al., 1997). What makes the prayer request gossip so insidious is that gossip is couched in spiritual sounding words like, we all need to pray for him.. Who among us hasnt felt the need to vent frustration, hurt, or anger? A close friend of Daisy Buchanan's, Jordan dates Nick Carraway during the novel and plays a crucial role in reuniting Daisy with the titular Jay Gatsby. Chuck is impulsive, daring, and loves to take risks. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.11.008, Jonason, P. K., Strosser, G. L., Kroll, C. H., Duineveld, J. J., and Baruffi, A. The 2 Most Psychologically Incisive Films of 2022, The Surprising Role of Empathy in Traumatic Bonding. A. Sometimes jealous gossip stems from wanting to be right, or best, or number one. Natl. Robbins, M. L., & Karan, A. But researchers often define it more broadly: as talking about people who arent present, says Megan Robbins, an assistant professor of psychology at The University of California, Riverside. Hence, to evaluate whether a certain behavior is good or bad, the underlying reasons or the intentions should be taken into account. It's a tricky phenomenon to study, though. 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). 40, 16681680. Gossip isnt always as easy to spot as one might think. Yet our favourite pastime is complete character assassination. 8, 100110. When the dark ones gain power: perceived position power strengthens the effect of supervisor Machiavellianism on abusive supervision in work teams. 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. My friendwho is on the prayer teamreceived an email with churchwide prayers. The 2 Most Psychologically Incisive Films of 2022, The Surprising Role of Empathy in Traumatic Bonding. The three items were chosen based on consideration about the content and wording as well as on factor loadings obtained through a pre-study (N = 45). Gossip and emotion in nursing and health-care organizations. Due to clarity reasons the inter-factor correlations are not displayed in Figure 1. Individ. F-MH wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Manag. 75:132. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.75.2.132. Bayesian analyses were conducted using the JASP statistic package (version 0.9.2). The motivational pattern was highly similar between private and work context. For instance, people scoring high on the dark triad traits report to have a strong desire for power, control, and dominance (e.g., Jonason et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2013; Semenyna and Honey, 2015). Means, standard deviation (in parenthesis), and error bars for the different motives displayed separately for work and private setting (N = 134). In line with that notion, research shows that individuals who show a high frequency of negative gossip are rated as highly dislikable (Farley, 2011). The standardized factor loadings for the six-factor model are presented separately in Figure 1 for both settings. 25, 5876. Conversations about absent third parties appear to be an apparent method to do exactly that. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1977.tb01812.x, Swann, W. B., Stephenson, B., and Pittman, T. S. (1981). doi: 10.1037/a0016338, Barrett, L., Dunbar, R., and Lycett, J. J. Exp. There are two basic subtypes of narcissism: grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism. Thus, trait psychology rests on the idea that people differ from . That means, when broadening the view and evaluating gossip not only with regard to social functions but also with regard the intention of the gossiper a positive impression of gossip emerges. The dark triad personality traits were entered as independent variables and motives as dependent variables. The present results show that the reasons to talk about an absent person depend to some extent on the personality of the people being part of the gossip activity (i.e., gossiper). A Harsh Spirit. Soc. Respondents indicate the degree to which they agree on a 7-point scale (1 = trifft berhaupt nicht zu, 7 = trifft voll zu). (2015) also found that the caudate nucleus, the reward center in the brain, activated in response to negative gossip about celebrities, which demonstrates how salacious celebrity scandals pique peoples interest. doi: 10.1177/0956797613510184. A pattern of positive behavior and attitude leads to a positive personality, marked by positive personality traits. Constructing Reality and Its Alternatives: An Inclusion/ Exclusion Model of Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Social Judgment (ZUMA-Arbeitsbericht, 1991/05). Comments are posted anonymously about an individual. 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. doi: 10.1026/0012-1924/a000124, Kuo, C., Chang, K., Quinton, S., Lu, C., and Lee, I. (2009). (2012). People whose lives lack meaningful work or transcendent purpose, often seek to find significance by discussing the lives of others. It's hard for us to let it go when we see something as unfair. Necessary, even? Gossiping also says something about the relationships people have with each other. Group Organiz. Thats not a responsible way of sharing information. You find out your friends ex is cheating on his new partner. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2014.999162, Peters, K., Jetten, J., Radova, D., and Austin, K. (2017). gossip with humour and laughter is the 'best' kind of gossip, in the sense that it is merely orientated to entertainment and thus it is free of 'pettiness' and 'viciousness', because it is incompatible with strong negative emotions: 'People cannot anger us or make us indignant, for instance, at the same time as they make us laugh. Copyright 2019 Hartung, Krohn and Pirschtat. People scoring higher on narcissism indicated information validation as a more important motive when talking about absent third parties than people scoring lower in narcissism both in work (p = 0.001) and private (p < 0.001) settings. They thrive on the notion that others fear them. Int. Rev. In a first step, the BF10s of the models with narcissism, Machiavelliansim, and psychopathy as independent variables and the respective gossip motive as dependent variable were of interest (see Table 2; A: BF10). When they were able to actively gossip about the person, or the situation, on the other hand, it soothed them and brought their heart rates down. When they are the first to volunteer their time, you can remark on their generosity. Heres how to make sure youre gossiping in a responsible, trustworthy way: Whether youre gossiping in a responsible way or not is all a matter of when youre doing it and with whom youre sharing the information, McAndrew says. In line with that notion, it appears that negative gossip at the workplace is structured around scapegoats indicating that a large number of employees talk negatively about a small number of colleagues (Ellwardt et al., 2012a). doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00109.x, Buffardi, L. E., and Campbell, W. K. (2008). Neuroticism is a trait where individuals are prone to negative thoughts such as anxiety, anger, envy, guilt and so on. Morf, C. C., and Rhodewalt, F. (2001). 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). To test differences in motives to talk about others, a 6 2 repeated measures ANOVA was conducted with both motives (i.e., information validation vs. information gathering vs. relationship building vs. protection vs. social enjoyment vs. negative influence) and situation (i.e., private vs. work) as within factors. And individuals with dark personalities are not known for their desire to appear or behave socially appropriate (e.g., Foster and Trimm, 2008). doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.11.011, Carter, G. L., Montanaro, Z., Linney, C., and Campbell, A. C. (2015). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203891, Djeriouat, H., and Trmolire, B. For both settings, the comparative fit index (work setting: CFI = 0.97; private setting: CFI = 0.99) and the root mean square error of approximation [work setting: RMSEA = 0.07 [90% CI:0.05, 0.08]; private setting: RMSEA = 0.03 [90% CI:0.00, 0.05]] were in the acceptable range. Jonason, P. K., Lyons, M., Baughman, H. M., and Vernon, P. A. Its harmful because without firsthand knowledge, those who are in a position to intervene in dangerous or destructive situations are unable to do so in a timely manner. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.022, Crampton, S. M., Hodge, J. W., and Mishra, J. M. (1998). Highly toxic people don't give constructive criticism as a way to help you - they throw nuggets of disdain rather than wisdom your way in order to make you double your efforts to please them. More specifically, we investigate whether individuals scoring high on the dark triad personality traits are more ready to use gossip in order to harm others and to serve themselves, thereby, contributing to the negative reputation of gossip. If this explanation sounds overwhelming, the good news is that it's time to get practical. 8, 231246. The grandiose (overt) subtype is your "typical" narcissist who is bold, aggressive, and arrogant. One might speculate that the positive social functions of gossip depend on a moderate use of gossip be it with regard to the amount or the valence of gossip. Eur. 42, 26402670. Lying is toxic since it is self-defeating. Can Humans Detect Text by AI Chatbot GPT? Eur. An in the know gossip loves to have the latest scoop. Also, it is likely that work and private setting differ on a competitiveness-cooperativeness dimension. Bivariate correlations between all variables are displayed in Table 1. (2018). The presence of gossip depends in large measure on how you talk about people who are not present and why you talk about them. They want to be included and involved in everything going on because of a fear of missing out or being excluded. A social network analysis of positive and negative gossip in organizational life. In the work setting, Bayesian linear regression analyses show that all models received support from the data with BF10s varying between BF10 = 2.30 for social enjoyment and BF10 = 122473.60 for relationship building. They prefer to do the least amount for the most gain, believing any and all. Public Opin. One strength of the present study is that it extends previous research through the comprehensive assessment of gossip reasons. Keywords: gossip, gossip motives, situation, dark triad, narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, Citation: Hartung F-M, Krohn C and Pirschtat M (2019) Better Than Its Reputation? 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.
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