Gossiping about other people can make you feel more connected to those around you and even help you form better relationships, according to a new study.
Neuroscientists from Dartmouth College had a group of volunteers play a series of online games and monitored the role of gossip between the different participants.
The US researchers found that simply spreading rumours about someone doesn’t help to improve relationships, explaining that ‘only the right kind of gossip works’.
Having conversations about others with a third party and learning about people’s experiences helps cement social connections and broadens the mind, they said.
Gossiping about other people can make you feel more connected to those around you and even help you form better relationships, according to a new study. Stock image
The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, build on previous research that revealed gossip makes up about 14 per cent of all daily conversations.
The team involved in the new study, led by Eshin Jolly and Luke Chang, wanted to find out why people gossip and what function it serves in human interaction.
Jolly described gossip as a ‘complex form of communication that is often misunderstood,’ adding that it can be a means of ‘substantive connection.’
In the online game, players were given money to either keep or invest in a group fund that then grows and is divided equally between the contributors.
Participants played 10 rounds of the game together in six-person groups, with each player given $10 to keep or invest any portion of it into a group fund.
The fund was multiplied by 1.5x and divided equally among the players, the study authors explained, saying it was designed to create an inherent tension between the ‘selfish freeriding’ and the ‘cooperative’ people involved in the game.
In some conditions, information was restricted so that participants could only observe the behaviour of a few other players in their group.
‘Our inspiration was creating a life-like scenario, in which you’re a member of a community and affected by the actions of all other community members, but most of whom you rarely observe and engage with directly,’ Jolly explained.
In some games, players could privately chat with another player in the group. This allowed players to relay information about other players’ behaviour to their partner, such as whether another player was freeriding.
Afterwards, players reported their willingness to play with each player again.
The study authors say their findings show that gossip is a ‘rich, multifaceted communication’ with several social functions.
Different types of gossip emerged depending on the amount of information available to each individual player, or the group of players involved.
Spontaneous conversations about others occurred more frequently during games when players could only observe the behaviour of a few of their group members.
When players could directly observe all of their group members, they tended to chit-chat and discuss a wider array of topics.
Participants relied on second-hand information from their partners to stay informed about other peoples’ behaviour that they could not see.
Neuroscientists from Dartmouth College had a group of volunteers play a series of online games and monitored the role of gossip between the different participants. Stock image
The team say this illustrates how gossip enables individuals to learn from the experiences of others when direct observation is not feasible.
Participants who chatted with each other felt the most connected at the end of the game and shared similar impressions of the other players in their group.
Chang explained that by exchanging information with others, gossip is a way of forming relationships, as it ‘involves trust and facilitates a social bond that is reinforced as further communication takes place.’
In a typical public goods game, players contribute less over time and an unraveling effect occurs that propagates through a network of people.
However, in this study, cooperation declined less over time when players could privately communicate. Communication increased collective cooperation.
The researchers said gossip should not be relegated to just ‘baseless trash talk’.
According to the paper, the team’s findings on the role of gossip are consistent with creating a ‘shared reality’.
This is a scenario in which friends and colleagues often find common bonds, establish alliances, exchange personal information, and discuss the behaviour of others to establish a consensus of socially acceptable behaviour.
‘Gossip can be useful because it helps people learn through the experiences of others, while enabling them to become closer to each other,’ says Jolly.
The findings have been published in the journal Current Biology.