Gossip lives in all our contexts. Dressed in lambskin, they feed on rumors with their sharp tongue to stay alive. They have that herd mentality that is able to please the problems of others, violate confidences and conspire “behind our backs. “
As reprehensible as it may seem, this type of psychological behavior has existed since the dawn of time, gossip is part of our biological nature as social beings that we are, as explained, for example, by a study published in 2008 in the journal Scientific American.
“What your eyes haven’t seen, they invent with your mouth. “
Robin Dunbar, a celebrated British anthropologist, psychologist and biologist, also developed a theory in which he spoke of gossip as the soil where our language began to develop, according to him, while our ancestors were in their small social groups, began exchanging information in a confidential context, in order to strengthen ties.
However, there are many types of gossip, and many of them have no malice. Often, with this exchange, we just want to collect information to eliminate uncertainty from our nearest environments. Our brain is designed to collect data in order to restore our environment. cognitive balance, and therefore we need what others can tell us to overcome these dissonances, these gaps in information.
Gossip can also be called gossip merchants: they take and provide information. Epicure defined gossip as a natural pleasure, but not necessary. don’t die.
However, gossip dealers need it in some way, as they have a counterbalance effect on their disappointments, emotional emptiness and personal discomfort. You could say that they are like spices for your life, without them your life has no taste, it is very boring.
In addition, the biological mechanism that triggers the act of grouping together to share insider information of an absent person causes an intense chemical reaction: it releases Serotonin, the happiness hormone, which explains why for some people spreading rumors is addictive and pleasurable.
In this article, we’ll mention some of the features of gossip
For gossip traders, sharing information is a way to consolidate one “we” to exclude “them. “This builds a sense of belonging to a particular group, behavior that is very common in the workplace, at school, and even in family contexts.
Anyone who receives confidence instantly receives from someone a powerful weapon, an instrument that, well managed, at any time can be a great advantage. As Nietzsche would say, there are people who need a position, a status, and they do not doubt it. achieve this through mechanisms of dubious moral reputation.
“It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty years to learn to shut up. “Ernest Hemingway?
As we have already said, participating in a gossip and then spreading it in the wind without knowing if it is true, without applying a filter of analysis or assessing whether this act is lawful, defines that unitary and rigid spirit that says so little of ours. human evolution itself.
One way or another, we confirm that there is a very envious person near us who invents a rumor, a gossip that spreads it and a naive person who believes without any resistance.
You need to stop this type of behavior. We can stop the gossip by simply delaying the spread of this gossip. The question is, how are we going to get there? Application of protective filters.
The gossip is interesting and colorful, but it rarely plays a constructive role. A study by the London Business School reports that gossip takes up nearly 70% of conversations in a work environment, to the point that the company uses gossip to measure its productivity.
“Not everyone repeats the gossip they hear, some people improve it. “
Deceptive gossip providers and harmful gossip traders affect the dynamics of any environment, they are at the origin of harassment (in the context of human relations, harassment is a form of bullying or bullying), they create insurmountable distances in place work and make employees suspicious of the management and direction of their own human capital.
Now let’s see what kind of responses we should implement to avoid these dynamics.
First consider that any gossip can bring misinformation or moral damage to the other person or group of people who are targeted by rumors. Being part of a gossip is a frontier that can turn us into gossip traders, or on the contrary, a shield loaded with stopping this dynamic.
In conclusion, gossip does not fit into our working environment, on the stairs of neighbors or between friends, however, we must be aware that this type of behavior will always accompany us, so we must often regard silence as an ally and confidant; protects us from poisonous tongues, from false and selfish people, and frees us from many problems.