magazine issue 2 2012 / Issue 14

The dish on gossip: Its origins, functions, and bad reputation

• written by Ashley Waggoner Denton
• edited by Namkje Koudenburg

The Evolutionary Origins of Gossip

We have learned where the word gossip comes from, but what about the origins of the act itself? Since gossip constitutes such a large part of human dialogue, some researchers believe that an understanding of its origins may involve understanding the origins of language itself. British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar believes that language, and particularly social language, evolved as a mechanism for group bonding, and as a way to monitor the members of our social networks. Research has shown that members of all primate species engage in social grooming behaviors (i.e., cleaning or grooming each other's fur) in order to create and maintain important social relationships, and it is proposed that humans achieve these same goals by engaging in social talk – by gossiping (e.g., Dunbar, 1996, 2004). As will be discussed in more detail below, the exchange of gossip demonstrates trust and establishes friendships between individuals, and establishes norms for acceptable behavior within the group (Foster, 2004). Gossip allows information about cheaters and free-riders(basically the “bad seeds” of society) to be shared widely, so that you know not to trust “deceitful Dave” without having to actually interact with him and learn firsthand that he should be avoided. Gossip is such a vital part of human interaction that Dunbar goes so far as to make the claim “without gossip, there would be no society” (2004, p. 100).

Others have made similar arguments for the adaptiveness of gossip, claiming that the particular types of gossip people are interested in are precisely those that would boost someone's social status within the group. Specifically, McAndrew and Milenkovic (2002) provide evidence that people are more likely to pass on negative information about strangers and high-status individuals, and positive information about friends and family. Although (as the authors admit) this is by no means evidence for an evolution-based explanation of gossip, they contend that it is consistent with the idea that gossip may have evolved as a mechanism for individual status-enhancement. Researchers have also suggested that our obsession with celebrity gossip may stem from the fact that in terms of evolutionary history, celebrities are a novel occurrence. As such, the cognitive mechanisms we evolved to allow us to keep track of our in-group members are incapable of distinguishing between our real in-group members (e.g., friends and family) and other individuals that we see frequently and know a lot about (e.g., the stars of our favorite television shows; Barkow, 1992; McAndrew & Milenkovic, 2002).

The Functions of Gossip

Researchers have proposed a wide variety of gossip functions, arguing that gossip serves a purpose and is not merely “idle chatter” (e.g., Fine & Rosnow, 1978). Here I will focus on the different functions gossip may serve for individuals, though it is noted that some of the functions of gossip may occur more at a collective-level (serving the purposes of the group rather than the individual). Many different functions of gossip have been proposed over the years, but they generally fall within two main categories: Mastery functions and connectedness functions.

Mastery functions

Mastery functions refer to those functions of gossip that help individuals learn about their social worlds, allowing people to understand and predict events in order to obtain rewards (Smith & Mackie, 2007). It turns out that we can learn a whole lot “through the grapevine.” Gossip provides us with information not only about specific others, but about our culture more generally, as well as information about ourselves. That gossip provides information about other people is more or less definitional, and we have already touched on one of the main reasons why such information is so important – because it lets us know who to avoid interacting with, without having to learn the hard way (i.e., firsthand) that the person is a liar or a cheat. Positive gossip can also be helpful, of course – for example, you may learn from a friend that a potential romantic partner shares your love of modern art, and this motivates you to ask him or her out on a date. Or you may be deciding whether to accept a job offer and learn from current employees that your potential boss is very family-oriented and flexible in terms of work hours. This type of personal information is unlikely to be found anywhere else except in the form of gossip, making gossip an extremely important form of inquiry (Ayim, 1994).