The real slant on gossip

Focuses on the benefits from gossiping. Gossip in newspaper columns; Primary function of gossip; Gossip among preteens. INSET: The high-tech grapevine.

By Robin Westen, published on July 01, 1996 - last reviewed on August 26, 2009

During the past week, I learned that rock singer Rod Stewart prepared for his upcoming world tour with a nip and tuck, O.J. Simpson's co-prosecutors Christopher Darden and Marcia Clark were romantically involved, Mel Gibson faxes dirty to Jodie Foster, and an old college pal of mine is leaving her husband for a man twenty years her junior.

It's been a slippery subject with a sullied reputation. But that's about to change. The latest buzz on gossip is that it's good for us. In fact, when word of mouth stops, then it's time to worry.

This is quite a bounty of eclectic information, but for the average American of the nineties, it's probably not a big haul at all. Gossip, for those millions of us who are interested, is everywhere. At last count, over 40 newspaper columns, dozens of magazines, 50 television talk shows, and three major tabloids are spreading the word. In addition, there's gossip via cyberspace and, of course, good old-fashioned word of mouth.

Although most of us enjoy and engage in it, gossip is a slippery subject with a sullied reputation. The idea of gossip originated with the Old English word "godsibb," meaning "a person related to one in God," or a godparent. Until about the 1800's "gossip" denoted a man who drank with friends and the fellowship they shared, or a woman who was a family friend and helped during childbirth.

Today, gossip is a national growth industry and the dictionary defines it simply as "chatty talk; the reporting of sensational or intimate information." Despite its banal definition, gossip is often perceived as a dangerous weapon, one that can ruin reputations, poison relationships, and halt careers. A gossip can be referred to eruditely as a quidnunc (from the Latin) or colloquially--and disdainfully--as a yenta (from the Yiddish). But social scientists who have researched the subject insist that gossip is more closely related to its seventeenth-century meaning. In the vast majority of cases, they contend, it's beneficial.Gossip serves important social and psychological functions; it's a unifying force that communicates a group's moral code. It's the social glue that holds us all. together.

Gossip is Golden

"If people aren't talking about other people, it's a signal that something is wrong--that we feel socially alienated or indifferent," says Ralph Rosnow, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Temple University and coauthor of Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of Hearsay.

"For a real understanding of our social environment, gossip is essential," agrees Jack Levin, Ph.D., professor of sociology and criminology at Boston's Northeastern University and coauthor of Gossip: The Inside Scoop. "Its primary function is to help us make social comparisons. For example, if we read bad news about celebrities in the tabloids, or get into the gruesome details of our neighbor's misery over a cup of coffee, our own problems begin to pale in comparison."

You may have to bring the car in for an oil change, get through a stack of laundry, mow the lawn, and pay your taxes, but don't think for one minute that Princess Di has it any better. She suffers bouts of bulimia, is being divorced by a prince, has an ex-paramour who called her Squidgy and a mother-in-law who cringes in her presence.

Not that a little dirt has to hurt a reputation if, like Diana's, it's a good one to begin with. In fact, when someone who's reputable and in a position of power is the target of gossip, he or she may actually gain from being gabbed about.Gossiping about someone humanizes them. They become flesh- and-blood people with whom we can identify.

It's also a way for folks to let you know what the limits on personal behavior are without confrontation, says Rosnow. "If you move into a community and your neighbor tells you how the previous homeowner never disposed of his garbage properly, his gossip is letting you in on something else."

"There is only one thing worse than being gossiped about, and that is not being gossiped about," quipped Oscar Wilde. But there's a fine line between a little dirt and a mudslide. This may be especially true for politicians. "Gossip is the primary reason Bill Clinton is the president of the United States today," Levin asserts. "If he wasn't a womanizer who owned up to his marital problems and claimed he failed to inhale, he wouldn't have won. We understood, forgave, and voted for him. Judging by history and Bush's defeat, Senator Dole could probably use a little gossip to 'taint' his campaign."

However, Levin adds this kibitzing caveat: "There is a point beyond which reporters wilt not permit public officials to go with impunity" He dates this change in attitude to Ted Kennedy's infamous car accident at Chappaquidick.

"You couldn't find a reporter in Washington who didn't want to go for the jugular," syndicated columnist Liz Smith recalls. "They had all been observing Teddy Kennedy for a long time; both Time and Newsweek had reporters on that trip to Alaska in 1969 where he got drunk on the plane and misbehaved quite badly. Nobody reported it because they didn't want to hurt him. But Chappaquidick was the end." From then on, the volume on tattling was turned up full blast and the nature of gossip was never the same.

"In a sense, it's right out of Nietzsche," says Rosnow. "Gossip shepherds the herd, It says: these are the boundaries and you're crossing them. You're not abiding by the rules and you'd better get back in step." This type of chatter control, Rosnow reports, is especially effective in managing the morality and affairs of small groups, especially in an office.