The New Word on Gossip

When it's good, it binds people and communities together. As anyone who has lived in a small community knows, gossip is something that people who share a collective identity do naturally. But rampant individualism, the fragmentation of our lifestyle and the pervasiveness of competitive striving can drive gossip and rumor down more poisonous channels.

If you want to gauge the health of an organization, tap into its grapevine, taste a sample or two, and test the toxicity. Companies that think they need to eradicate the rumor mill to clean up the culture have got it the wrong way around. Gossip is inevitable and blameless--the problem lies instead in its content, which reflects precisely what is going on in people's minds.

Evolutionary psychology argues that human nature--our psychological architecture as much as our physical form--was shaped to survive and reproduce under a particular set of conditions. This was the existence of clan-dwelling primates, who subsisted by foraging and hunting in a savanna-like environment. It is only in recent biological times that we left the world of clan-dwelling primates for the world of agriculture, city settlements and, eventually, business organizations. We inhabit our high-tech world with Stone Age minds because there has not been enough time to change our psychology to match our environment.

In evolutionary psychology, several elements conspire to give gossip pride of place. First is the physiological capability of speech. Evolution gave us a stunning ability to vocalize by allowing the windpipe full access to the thorax and vocal chords. The second element is language. We have brains endowed with speech centers that allow every growing child to perform the greatest miracle of learning in nature--the acquisition of nearly 13,000 words by the age of six, rising to 60,000 by adulthood. This is what psycholinguist Stephen Pinker, Ph.D., has called "the language instinct."

Thirdly, the large and complicated brain that evolution gave us to create language has also mastered the politics of complex social living. British psychologist Robin Dunbar, Ph.D., discovered a direct relationship between primate brain and clan size; we are prodigiously equipped mentally to master the subtleties of a social network of up to 150 people.

Our mental design also includes a Machiavellian intelligence--the ability to empathize and read signs that indicate each other's motives and emotions. This is essential for "cheat detection," a key skill in the human tribe.

These tools allow us to gossip. But what role is played by over-the-fence chat in the fate and functioning of the human animal? There are three very essential functions of gossip: networking, influence and social alliances.

NETWORKING

As social animals we are status-conscious, and for good reason. Navigating the social pathways of the tribe requires a good understanding of its complexity. There is an extensive stream of research, summarized in the work of sociologist Lee Ellis, Ph.D., and epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson, Ph.D., showing that among humans, as in other primate species, being of high rank confers an important array of benefits: health, wealth and happiness.

But attaining these benefits and avoiding failure is difficult. One reason is that social hierarchy is multidimensional. People deploy a wide repertoire of talents to compare themselves with others. What's more, social structure is dynamic; it changes all the time.

Various media keep us in touch not only with the fate of the notorious and celebrated, but also with the ever-shifting ideas and fashions that form the currency for social discourse. The media give us material to discuss and tell us about our own location within this labile lattice of relationships. It is no different on the local level. The position and importance of people in your circle of influence are constantly shifting.

INFLUENCE

The second function of gossip is influence. Even when our social position is apparently immobile, we retain an active interest in making sure we do not lose it. When we find an opportunity, we try to advance a good opinion about ourselves to those who can help us.

However, it is not enough to do good; you need a reputation for doing good for it to count in your favor. Like it or not, we all are confronted with the task of selling ourselves and making sure other people have a positive impression of us.

Self-promotion is not always a conscious strategy. We do it whenever we meet a stranger. It's in the way we engage in small talk and mobilize our facial expressions to convey interest and sympathetic sentiments. I once spoke with the leader of a jazz band who told me that many superb musicians don't get the recognition they deserve, while there are many high-profile stars of lesser talent.