Dif. Narcissistic admiration and rivalry: disentangling the bright and dark sides of narcissism. Your personality traits should tell you something interesting and fun about your character. Scandals and the public's trust in politicians: assimilation and contrast effects. However, one might also evaluate gossip with respect to other dimensions such as positivity or negativity of the transmitted information or the intention of the gossiper (Eckhaus and Ben-Hador, 2018). 81, 102106. How the grapevine keeps you in line: gossip increases contributions to the group. 12, 177196. And that can easily lead to gossip. They often come across as too clingy. Who Gossips and How in Everyday Life?. However, jobs, workplaces, and organizations are highly different in terms of normative expectations and competitiveness. A. Bayesian regression analyses were conducted in two steps. While there are hundreds of different personality trait examples that describe a person, psychologists often list five main personality traits, called the Big Five. To gossip or not to gossip: reactions to a perceived request to gossip a qualitative study. Faced with the concern that information about negative behavior runs through the grapevine and may consequently lead to the loss of reputation or even social exclusion, it prevents people from acting against social norms and the good of the group (Piazza and Bering, 2008; Beersma and Van Kleef, 2011; Feinberg et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2016). Great listener (read: a bit of a gossip) Nevertheless, future research needs to find a concluding answer. What then? Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, It appears that people mainly gossip for informational reasons and only marginally to harm others. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.821, Feinberg, M., Cheng, J. T., and Willer, R. (2012). All rights reserved. Regression analysis with motives as dependent variables and dark triad personality traits as independent variables (N = 134). Relat. But if youve ever lived anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, you are already nodding your head. *Correspondence: Freda-Marie Hartung, freda-marie.hartung@hsrw.eu, Why People Gossip and What It Brings About: Motives For, and Consequences Of, Informal Evaluative Information Exchange, View all The three items were chosen based on consideration about the content and wording as well as on factor loadings obtained through a pre-study (N = 45). Psychol. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00109.x, Buffardi, L. E., and Campbell, W. K. (2008). Gifted and Talented The Bayesian analysis has several advantages over classical statistical inference (e.g., van de Schoot et al., 2013; Wagenmakers et al., 2018b) such as less susceptibility to small sample size (van de Schoot et al., 2013). In total, 100% of the students and the unemployed participant reported to have work experience. In-depth interviews might uncover additional motives to exchange information about others. Thirdly, the present study has been conducted as an online study warranting complete anonymity. In addition, we examine the reasons of individuals scoring high on the dark triad personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) as they are known to ignore commonly accepted norms and to act selfishly (e.g., OBoyle et al., 2012; Muris et al., 2017). 22, 420. doi: 10.1037/a0019265, Jones, D. N., and Figueredo, A. J. Obsessive personality: 10 main traits Perfectionism and meticulousness Possibly, the trait that best defines obsessional personality is the Perfectionism And thoroughness. It would be nice if we could capture the entire human experience into five simple words. The dark triad personality traits were measured using the German version of the Dirty Dozen scale (DD, German version: Kfner et al., 2014; original version: Jonason and Webster, 2010). My husband taught me the delicate balance of venting, without becoming a gossip. Eleven participants had missing values varying between 1.80 and 35.70%. And if the benefit of the favor to the other person outweighs the cost of doing the favor to you, then it should be done. Psychol. Aggress. Gossip in the workplace and the implications for HR management: a study of gossip and its relationship to employee cynicism. The Dark Triad of personality and utilitarian moral judgment: the mediating role of Honesty/Humility and Harm/Care. However, as our data shows no differences between these two events, it is reasonable to assume that no order effects emerged at all. Also, relationship building shows consistent positive associations with narcissism. Individ. Gossip typically centers on the negative aspects of a person's personal appearance, personal achievements, or personal behaviors. Given these strengths, some limitations need to be considered. Bull. 8, 111120. Participants were informed about the study content, that they were free to withdraw at any time without giving any reason, and that the data collection and analysis were anonymized. According to Wagenmakers et al. Consider the words of Romans 12:17-21: Never pay back evil with more evil. Public Opin. Pers. 74, 275279. However, the association with personality varies between motives, traits, and situations. We care about fairness. For snowball sampling they were asked to distribute the link to colleagues and other employees. A pastors wife and national speaker, Donna Jones travels from coast to coast, guiding women to the wisdom they need, for the life they want. An exploratory analysis of sex differences in gossip. Thinking About Answers: The Application of Cognitive Processes to Survey Methodology. B. Jobe, H. S. Kurtzman, and V. S. Cain (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 2947. A self-centered character may learn the value of sharing with others in order to fulfill their goal. They likely think, someone needs to do something. Evol. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.12.026. The grandiose (overt) subtype is your "typical" narcissist who is bold, aggressive, and arrogant. Yet our favourite pastime is complete character assassination. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12169, Waddington, K. (2005). Thus, calibrating the own perspective and gathering information about other people, and thereby about the self, appears to be important when gossiping, specifically for people who shy away from more direct forms of social comparisons due to a vulnerable self-concept. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2123, Piazza, J., and Bering, J. M. (2008). There are three criteria that are characterize personality traits: (1) consistency, (2) stability, and (3) individual differences. Manag. What a tangled web we weave: the Dark Triad traits and deception. doi: 10.1177/0956797617716918. When people say your reputation precedes you, its because they have heard gossip about that person, he says, which can be extremely useful. That said, disseminating or not correcting gossip you know to be untrue doesnt have any pro-social benefit. They'll find a way to cultivate it, so they can use it to get what they want from you. Importantly, even individuals that are willing to dismiss commonly accepted social norms, act selfishly, and harm others for their own good appear to use gossip to tune their picture of other humans and themselves and not to harm others. Jealous gossip worms its way into the workplace, into friendships, into families, and even into places of worship. Individ. Old Medication, New Use: Can Prazosin Curb Drinking? Unpacking evil: claiming the core of the Dark Triad. The way of being obsessive is mainly determined by the perfection of things. Group Organiz. Can Humans Detect Text by AI Chatbot GPT? And his team has found that gossip is actually one of the forces that promotes cooperation among groups, too. A social network analysis of positive and negative gossip in organizational life. Those who were asked to rate the trustworthiness of politicians in general afterwards rated the trustworthiness lower than those who were asked to rate the trustworthiness of specific politicians. Some researchers argue that gossip helped our ancestors survive. However, men and women differ significantly with regard to psychopathy (women M = 2.50, SD = 1.58 vs. men M = 3.08, SD = 1.73; t(132) = 2.01, p = 0.05, Cohen's d = 0.35). He or she can feel your joys and sorrows and react accordingly to it. The vulnerable (covert) subtype is a less studied type of narcissism that presents with hypersensitivity, defensiveness, and even shyness. Thus, the positive social function view is not mirrored in the reputation of gossip and gossipers. B., Niederhoffer, K., and Swann, W. B. Jr. (2006). Trames J. Hum. Pers. A man who spends most of his time gossiping about other people and even his friends usually has a general feeling of inadequacy in his own sphere of life. Latent factors are allowed to correlate. Social media is an ideal platform for gossip. Halten Sie sich diese Situation im Folgenden vor Augen und denken Sie an Grnde, die Sie fr das Gesprch hatten. And being the scapegoat might have disastrous effects on the individuals as, in addition, their relationship to colleagues appears to be characterized by difficulties (Ellwardt et al., 2012a). A character must overcome these flaws in order to achieve their goals unless the story is a tragedy, and their character flaw is the cause of their downfall. 8, 7899. One might assume that thinking about a gossip event in a private setting could influence recall on gossiping in a professional context leading to similar results across situations. Thus, if individuals with dark personalities regularly use gossip to spread negative information and harm others that would surely contribute to the negative reputation of gossip. personality traits of a gossip To do so, we translated the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire into German. 8, 111121. Armed with the knowledge of their peers decisions, participants then played the game over again in different groupings. Keywords: gossip, gossip motives, situation, dark triad, narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, Citation: Hartung F-M, Krohn C and Pirschtat M (2019) Better Than Its Reputation? The more narcissistic a person is, the more they report using gossip in order to build trust and grow closer with the gossip partner. Theres an intimacy to sharing experiences and feeling like youre on the same page about others, she points out. The best way to deal with them is : 1) Don't give them any gossip. In their study, Beersma and Van Kleef (2012) distinguished four different reasons to gossip, namely information gathering and validation, social enjoyment, negative influence, and group protection. Bivariate correlations between all variables are displayed in Table 1. doi: 10.1177/1059601112450607, Farley, S. D. (2011). If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. Public Adm. 85, 641665. 35, 371390. Behav. Res. You cant keep your mouth shut that your friends marriage is on the fritz; you let your entire circle of friends know that another friend did poorly on a big exam. 2, 642649. The Bless Your Heart gossip shares juicy pieces of information, but tags on the line, bless his/her heart as a way of appearing compassionate and caring, when, in fact, they are neither compassionate nor caring. Fourth, in the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire participants are asked to think about their reasons to gossip in a specific situation capturing their motivation to gossip in that situation. Soc. Why people gossip: an empirical analysis of social motives, antecedents, and consequences. He's not afraid to say "no". Robbins, M. L., & Karan, A. Self-reports: how the question shapes the answer. Perspect. Women engaged in more neutral gossip than men, but the amount of negative and positive gossip shared among men and among women was fairly consistent. J. Pers. Another way to explore whether the reputation of gossip is justified is to examine the gossip reasons of individuals scoring high on narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. In the workplace, people have to follow rules and adjust their behavior to fulfill or support organizational objectives. Participants have to consult their autobiographical memory to identify relevant behavioral events, and, in addition, remember in detail the reasons for this behavior (e.g., Sudman et al., 1996). revels in making others look bad when we feel like their life is better than ours. A pattern of positive behavior and attitude leads to a positive personality, marked by positive personality traits. J. Psychol. Six distinct motives were identified that underlie gossip behavior: information validation, information gathering, relationship building, protection, social enjoyment, and negative influence. By the time my husband had enough credible evidence to adequately address the issue, damagethat could have been avoidedwas already done. Rather, a single motive might serve unintentionally different social functions, presumably more than one at once. Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: a mixed blessing? Due to clarity reasons the inter-factor correlations are not displayed in Figure 1. Influence tactics and objectives in upward, downward, and lateral influence attempts. An avoider gossip might have good intentions, but rarely do they get good results. Cost them a fortune!. The malevolent side of human nature: a meta-analysis and critical review of the literature on the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). doi: 10.1177/0146167292185007, Schwarz, N., Strack, F., and Mai, H. (1991). More specifically, it has been suggested and empirically shown that, at the dyadic level, sharing gossip is associated with friendship (Grosser et al., 2010; Watson, 2011; Ellwardt et al., 2012b) and even leads to the development of friendships (Ellwardt et al., 2012b; see also Bosson et al., 2006). Together the evidence suggests that gossip may play an important role in maintaining social order, Willer says. Translating Questionnaires and Other Research Instruments: Problems and Solutions. Needless to say, it created a relational mess. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1948550619837000. Also, post-hoc power analysis for the two regression analyses not reaching conventional levels of significance (i.e., for information gathering and protection in private setting) revealed that the F-tests did not achieve sufficient power (0.13 for protection and 0.58 for information gathering). As a result, important social functions have been postulated for gossip in anthropological and psychological science (e.g., Suls, 1977; Baumeister et al., 2004; Dunbar, 2004a,b; Foster, 2004; Hartung and Renner, 2013). When these traits are negative and hold a character back from their goal, theyre called character flaws. Curiously, specifically in a professional setting, people scoring high on narcissism tend to gossip more for social enjoyment reasons than people scoring low on narcissism. Psychol. Child Dev. We all know gossip to be a human universalbut does it get an undeservedly bad rap? Dif. To fill this void, there is nothing else he can find worth doing apart from yapping and gossiping about other people with the ultimate aim of gaining favours from those he is spreading gossip to. J. Commun. 54, 93105. In addition, Buffardi and Campbell (2008) showed that individuals scoring high on narcissism are more active on social networking sites such as Facebook (see also e.g., Carpenter, 2012). doi: 10.1007/BF02912493, Eckhaus, E., and Ben-Hador, B. In clear contrast to the bad reputation, gossiping is not mainly driven by malicious reasons. Heres how to make sure youre gossiping in a responsible, trustworthy way: Whether youre gossiping in a responsible way or not is all a matter of when youre doing it and with whom youre sharing the information, McAndrew says. It works like this: Did you hear the Johnson girl got into trouble again? Biblically, a gossip is defined as a tale-bearer, a whisperer, a secret slanderer. Anytime we say anything about someone privately that we wouldnt say publicly, its gossip. You feel violated and resentful. The dislike for the target of the gossip is validated and justifies hurtful behavior. They encourage your worst traits. (2004), for instance, understand gossip as an extension of observational learning. Soc. Psychol. Another word, Motzei Shem Rah, means "slander and untrue remarks". Connect with Donna at www.donnajones.orgor on Instagram @donnaajones. People who heard either positive or negative gossip about themselves showed more activity in the prefrontal cortex of their brains, which helps people navigate complex social behaviors. Gossip on social media tends to be more harmful because the negative information has a wide audience and remains visible for a long time. Identifying and profiling scholastic cheaters: their personality, cognitive ability, and motivation. 8, 100110. A., and Volk, A. Back, M. D., Kfner, A. C., Dufner, M., Gerlach, T. M., Rauthmann, J. F., and Denissen, J. J. Pers. Taken together, we assume that the work context reflects a rather strong (i.e., clear normative expectations) and competitive situation; and the private context reflects a rather weak and more cooperative situation. The DSM-5 lists nine key narcissistic traits: exaggerated feelings of superiority and self-importance. Soc. Available online at: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-68883. 18, 574579. 19, 378394. Here we can assume rather strong situations. Soc. Gossip is an ubiquitous phenomenon. So, keep on talking. Dif. Who is James bond? Individ. BETSORTE GR N TIKLAYIN! (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill) 680740. It appears that we do not learn only about extraordinary experience made by others but also about more trivial things such as dressing style (De Backer et al., 2007). Out of jealousy or a need for revenge The informal communication network: factors influencing grapevine activity. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203891, Djeriouat, H., and Trmolire, B. This motivation was apparent in the private setting as well as in the work setting suggesting that it might play a role in amicable relationship building as well as professional networking. And research has indeed shown that a lot of gossip has both positive effects and moral motivations, explains Robb Willer, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Polarization and Social Change Laboratory at Stanford University, who studies the social forces that bring us together and drive us against one another, including gossip. 2. They are, however, highly similar to bivariate correlations displayed in Table 1. (2013). If you think youd feel the urge to share this type of news if you heard it, youre probably right. 88, 7377. Sci. Why? You may find your desire to share private information about someone else reveals more about you than it does the other person. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00956.x, Behling, O., and Law, K. S. (2000). They criticize to nitpick and demean you, not to empower you. Empirical research has already shown that gossip activity at the workplace depends on variables such as trust in management (Ellwardt et al., 2012c), psychological contract violations (Kuo et al., 2015), leadership (Kuo et al., 2015), ambiguity of formal communication within organizations (Crampton et al., 1998), and perceived stress and anxiety (Waddington and Fletcher, 2005). Manag. In the light of these findings one might speculate that for dark individuals gossiping about cheaters and free-riders removes potential rivals and creates a climate of trust. Inq. Prayer request gossip hurts as much as any other type of gossipmaybe more. Bless her heart. My neighbor will sure have her hands full with another baby on the way, so close to the youngest. doi: 10.3758/s13423-017-1323-7, Wagenmakers, E. J., Marsman, M., Jamil, T., Ly, A., Verhagen, J., Love, J., et al. Main Traits According to the DSM 1.Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements) 2. Not surprisingly, they were happier to hear positive gossip about themselves, and more irked by hearing negative gossip about themselves as opposed to hearing gossip about others.). Acad. In order to get more insight into our results, we additionally conducted a Bayesian Repeated ANOVA and Bayesian Regression Analyses. How perceptions of gossiper morality are related to gossip content. Gossip frequently involves inconsequential topics such as a coworkers new hairstyle, weight reduction, weight gain, or a recent trip to Vegas. 74:1197. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.74.5.1197, Peng, X., Li, Y., Wang, P., Mo, L., and Chen, Q. It's cowering in our jokes about the 'craziness' of our spouse. So, yes, you're likable! Psychol. However, whereas individuals scoring high on narcissism appear to use gossip in a malicious way in private settings, individuals scoring high on Machiavellianism tend to bad-mouth others in professional settings. J. Pers. Psychol. Six distinct reasons have been identified that underlie gossip behavior: information validation, information gathering, relationship building, protection, social enjoyment, and negative influence.