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What Gossip Tells Us About Ourselves
We would love to think that we keep our noses out of people’s business, but we just struggle to do so. Even if it is not people we directly interact with, we are caught up in the lives of our favourite musicians or TV stars. Just recently, we saw the whole world become lawyers as they sided with Johnny Depp.
Gossiping, at its core, is quite ruthless. It tends to focus on the negative aspects of a person’s appearance, achievements or character. Since we know this, we tend to deflect our gossiping or try to reduce its severity by telling ourselves what we said was not that bad.
There are many reasons why an individual decides to partake in gossiping. With all these different motivations to gossip around us, we must think about how we can navigate it.
The Origins of Workplace Gossip
The fruits of gossip are hardly ever beneficial. However, by understanding the roots of gossip, we may be able to understand it a bit better to use it to our advantage.
According to research, there are three primary reasons why people gossip:
- A desire & motivation to learn
- Abrupt changes
- Ego booster
