Gossip can have a negative impact on the psychology of those who are victims of it, but it is also said to have harmful effects on the mental health and self-esteem of those who peddle it. Explanations.
- There are three categories of gossip: positive, negative and neutral.
- According to a 2019 study published by the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, each person spends an average of 52 minutes a day talking about gossip.
They begin at an early age, in the playground, and often continue once an adult, between work colleagues, sometimes even between friends or family: gossip. According to Laroussethese can be defined as “malicious and baseless gossip”. In short, to speak ill of one or more people when they are not present.
A frequent social practice
This frequent social practice would in fact be very harmful for the mental health of those who are victims of it, of course, but also for that of the people who peddle this gossip. In a study published in the journal Current Psychology, the researchers wanted to understand the impact of gossip on the self-esteem of people for whom this practice was regular. In other words, those who reported the gossip.
Lowered self-esteem
For this, 1,140 participants had to write a positive or negative description of a target person. Thus, the scientists found that the self-esteem of those who made a negative description was greatly lowered after writing. On the other hand, no change for those who had written something good about someone.
In a second study, the results of which were reported in the same publication, 112 participants were asked to share information about someone they knew. Result: there was a drop in self-esteem, whatever the nature – positive or negative – of the comments reported about this person. Thus, the researchers deduced that the simple fact of talking about someone else without their presence, therefore of gossiping, would be harmful for oneself.
To not answer
What to do to avoid gossip? First of all, you have to try not to participate in this kind of discussion. You can identify the people who most often engage in these practices and not associate with them.
But if you are caught in a conversion of this type, several solutions are available to you: say that you are not interested, ask her where this information comes from to show her that it is not necessarily reliable and push her to question themselves, or simply not to answer. This last option will show that you are not interested and, without a response, the gossip will certainly stop after a few minutes.
