Gossip can ruin your reputation. It can justify your behavior. It's entertaining. And, for many, it's a "sin."
Gossip is a behavior that anthropologists have recognized in most cultures, from urban to remote, rural settings.
"Everyone gossips in every culture, under the right circumstances," says Dr. Nicole Hagen Hess, an assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at Washington State University.
When we think of gossip, we might imagine gossiping behind someone's back with malicious intentions.
But Dr. Hess offers a broader perspective on the subject.
Gossip, she says, is the exchange of "reputation-relevant information."
This could mean what friends, family, colleagues or even rivals say about us, but it also includes what is said in news reports or even the results of sporting events, she says.
"By my definition, you don't have to have an absent third party that you're gossiping about—they could be standing directly in front of you," she explains.
"If you talk about them, what you think of their clothes, or what they did, I would consider that gossip."
But why humans evolved to engage in this behavior is a question that researchers still struggle with today.
Here are a few key theories.
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Rapprochement
The idea that gossip could play a positive role in society was popularized by Professor Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist.
According to his theory, in primates, grooming is a social behavior as much as a hygienic one.
In addition to bringing people closer together, it can also be used to reconcile after fights, to reduce tension, and to establish each primate's place in the social hierarchy.
This process is known as alogruming.
But because humans don't have fur, gossip and chatter could be the modern human equivalent of allogrooming - serving a similar purpose in building relationships, establishing one's place in a hierarchy of peers, and exchanging social information such as who to trust and who not to trust.
As far as Dunbar is concerned, language even evolved to allow people to gossip.
In a 2021 study from Dartmouth University, in the US, researchers found that people who gossiped together not only influenced each other's opinions but also grew closer in the process.
"We speculate that participants achieved a sense of community with each other, creating a 'shared reality' that served to influence each other's behavior and perspectives while satisfying an innate desire for social connection," the researchers wrote.
They also found that gossip helped promote cooperation in a group setting, noting that participants were willing to contribute more money to the group game when they had the opportunity to gossip together.
"Gossip is not a monolithic construct and is more complex than the narrow definition of unfounded gossip that reflects our folk intuitions," the researchers concluded.
Kelsey McKinney, podcast founder and host Normal gossip, where ordinary people share gossip, knows very well how a juicy anecdote can bring strangers closer together.
When the pandemic hit and people were forced into quarantine, the need for stories became even greater.
"I realized we were starving," she says.
"Most of our lives and the way we experience the world unfold through the narratives we tell ourselves, and gossip is that narrative."
"We talk to each other about ourselves, and so there's danger there, but there's also a lot of good," she says.
Survival
Humans have evolved over millions of years to learn how to best protect themselves and those around them from potential danger.
For some women, gossip is a vital tool in this survival strategy, especially when avoiding threats like risky dating situations.
"Women are at a much more physical disadvantage when it comes to defending themselves than men."
"This is important information that you especially want to share with female relatives and your close allies," says Dr. Nicole Hagen Hess.
Survival and our place in society also depend heavily on reputation.
Having a bad reputation can be disastrous, explains Dr. Hess.
It can harm your social standing, limit your economic opportunities, and even affect access to resources like food.
"So when people gossip negatively about you, it can really do significant damage," she says.
Dr. Hess argues that gossip is also a form of social control used to maintain or improve one's position in the social hierarchy.
People try to manage how they are perceived in their own social networks by controlling each other through gossip, she says, adding that they also use gossip to protect their own reputations and, sometimes, undermine rivals.
"Humans are inherently competitive with other members of their own species, and conflict is not something we are going to get rid of."
entertainment
To most people, gossip might seem like harmless fun.
"That's the kind of gossip I specialize in," says podcaster McKinney.
Her fascination with it - and her passion for storytelling - stems from growing up in a religious household where she was taught that gossip was a sin.
"Great gossip is something that comes right out of your mouth about someone else," she says.
And the world without him?
"Oh, my God. It would be boring," she laughs.
Whether for entertainment, survival or social bonding, gossip has become a constant feature of our lives - a "human constant" that shouldn't be dismissed lightly, says Dr Hess.
"Gossip has real-world consequences," she explains.
"If it were just random, untrue, informal conversation, then it wouldn't affect how people decide to prioritize other members of their communities."
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