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Gossip As Cultural Learning

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Gossip As Cultural Learning Review of General Psychology Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 2004, Vol. 8, No. 2, 111–121 1089-2680/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.111 Gossip as Cultural Learning Roy F. Baumeister Liqing Zhang Florida State University Case Western Reserve University Kathleen D. Vohs University of Utah To complement views of gossip as essentially a means of gaining information about individuals, cementing social bonds, and engaging in indirect aggression, the authors propose that gossip serves to help people learn about how to live in their cultural society. Gossip anecdotes communicate rules in narrative form, such as by describing how someone else came to grief by violating social norms. Gossip is thus an extension of observational learning, allowing one to learn from the triumphs and misadventures of people beyond one’s immediate perceptual sphere. This perspective helps to explain some empirical findings about gossip, such as that gossip is not always derogatory and that people sometimes gossip about strangers. The father of one of the authors of this article his credit card company and complained that he had retired some years ago and began to fill had bought this merchandise and wanted to some of his free hours by watching infomer- return it, but could not get a refund because of cials. One of these infomercials persuaded him the company’s bankruptcy. The credit card to purchase a set of magnetic sheets that prom- company meditated on this conundrum for a ised health benefits and enhanced longevity. But few days and then issued a judgment in his he discovered that when he slept on them, favor, followed by crediting his account with sometimes his hand would tingle, and there the full purchase price. This anecdote was re- were other unsettling twinges. So he decided to peated and passed along by several relatives and return them, as the smiling folks on the info- acquaintances who heard it, and it was even told mercial had guaranteed he could do for a full to people who did not know the man. Indeed, refund any time up to a year after purchase. any of the authors of this article would repeat it When he called the company, however, the to any acquaintance who found himself or her- pleasant voice on the other end of the line self in a similar predicament. regretted to inform him that the company had We have included this story here to illustrate gone bankrupt and therefore could not return what we think is a sometimes overlooked but any of his money. They offered more merchan- perhaps crucially important function of gossip. dise, such as if he wanted to send a set of sheets Such anecdotes reveal potentially useful infor- to someone else while returning his own. He mation about how our culture and society oper- agreed and began to think who else might ben- ate. Modern human society is a rapidly chang- efit from these sheets. Then, however, he called ing, highly complex system. It offers great op- portunities but also contains unforeseen risks and problems. Often neither the problem nor its Roy F. Baumeister, Department of Psychology, Florida solution can be foreseen reliably and safely. State University; Liqing Zhang, Department of Psychology, Individuals may therefore have to make their Case Western Reserve University; Kathleen D. Vohs, De- painful way through a problem’s shifting mazes partment of Psychology, University of Utah. Kathleen D. Vohs is now at the Marketing Division, by hard experience. Saunder School of Business, University of British Co- The way can be smoothed and softened, how- lumbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. ever, by learning about the adventures and mis- Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- adventures of others. The anecdote just recited dressed to Roy F. Baumeister, Department of Psychology, Florida State University, 209 Copeland Avenue, Tallahas- can be profitably understood as having multiple see, FL 32306. E-mail: [email protected] useful lessons. First, infomercials can tempt 111 112 BAUMEISTER, ZHANG, AND VOHS even well-educated individuals into spending tially, he holds that gossip is an important form substantial sums of money (in this case, approx- of social communication that serves to bond imately a thousand dollars) on crackpot prod- people together. In gossip they share informa- ucts. Second, money-back guarantees become tion about themselves and about others in their worthless if a company goes out of business, social community. He has proposed, provoca- and so if you buy from dubious organizations tively, that gossip replaces grooming as a way you may not get your money back from them for people to maintain social relationships. even if they have promised it in writing and on Strictly speaking, there are two different television. Third, if the seller will not refund functions that can be subsumed under the view your money, your credit card company might do that gossip serves social relationships. One is so. Fourth, magnetic bedsheets are not for ev- that the bond between teller and hearer may be eryone, and indeed they have apparently not strengthened insofar as they spend time in con- attracted enough satisfied customers to keep the versation together and perhaps share informa- manufacturer in business. These are useful les- tion of mutual interest. The other is that the sons for living in our community today, and information contained in the gossip may be stories such as this help transmit them from one useful to the hearer for learning about the target person to another. person, assuming that the target person is some- one within the hearer’s social sphere so that the Existing Theories About Gossip: Or, hearer can pursue that relationship more effec- Perspectives on Gossip tively by virtue of having gained more informa- tion about him or her. Psychology has not generally had much re- Undoubtedly, this view also has merit. We spect for gossip. The traditional and prevailing merely propose, again, that it is not the whole view has regarded it as an indirect form of story. The content of gossip may have important aggression, akin to teasing. In this, it has em- utility well beyond its power to bond people phasized how gossip depicts the target in an together. Yes, the parallel is intriguing: Apes unflattering light. Our impression is that most spend hours picking bugs off each other, while psychologists have regarded the motive to gos- people spend hours discussing the misadven- sip as rooted in the malicious desire to harm tures of their neighbors, and in both cases the others by damaging their reputation. (Indeed, jointly spent time can help cement and maintain the original invitation we received to contribute social bonds. We add, however, that gossip can to this issue was based on Baumeister’s research convey valuable information to the hearer about on aggression.) culture and society. Our analysis of gossip as We concede that there is some truth to this providing information and thus promoting cul- view. People may well seek to harm someone tural learning is congruent with other existing by passing along information that makes him or theories of gossip, such as that of Yerkovich her look bad, thereby encouraging people to (1977), who stated that gossip is useful for hold a poor opinion of that person (whom we conveyance of information to others, for social label the target of gossip). It is plausible, how- influence, and for entertainment. Sabini and Sil- ever, that in many cases defamation of the tar- ver (1982) also noted that gossip essentially get’s character is not the primary goal and may involves codes of conduct and moral rules em- even be irrelevant. (In the example above, the bedded in concrete stories. We go further than father emerges as somewhat gullible but also these analyses, however, in saying that gossip is resourceful, and in any case repeating the story observational learning of a cultural kind. By to people who have never met him does not hearing about the misadventures of others, we effectively harm him.) Moreover, if some forms may not have to endure costs to ourselves be- of gossip lack any pejorative dimension, then cause we will have successfully avoided making defamation cannot be the sole purpose of the mistake they made. gossip. Recently, a different view of gossip has been Cultural Animals put forward by Dunbar (1996), an anthropolo- gist. His views are also presented in this issue, The context for the present analysis involves and therefore we do not dwell on them. Essen- treating the human psyche as designed by nature SPECIAL ISSUE: GOSSIP AS CULTURAL LEARNING 113 for participation in culture, with culture defined say that gossip goes beyond educating the as an information-based system that organizes hearer about social norms; it also affirms them. social interactions and helps people to fill basic The very act of repeating a particular story social and biological needs (Baumeister, in implicitly signals that the teller regards it as press). Culture thus improves on merely social significant, and this significance is often elabo- life, enabling life to become better through such rated further insofar as the teller comments on culturally mediated advances as communicative the behavior as proper or improper. pooling of information (including novel solu- The cultural animal perspective follows evo- tions to environmental problems), division of lutionary thinking in recognizing that biological labor with specialization, and transmission of functions are not necessarily prominent in the discoveries and advances to subsequent experiences and motivations of individuals. To generations. say that gossip is the result of evolution and Although the benefits of culture are hard to serves the goal of learning about culture does deny, culture makes far more demands on the not therefore entail that every individual act of individual psyche than would a simpler, noncul- gossiping is motivated by the desire to teach or tural style of life.
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