Nick O’Connor RANZCP Congress Perth May 2014 1 2 Elements of the Gossip Mind Map

Related phenomena Functions of gossip Gossip pathologies

Eavesdropping Shaming

Hearsay Influence /

Rumour Entertainment

Reputation Social control Schadenfreude

Grapevine Social bonding Splitting

Stereotyping Self-appraisal, social Subterfuge comparison Myth and legend Morale

Hearsay Culture Scandal

Social contagion Early warning/Sentinel

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“Gossip is always a personal confession of malice or imbecility; it is a low, frivolous, and too often a dirty business. There are neighborhoods (sic) where it rages like a pest; churches are split in pieces by it, and neighbors (sic) made enemies for life. Let the young avoid or cure it while they may.”

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The flying rumours gathr’d as they roll’d, Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told; And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too’.

‘The Temple of Fame’

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 “I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.”

 “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

 ”Scandal is gossip made tedious by ”

6 7 There is a place at the centre of the World, between the zones of earth, sea, and sky, at the boundary of the three worlds. From here, whatever exists is seen, however far away, and every voice reaches listening ears. Rumour lives there,…

All rustles with noise, echoes voices, and repeats what is heard. There is no peace within: no silence anywhere. Yet there is no clamour, only the subdued murmur of voices, like the waves of the sea,….

Crowds fill the hallways: a fickle populace comes and goes, and, mingling truth randomly with fiction, a thousand rumours wander, and confused words circulate. Of these, some fill idle ears with chatter, others carry tales, and the author adds something new to what is heard. Matthew Cheyne 2009

Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC – AD 17)

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

 Idle talk, groundless rumour, tittle-tattle; unrestrained talk or writing especially about people or social incidents

(New Shorter Oxford Dictionary).

28  Originally meant ‘god-related’ and designated a god-parent. By 18th century gained second meaning – ‘tippling companion’ – and at about the same time became connected specifically to women. In early 1800s became defined as a mode of rather than a type of person and became the word we understand today to indicate idle or groundless talk or rumours.

29 “exchange of evaluative information about absent third parties”

E K Foster (2004)

“evaluative social talk about individuals usually not present, that arises in the context of social network formation, change and maintenance- that is; in the context of building group solidarity.”

DiFonzo N Bordia P (2007)

Workplace gossip:

“informal and evaluative talk about another member of that organisation who is not present.”

Kurland N Pelled L (2000)

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An unverified or unconfirmed statement or report circulating in a community.

(New Shorter Oxford Dictionary).

“the serial transmission of unverified information typically through weak social ties.”

(Adut A)

31 : Wartime:

 Dread  Pecking order  Wish  security  Wedge-driving  Job quality   Costly error  Consumer concern Knapp R H (1944)

DiFonzo N Bordia P (2007)

32 33 34 35  Gossip travels within a defined group through existing communication circuits; rumour has its own communication pathways and groups

 Gossip mirrors the moral code of a small group; rumours normally express a public moral code

 Gossip tends to be more spontaneous, rumour: a more purposive activity.

 Gossip is an unverified message about someone whilst rumour is an unverified message about something (either trite or of great importance)

36  Gossip is a relatively safe way to spread a secret within the in- group

 Rumour is the method for leaking a secret to a wide, undetermined audience.

37  Defines membership and social identity: in-group and out-group

 Communicates alliances and strengthens social bonds

 Communicates group rules and norms in narrative form and thus promotes cultural competence.

 A means of social control, a sanction that forces us to adhere more closely to social norms: “slackers”, “free riders”, “freeloaders”, “bludgers”

 May enhance self-esteem and self-confidence through social comparison. 38

 May convey important cultural, organisational information: background or strategic.

 Sense-making: e.g. in organisations – reducing ambiguity and uncertainty

 Gossip can have a subversive function: people gossip about the rich, famous and powerful.

 Entertainment and diversion

 Excitement (illicit and subversive nature of the exercise) and this may be mutually bonding

39  Awareness of what others might say about our actions may promote a self-evaluative, self-observing capacity.

 The learning of empathy: learning about the responses of other people and formulating loose generalisations about human motivation.

 Investigative (of ): e.g. use of informal, off the record inquiries in the employee selection process.

 Early warning, sentinel function: may be a canary in the coal mine within organisations; an early alert to a rogue doctor or unsound and unsafe practices

40  Group living requires the servicing of relational bonds and alliances that promote cooperation and deter “free riding” (lack of reciprocity).

 The human neocortex developed to enable the complex language and relational processing in human group living.

41  ‘gossip cells’ and ‘cliques’ amongst residents of

Plainsville, USA.

 “… gossip does not have isolated roles in community life but is the blood and tissue of that life.”

 “It is a hallmark of membership.”

Max Gluckman

42  “If a man does not join in The Pony and Johnny outside the church- The Outsiders. gossip he shows that he does not accept that he is party to the relationship.”

 If no one tells you the gossip, you are an outsider.

43  Elizabeth Bott (1971) studied 20 families in London. The women belonged to a gossip network.  Mutual aid was extended to those who belonged to this network.  The price of belonging was willingness to gossip and be gossiped about. “no gossip no companionship”

44  Professional gossip:

“built into technical jargon so tightly that the outsider cannot always detect the slight personal knockdown concealed in the technical recital”

 High status social groups that are focused on excluding the parvenus: gossip as a social weapon,

 Groups that are excluded, marginalised, e.g. minorities,

45  A fundamental function of gossip is to provide a mechanism for “reputational inquiries”.

 Emler defines reputation as “a collective phenomenon and a product of social processes”.

 “Through one’s actions, one relates to others and makes impressions on them. These impressions, taken as a whole, constitute an individual’s reputation – that is what other people think of you.”

46  Reputation is important because human groups depend on patterns of cooperation through a series of informal and formal economies of social exchange.

 Reputation is at the heart of social identity and is responsible for inter-individual behavioural consistencies.

 Exclusion, avoidance , ostracism and shaming

 “The continuity or interconnectedness of audience turns into reputation management.” (Embler 1990)

47  Gossip ensures the principle of ‘reciprocal ’by punitively spreading information about ‘free-riders’, ‘slackers’ or ‘bludgers’.

 Sommerfeld and colleagues have shown with two elegant experiments how reputation mediated by gossip exerts a strong influence on cooperative dynamics and prosocial behaviour.

 Further they showed that the multiplicity of gossip statements about a person’s cooperative behaviours ensured that false or inaccurate gossip is counter-acted and corrected.

48  Studies show that people were more likely to behave in a prosocial manner when they knew they were identifiable and that others might gossip about their actions.

 “..gossip, by dealing with concrete instances of moral transgression, gives routine operational definition to otherwise rather abstract principles of morality.”

 “Gossip offers passive resistance to many forms of power”: Tall poppy syndrome, spread of counter-government information in totalitarian regimes.

49  Despite the higher number of friends, high frequency gossipers were significantly less liked than low frequency gossipers.

 Negative gossipers were less liked than positive gossipers.

 High frequency gossipers had lower and less power than low frequency gossipers.

Farley S (2011)

 However, high frequency gossipers are more likely than low frequency gossipers to challenge free riders (policing function) and avoid being exploited by them (wanted control).

Farley S Timme D Hart J (2010)

50  “the gossip presequence not only secures the acquaintance of the future subject of gossip but it also clarifies the kind of knowledge the actors have of this mutually known acquaintance.” (Bergmann 1993)

 This presequence may include fishing: “innocently signalling, through repeated thematization of apparently innocuous details or data, an interest in the fate of a common acquaintance”

 Authentication strategies include: weaving precise details about time and place into the story, use of quotes +/- “intonative-paralinguistic accentuation” (Bergmann J R 1993)

 Commentary and may involve: social typing: (loony, nuts, moron, arse-licker, mummy’s boy…) and moralising: (That’s no way to act! She has no concern for others,).

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Gossip invitation  gossip inquiry/proposal

 gossip story evaluation/ social typing 

moralising  reputation

52  Informational cascade = when a group of early movers, (bellwethers), say or do something and other people follow their signal.

 Group polarisation = when like-minded people get together, they often end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought they did before they started to talk to one another.

 Peer pressure can induce knowledge falsification.

 Sunstein C (2009).

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54 “to live gregariously is to be a fibre in a vast sentient web.”

“the possessor of faculties always awake, of eyes that see in all directions, of ears and nostrils that explore a broad belt of air”

Francis Galton 1822-1911

55  Connection: who is connected to whom (6 degrees of separation)

 Contagion: what if anything flows across those connections (3 degrees of influence)

 Homophily: tendency to associate with people who resemble us

56 57  Emergent properties: social groups have new attributes that arise from the interaction and interconnection of the parts e.g. mathematical models of flocks of birds and schools of fish show that the movement in unison is due to a collective intelligence and does not reside in particular individuals within the group.

 Three degrees of influence: everything we do or say tends to ripple through our network having an impact on our friends (1 degree), our friends’ friends (2 degrees) and our friends’ friends’ friends (3 degrees)

 Social clustering: happy people have more connections to happy people, obese people more connections to obese people: “shared norms” plus behavioural imitation.

 Christakis N Fowler J (2011). Connected. The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How they Shape Our Lives. Hammersmith, London, Harper Press. 58

 Social contagion theory proposes that emotions can behave like infectious diseases; spreading through close social networks [67].

 Using the Framingham Heart Study data, Christakis and Fowler[63, 65] found that emotional contagion phenomena could have profound and long-lasting effects. Happiness, depression, loneliness, use of alcohol and tobacco and obesity spread through social networks.

 This social contagion phenomenon operates over three degrees of separation: affecting a friend of a friend of a friend. The mechanisms are unknown but are possibly both conscious and unconscious[68].

 Gossip may be one important vehicle for social contagion (through information delivery, group norming and social comparison functions)

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 Hairdresser: “I don’t repeat gossip.

So listen carefully….”

68 69  Women gossip marginally more than men (71% vs 64%) and show a greater tendency to gossip about close friends or family members. (Levin J Arluke A 1985)

 Men tend to recast gossip as professional “shop talk” or “shooting the breeze”. (Brennan T 2009)

 Dunbar (2002) found that women devoted 2/3 of their social topic time to the social experiences of others, Men spend 2/3 of their social talk discussing themselves.

70  “House talk”: analogous to male shop talk, exchange of knowledge and experiences connected to the female role,

 “Scandal”: judging of other people’s behaviour, especially that of other women,

 “Bitching”: overt expression of women’s at their restricted role and status,

 “Chatting”: a most intimate form of gossip involving self-disclosure where women’s skills of nurturing are used to comfort each other and there is sharing of deep feelings. This includes “healing gossip”

Spacks (1983, 1985).Laing M (1993).

71  “gossip on steroids”

 “rumours spread like virses”

 “ is like kerosene for corporate scandals.” Featherstone T (2013).

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 Social media have a complex relationship with gossip and rumour in that they are vehicles or vectors but also they are quintessentially transformative of the nature and effects of gossip and rumour transactions.

73 Digital and social  Therefore beyond the technologies : reputational safeguards of the pre-digital era  Unmediated by direct relationships*  Give a permanency: it is ‘writ’ and posted in an  Take gossip outside the eternal public space in-group and its codes and rules  Are subject to scalability: multiplicative transmission  Do not convey the social signals and cues of F2F  * Goldman E (2011) interactions. 74  Gossip and rumour have a seductive quality for many of us. We slip into gossiping on email and social media ‘as if’ we are having a face-to-face conversation, and yet the social transaction in these media is fundamentally different from a person-to-person or group chat.

75  With the internet vigilance is focused outside to some virtual space: to a mixture of threat, predators, social bonds more broadly defined, as people try to participate in a digital mediation of reputation, status and self.

 Social comparisons become distorted and amplified in a world where the concept of ‘friends’ is re-defined and counted in a hour-by-hour stocktake.

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Gossip and Rumour in Health Organisations

77  Medical gossip has received little systematic study. Suls J Goodkin F (1994).

 Rumours during organisational change have been studied in the Australian hospital context. Bordia et al found that employees reporting more negative rumours also reported higher stress levels compared to those who reported more positive rumours.

Bordia P Jones E Gallois C Callan V Difonzo N (2006).

 Operating theatres have been reported as places that are susceptible to gossiping: closed, at times high stress environments in which people work in intimate contact, communication and relationships are more informal and personal.

Blakely J Ribeiro V Hughes A (1992).

78 Waddington (2005), University of London:

 All the nurses admitted to gossiping even though many did not approve of it.

 Negative gossip was more common than positive gossip and some gossip was “vicious” in that it undermined self-esteem and attacked .

 Many nurses reported finding gossiping about patients and colleagues was “cathartic and “therapeutic”.

 Waddington concluded that gossip was a “necessary evil” which assists nurses cope with the high pressures of nursing.

79  Ribeiro and Blakely have described the following functions gossip provides for nurses: information, influence, self-evaluation, entertainment and catharsis.

 Laing referred to the role gossip plays in the professional socialisation of nurses

 For nurses there is an initial socialisation and gossiping in the university and then a linked but separate process of socialisation and gossiping in the workplace. Castledine (1994)

 Gossip-style talk in clinical handover can lead to negative stereotyping of patients or family members.

80  Evaluative/critical gossip may set down the expected behaviour in the OR and that cathartic gossip may provide an emotional pressure valve.

 Sevdalis, Healey and Vincent examined the effects of distracting communications in the operating theatre. • Clinically irrelevant communications (CICs) were frequent, • 50% of CICs were essentially ‘small talk’ rather than talk that could contribute to the work flow • distractions by CICs could lead to lowered performance.

81  A Pakistani study of 60 psychiatrists, predominantly men found high levels of harassment had been experienced in the preceding 3 months including distress related to rumours and false accusations. Gadit A Mugford G (2008).

 Important learning techniques include a professional style of gossip that recounts stories about other clinicians’ inspirational performances or memorable mistakes.

 It is not known how much gossip arises from re-telling of things heard in medical consultations or psychotherapy sessions.

 Scandals within Australian Psychiatry have often been preceded by widespread gossip and rumour, to which no-one knew how best to respond.

82  Sullivan described the importance of consensual validation as having a self-stabilising function.

 Medini and Rosenberg (1976): “The avoidance of pathogenic isolation is achieved via the establishment of give and take and simple intimacies throughout life.”

 Gossip contains “issues of the human condition, the human community and kinship, issues of secrecy, self-esteem, pride, voyeurism, intimacy, and the search for security.”

83  Dowd and Davidhizar describe destructive gossip and rumour scenarios in a radiology service.

 Waddington found negative gossip was more common than positive gossip and some gossip was “vicious” in that it undermined self- esteem and attacked reputations.

 Tschudin refers to “mobbing” amongst nurses: group harassment of individuals.

 Clearly malicious gossip is one form of organisational bullying.

84  Formal communication of information: clear, frequent, sincere and genuine communication in times of change and uncertainty

 Foster a culture of civility and respect: in the workplace often invites negative gossip, senior manager incivility can have a contagion effect. • Training programs • Selection of staff (background checks) • Incorporating 360* feedback into performance reviews

 Promoting organisational justice: (fairness in the workplace, procedural justice). People often talk negatively about people who treat them unfairly.

Grosser TJ Lopez-Kidwell V Labianca G Ellwardt L (2012).

85  Mills in a New Zealand study, found that most gossip occurred within the formal communication processes of the organisation: embedded in daily events between close and trusted colleagues. She emphasised the importance of workplace networks accessing reliable information.

 Mechanisms for coping with stress and boredom: flexible work practices, career development and pathways, role analysis, improving job design and goal setting, feedback on performance.

 Dealing with excessive gossipers: Informal counselling, performance management, environmental manipulation

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 Rumours and gossip flourish in an environment where there is not adequate, relevant, timely and transparent communication or when ambiguity is rife. Hargie O (1994) Houmanfar R Johnson R (2003) • Audits of management communication • Fostering bottom –up communication

Conditions for rumours to flourish –

 Allport and Postman (1947): “importance and ambiguity” of information

 Rosnow (1991): “general uncertainty”, informational and environmental confusion

 “Rumour mongering is thus understood as an outgrowth of affective and cognitive discomfort…” Kimmel A Audrain-Pontevia A-F (2010) 87  Clarifying details in relation to pending organisational change;  Increasing trust;  Planning and timing information releases;  Confirming true rumours.  Reducing anxiety and uncertainty  Undermining the credulity of false rumours

DiFonzo and Bordia (1998)

 A culture that includes strong formal communication and cultural injunctions against informal communications constrains gossiping. Kurland N Pelled L (2000)

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 There are too many examples of serious organisational disasters, systems problems, and rogue clinician behaviours emerging initially as gossip and rumour for organisations not to have a strategy for managing them.

89  New CEO or Manager  Bad or unethical behaviour

 Organisational restructure  Stereotyping a patient or a staff member  Relationships between staff  Dysfunctional team member or  Bad fortune or calamity team

 Grievance or disciplinary  Dangerous clinical practice process  Unsafe or poor quality clinical care in team, ward, or hospital

 Boundary transgressions

90 A Royal Commission may be lurking behind the gossip or rumour of a serious organisational or clinician scandal

91  It may be important to manage gossip and rumour within your team, ward or organisation.

 We suggest: • Documentation of the gossip/rumour • Reporting/Notification • Risk analysis • Investigation • Action

92  Gossip and rumour are ubiquitous  Have multiple important functions but may also be a vector for bullying, sabotage and attacks on reputation

 Understanding how and why gossip and rumour function can inform us about: • Social identity, and social connectedness • Social media and social media pathologies • Organisations, teams and groups

 Gossip may be an important determinant of social contagion phenomena

 Gossip and rumour may have an important sentinel function requiring action

93 94 95

Thank you

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