Talking about others has benefits for both the gossiper and wider society - scientists from the University of California in Berkeley claim - running the whole gamut of kindness from reducing stress to controlling bad behaviour, and even preventing the exploitation of others.
However, before we all unload those stories about you-know-who in Accounts and a certain person on the second floor, it should be stressed that the scientists were studying a particular kind of 'gossip' - and maybe it's a type that some of us wouldn't attach the name to.
The scientists focused on chatter known as 'pro-social' gossip, in which those passing on information are warning others about untrustworthy or dishonest people. To assess the levels to which people would go to altruistically warn others of bad behaviour / have a good gossip about the 'baddies', three separate experiments were run.
In the first experiment, 51 volunteers had their heart rate monitored as they watched two people playing a game. After a few rounds - and by design of the experiment - one of the players started cheating and hoarding points.
Most of the volunteers' heart rates increased and they readily slipped notes to a new player that their opponent was likely to cheat. Just doing this calmed them down.
'Passing on the gossip note ameliorated their negative feelings and tempered their frustration. Gossiping made them feel better,' said Robb Willer, a social psychologist and co-author of the study.
In the second experiment, 111 volunteers scored themselves for altruism and cooperativeness, before watching three rounds of the game and again watching the cheating player.
'The higher participants scored on being altruistic, the more likely they were to experience negative emotions after witnessing the selfish behaviour and the more likely they were to engage in the gossip,' said lead author of the paper and social psychologist, Matthew Feinberg.
The 'gossip' in this case being a note telling the new players to be on their guard for a cheat.
Yet the most heart-warming results perhaps for all of us whose efforts to 'do the right thing' seem so often in vain came in the results of the third experiment.
In this, volunteers were asked to sacrifice the pay they received to be in the study if they wanted to send a note warning the players about the cheats - even though this would have no effect on the cheat's actions.
Nonetheless, a large majority of observers chose to pay just to send the warning anyway. [Hooray!]
'A central reason for engaging in gossip was to help others out - more so than just to talk trash about the selfish individual,' concluded Mr Feinberg.
'Gossip gets a bad rap but we're finding evidence that it plays a critical role in the maintenance of social order.' We shouldn't feel guilty for gossiping if the gossip helps prevent others from being taken advantage of.'
The researchers' findings are published in the online issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
I Promised I Wouldn't Tell - But Apparently Gossip Is Good for Us
