The Part Played by Gossip in our Lives

A friend of mine in far off London, Ontario recently introduced me to the concept of ‘benign gossip’. This immediately put me in mind of the thought that the usual connotation of gossip is a negative one. If not seen as actually malign, gossip is generally considered to be petty, ill-based in fact, idle and a waste of time, usually the preserve of women (although men are by no means exempt) with nothing better to occupy their minds than to chew up their mutual acquaintances with unflattering rumours of their behaviour and habits.

To find out more about this maligned social activity I reached for a book on my shelf titled ‘Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language’ by Robin Dunbar, and was interested to discover an entirely opposite take on gossip, namely that it serves an important bonding function with members of one’s group in much the same way that physical grooming serves to hold monkeys and apes together. In other words, gossiping is a form of conversational grooming involving the exchange of news, speculation and insights about members of the group and is considered to be important for the group’s survival and wellbeing.

Like physical grooming, gossiping takes time, and it requires a safe space where intimacy and empathy can flourish. Small wonder, therefore, that it has traditionally been the preserve of women, who by virtue of their child-rearing responsibilities, are ahead of men in the value which they attach to the art of gossip, the music of language and the telling of stories without bothering too much about developing the skills of precision and accuracy. Folk tales are replete with accounts of who said what to whom about whom, and these provide children with a fine introduction to gossip in later life.

Of course these days men are rapidly closing the gap and becoming more appreciative of the virtues of gossip alongside the more utilitarian functions of language. Exchanging information about other people constitutes as important a form of social intercourse as the language we deploy when defending ourselves against attack or when seeking a mate.

However, not wishing to lose sight of the negative aspects of gossip, I turned to the Concise Oxford Dictionary for a fuller definition. There I learnt that the word refers to: 1. Casual conversation or unsubstantiated reports about other people, and 2. (chiefly derogatory) a person who likes talking about other people’s private lives. The etymology of the term reveals an Old English word, ‘godsibb’ meaning ‘godfather’ or ‘godmother’, later ‘a close friend, a person with whom one gossips’, and from there but a short step to ‘sibling’. This immediately re-instates the benign aspect of the term, and how much more benign can one get than communication with one’s fellow confidants in a therapy group, those to whom one entrusts intimate thoughts and beliefs, true or false, for analytic consideration?

But wait. There is certainly such a thing as malicious gossip. We have only to transport ourselves into various work groups to uncover stories that so-and-so has behaved indiscreetly in one way or another, or that another person’s erratic behaviour has deeply rooted origins in a problematic domestic situation. The persons targeted by such gossipy observations are invariably not present at the time and thus in no position to face up to the gossipers. They are, so to speak, at the edge of the group. To put it another way, the subjects of gossip tend to be located on the group’s boundary. This could be because they possess a particular vulnerability or because they occupy a leadership role which excludes them from the more intimate forms of communication to which the other group members are privy. In the case of a psychotherapy group, they run the risk of being expelled from the group if the therapist fails to take the bull by the horns and challenge the gossipers.

Malicious gossip works against the therapeutic culture of the group and any group analyst worth his or her salt should be able to interpret it and turn around the exchanges relating to ‘the other’ so that the gossipers can look at themselves and tease out fact from fantasy. For this to happen, gossiping needs to be part of the group’s communication in the first place. Gossip therefore plays an essential part in building up the matrix of the group. It is like the embroidery within the group’s tapestry. So I say: Long Live Gossip! May it thrive, but may it also be understood for what it is.

Reference

Dunbar, R. (1996) ‘Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language’ (Faber and Faber)

Harold Behr
Harold.behr@ntlworld.com