Civilination

Taking a stand against online harassment, character assassination and violence

  • Home
  • About
    • In the News
    • What We Do
  • CiviliNation Academy
  • Resource Center
    • Resources to Protect Yourself Online
    • Attorney List
    • Anti-Harassment, Civility & Associated Research Organizations
    • Fact-Checking Sites
    • News & Media Literacy, and Misinformation & Disinformation Resources
    • Privacy Rights Organizations
    • Recommended Books
    • Investigative Journalism Organizations
    • Using SecureDrop To Communicate with News Organizations
    • Ethics
    • Barometer
  • News

Gossip & the Human Brain

July 5, 2011 by CiviliNation

The Visual Impact of Gossip explains that gossip has evolutionary underpinnings and was important in “helping you to predict who is friend and who is foe,” according to Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D., who authored the study with Eric Anderson, Erika H. Siegel and Eliza Bliss-Moreau, which was published online by Science on May 19, 2011. “The finding suggests we are hardwired to pay more attention to a person if we’ve been told they are dangerous or dishonest or unpleasant.”

“Even when primitive humans lived in small groups, they needed to know things like who might be a threat and who was after a particular mate… and learning those things through personal experience would have been slow and potentially dangerous,” according to psychology professor Frank McAndrew.

Purchase and read the entire study here. For a longer analysis of gossip in society, read Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar.

Of course, we shouldn’t conclude that the suggested evolutionary benefits of gossip somehow excuse or justify the mean-spiritedness and viciousness that gossip frequently entails, especially in the online realm.

 

 

Share on Facebook Share
Share on TwitterTweet
Share on Pinterest Share
Share on LinkedIn Share
Share on Digg Share

Filed Under: Cybercivility Tagged With: Civility, Cybercivility, Privacy, Reputation

Recent news

  • Thank You and Goodbye June 17, 2021
  • FIR Interview March 17, 2021
  • Branded Harassment: When Brands Start the Conversation and Haters Take It Over March 11, 2021
  • The Backpack Show March 2, 2021

© 2021 CiviliNation