From social networking sites where people eagerly spread information about others, to websites and magazines that make their money by publishing sensationalistic tidbits, the online environment is rife with gossip, defined as idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others.
Nicholas DiFonzo, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology, author of Rumor Psychology: Social and Organizational Approaches (with Prashant Bordia) and The Watercooler Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors, and a leading expert in the field of rumor psychology, stated in a recent Psychology Today article that “there is some evidence that gossip is most often derogatory and slanderous… ” Pointing out others’ frailties and errors can make us feel better in our own weaknesses and failures, and serve as a means of trying to reduce others’ status and power while strengthening our own.
DiFonzo points out gossip’s positive value: “The free flow of such information does serve a useful social function of guarding against the harmful behavior of particular individuals.” We need to know who in our communities to be wary of and stay away from.
But ultimately the question of whether gossip is positive or negative depends on the specific situation and motivation, namely whether “gossip about others [is used as] a way of boosting your view of yourself.”