Silence Is Golden. Six Reasons Inhibiting the Spread of Third-Party Gossip

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Francesca Giardini¹  Rafael P. M. Wittek¹ 

[1] Department of Sociology, University of Groningen

关键词: gossip;    social networks;    goal framing theory;    cooperation;    organizations;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01120

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Most of the current literature on gossip describes gossipmongers as incessantly sharing evaluative and valuable information about an absent third party in teams, groups, communities, and organizations. However, potential gossipers can similarly decide not to share what they know, depending on the content, the context, or their relationship with the other actors in the gossip triad. We argue that understanding the reasons why people do not gossip may provide useful insights into individual motives, group dynamics, and collective behaviors. This theoretical contribution first critically surveys the existing gossip literature with the aim of highlighting the conditions under which people might refrain from sharing third party information. We then propose to apply Goal Framing theory as a way to bridge a theory of the micro-foundations of human behavior with an analytical model of the gossip triad that disentangles the various ways through which senders, receivers, and objects of gossip may be interrelated. From a goal framing perspective, most research on gossip illustrates the mechanisms in which the hedonic gratification derived from gossiping is reinforced by gain or normative goals. However, a normative or a gain goal frame can prevent the gossip monger from spreading the information, and we argue that depending on different configurations of frames and relations between actors the perceived costs of sending gossip may be far higher than much of the previous literature suggests.

【 授权许可】

CC BY