Gossip’s double-edged sword

• In Event: You’ll never guess what I heard: When and how do children gossip?

Abstract

Gossip –evaluative communication about others– is ubiquitous. Adults and even 5-year-old children gossip (Engelmann et al., 2016; Yucel et al., 2021). Our motivation to talk about other people originates in our need to affiliate with groups, to cooperate with others, and to follow rules (Tomasello, 2016). Yet, gossip is often discouraged and gossipers are often negatively evaluated. This presents a double-edged sword where gossip is both a common, perhaps necessary social behavior, that is actively discouraged by others. We examine gossip’s binary nature by investigating how common gossip is in early childhood and what it looks like, and how children evaluate talking about others.

In Study 1, we asked what kinds of information young children are willing to disclose to their parents about their peers. A survey of American parents who have 5- to 7-year-old children (N = 73), indicated that the majority of children’s conversations about peers with their parents were about their classmates’ rule-breaking (71.2%) and rule-following behaviors (54.8%)(Figure 1A and 1B). Notably, children rarely negatively discussed their peers’ appearance (4%)( Figure 1C). These results indicate that young children’s talk about others is not only common but also centers around peers’ behaviors and not their appearance.

Although children’s talk about others is common, the moral boundaries of gossip remain unknown. Therefore, in Study 2, we investigated children’s evaluations of when it is okay to share information, who is allowed to share it, and whether children consider information that has been publicly shared a secret. Five- to 7-year-old American children (N=65, 36 girls, Mage=6.44 years, SDage=.90 years) learned that an actor informed the class about an event (Informing on Self) and that an observer informed the class about an additional event (Informing on Other) (order counterbalanced). The events on the playground were either positive (the actor did a cool trick on the slide) or negative (the actor fell off the slide). Children were asked to evaluate how okay it was for the character to share this information with the class and whether the information being shared was a secret.

A 2x2 mixed ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of informant, such that children evaluated sharing one’s own story as more acceptable than sharing someone else’s story, F(1,60)=20.53, p<.001(Figure 2). There was no main effect of valence nor a significant interaction between the informant and the valence of the information being shared, p=.444 and p=.200, respectively. Furthermore, children reported that the information being shared was not a secret, X^2(1,N=64)=9.62, p=.002. Our findings show that young children are attuned to who gets to share a story, favoring the self as the sharer of information.

Together, these results showcase how even early in childhood, children understand gossip’s double-edged nature. However, our findings also suggest that in both contexts, gossip is normatively motivated. Namely, we find that children view it more acceptable for a peer to talk about oneself than someone else’s behavior, and that children’s own gossip is normative as it appears to center around norm-following or -violating behaviors.

Authors

• Meltem Yucel, Duke University
  Presenting Author

• Shaylene E. Nancekivell, University of Manitoba

• Elissa Harris, Duke University

• Tamar Kushnir, Duke Univeristy