Poster #45 - “Maybe she wanted to keep it a secret:” Whose gossip is it to share?

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Despite its negative connotation, gossip plays an important role in social life by communicating social norms and facilitating social bonds (Baumeister et al., 2004; Dunbar, 2004; Yucel et al., 2021). Gossip is a form of social communication in which individuals share evaluative information about non-present others (Foster, 2004). Even 5-year-olds have been shown to engage in prosocial gossip (Engelmann et al., 2016). Although studies have investigated how children evaluate the reliability of gossip, whom the children believe should share one’s information has yet to be explored.

This study examined 5- to 7-year-old American children’s evaluations of when it is okay to share information, who is allowed to share it, and whether the permissibility of sharing depends on the valence of the information being shared. In a counterbalanced order, children (N = 65, 36 girls, Mage = 6.44 years, SDage = .90 years) heard about an actor telling the whole class about an event (Informing on Self) and an observer telling the whole class about another event (Informing on Other). These randomly assigned events were either positively or negatively valenced (i.e., an actor doing a cool trick on the slide vs. falling off the slide). Children were asked to evaluate whether it was okay or not okay for the character to share this information with the class.

We used a mixed ANOVA to determine whether any differences in children’s evaluations of information sharing are the result of the interaction between the valence of the information being shared (Positive vs. Negative, the between-subjects factor) and who shares the information (Self vs. Other; the within-subjects factor). Children evaluated informing on one’s own actions as more acceptable than informing on another person’s actions regardless of the valence of the stories, F(1,60) = 20.53, p < .001. However, 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.

These results suggest that children believe it is rarely acceptable to share a story about an event that one has merely observed. This implies that, in their eyes, regardless of the positive or negative valence of the information, only those who have experienced an event first-hand may share the story. However, far less is known about how these findings generalize to other positive or negative situations. For instance, when is it more okay to share someone else’s story? Therefore, in an ongoing follow-up study, we seek to replicate and extend our findings to a broader set of events. These findings add to the growing literature on when children think it is okay to gossip. Future studies should explore how social and cultural factors can alter children’s evaluations of information sharing and when children may consider gossiping to be okay.

Authors

• Elissa Harris, Duke University
  Presenting Author

• Meltem Yucel, Duke University

• Shaylene E. Nancekivell, University of Manitoba

• Tamar Kushnir, Duke Univeristy