{"id":4903,"date":"2021-05-02T04:21:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T04:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4903"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:02","slug":"gossip-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4903","title":{"rendered":"GOSSIP IS GOOD?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Studyfinds.org compiles information about the latest scientific studies. Three days ago the site shared information about a Dartmouth College study on the dynamics of gossip published in <i>Current Biology<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The article, by Chris Melore, is entitled &#8220;Spread the word! Gossip can actually be good for you, Dartmouth researchers say&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The authors behind the study call gossip &#8220;rich, multifaceted communication&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Melore:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Study authors find \u201cbaseless trash talk\u201d is not the sole purpose of gossip. It can also create a \u201cshared reality\u201d where friends and colleagues build social bonds, exchange information, and reach agreements on socially acceptable behavior.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the conclusion is that gossip can bring the gossiper social benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do not doubt this is true but it seems a bit of a stretch to proceed to a conclusion that gossip is <b><i>good<\/i><\/b>, since this key question remains unaddressed: What is the spiritual cost to the gossiper?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still unknown, too, is what sort of damage gossip does to the one being gossiped about.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Studyfinds.org compiles information about the latest scientific studies. Three days ago the site shared information about a Dartmouth College study on the dynamics of gossip published in Current Biology.\u00a0 The article, by Chris Melore, is entitled &#8220;Spread the word! Gossip can actually be good for you, Dartmouth researchers say&#8221;.\u00a0 The authors behind the study call [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4904,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions\/4904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}