Why your neighborhood needs gossip | Frank McAndrew | TEDxArlington Heights

There's an old saying among psychologists

that research is research

which means of course

that psychologists are attracted to research topics

that resonate with issues in their own lives.

I unashamedly stand before you today as a psychologist who studies gossip.

Okay, full disclosure.

I also study creepiness.

That's an issue for another time and place.

Right now, let's try a little thought experiment.

Imagine your dayto-day self in your neighborhood.

Do any of the following things sound like you?

You often wonder how

that new very young couple in your neighborhood can afford such a nice house.

You take note of the comingings

and goings of a new man who is paying visits to a recently divorced

female neighbor of yours.

The loud clinking of bottles in your neighbor's recycling bin causes you to speculate

about the amount of alcohol consumed in

that house on a daily basis.

And when the opportunity arises, you deafly inquire about the personality of that secretive,

mysterious man that lives across the street from you.

If these things sound a lot like you,

you just might be the neighborhood busybody,

don't feel bad about that because I'm here to tell you it's okay.

You are serving your neighborhood in a much more important way than you know.

And if these things sound a lot like you,

it also means that you are probably a gossipile,

which is a word I just made up one day

while I was eating lunch.

Gossipiles love and crave gossip, and they can never get enough of it.

They can't stop themselves.

They find it impossible to walk away from a juicy story about a friend

or a neighbor.

Gossip phobes, on the other hand,

claim to detest gossip

and they walk around bragging about how they never gossip

and they never listen to it.

I suspect that most gossipes are actually closeted gossipiles.

In spite of what you might think,

a lively network of gossip files is the beating heart of a healthy neighborhood

and something you want to cultivate to make your neighborhood thrive.

After all, a neighborhood without gossip is not really a neighborhood at all.

Now, I don't deny that gossip can be used as a weapon.

I don't deny that.

And gossip can cause problems in neighborhoods, workplaces, and other human social settings.

However, most of the time, the benefits of gossip outweigh its downsides.

Many people would reflexively use words like toxic

or unpleasant to describe a neighborhood with an active gossip network,

but I think this attitude is misguided.

A sense of belonging and interconnectedness is the essential feature of a cohesive neighborhood,

and gossip is the glue that makes that happen.

The number of neighbors

that you can identify by first name is a reliable predictor of a strong

sense of community.

And it's hard to know who people are

if we never get to talk about them.

And besides, if the only person you're willing to talk about is yourself,

your neighbors will pretty quickly decide that you are a pretty boring person.

I vividly remember how I first got interested in studying gossip.

One morning about 30 years ago,

I was standing in a long slowmoving line at a grocery store

and I found myself

when the line stalled stuck in front of a rack of tabloid magazines featuring

gossip about movie stars,

politicians, and assorted other celebrities.

For the first time in my life,

I really looked at these magazines and I found myself wondering,

how do so many of them stay in business?

Who reads them?

And why do we care about the lives of these individuals

that we're never going to meet in person?

This mundane incident sparked a career-long fascination with gossip.

A fascination which is of course completely professional, not not at all personal.

If one of your neighbors was to describe you to someone else

as a gossip,

you may not take it as a compliment.

In fact, you'll probably feel insulted.

There's no question that gossip has gotten a bad rap.

And I think that's

because most of us define gossip too narrowly

as mean-spirited,

false, spiteful talk about people who aren't present to defend themselves.

We also tend to think of gossip as something that other people do.

And we fail to recognize how often our own conversations qualify as gossip.

Because we think of gossip as a bad thing.

And because we like to think of ourselves as good people,

we feel compelled to describe our own behavior as something other than gossip.

When we're talking about somebody else,

we prefer to think that we are expressing concern as in,

"Have you heard about Mary?

Bless her heart."

Or sharing important information as in, "Listen, there's something you really need to know."

But let's face facts. you, yes,

gossip a lot more than you think you do.

So, what exactly is gossip anyway?

As it turns out,

gossip researchers have a wellagreed upon list of qualities that define gossip.

First of all, it's talk about a person who isn't present at the moment.

So, you and I can't gossip with each other about ourselves.

We have to be talking about a third person who isn't with us.

So your neighbor can't be there when we gossip about her.

Also, conversations about whether there will be layoffs at your company in the near

future or if vaccines are safe

or what's going to happen in the midterm elections don't qualify

as gossip because they're not conversations about specific people.

Gossip is relaxed, informal, and entertaining,

and it involves news that is not widely known.

Often, it involves information

that allows us to make judgments about the character

or moral standards of the person being discussed.

Hearing gossip may help you answer questions such as, "Can I trust that neighbor?

Will they take advantage of me if we become friends?

Can I count on them in an emergency

or if I simply need somebody to get my mail

or feed my dog?

And by definition, gossip is fun.

That's why your neighbors do it so much.

Research has shown that gossip lights up the reward centers of the brain

and triggers the release of feel-good hormones like oxytocin.

So no one ever sigh

and complains that I have to gossip with my friends.

Now evolution has programmed us to find things

that are good for our survival

and reproductive success to be irresistible.

And an intense interest in the affairs of other people would have been a

very handy social skill.

Like it or not,

our inability to forsake gossip is

as much a part of who we are

as our inability to resist donuts

or sex.

And for the very same reasons,

it's enjoyable and it's good for our evolutionary fitness.

Gossip can be a way of monitoring the life of the neighborhood

and protecting it from predators

and other bad actors who mean to do us harm.

And neighbors sharing gossip is a way of resolving the uncertainty around out of

the ordinary behaviors.

For example, neighbors are often the first to sound the alarm about potential mass

shooters.

At least seven callers warned authorities about the Parkland,

Florida high school shooter with one neighbor even reporting

that she knew he was going to shoot up a school.

She just didn't know which school or exactly when it would happen.

Similarly, neighbors alerted police about a Michigan school shooter shortly before he went on

his deadly rampage.

And gossip among neighbors is routinely the first step in helping law enforcement determine

if suspicious activity at a house reflects illegal drug activity

or something more benign.

Gossip can be a mechanism for keeping troublemakers in line

and forcing us all to be good citizens.

In my own neighborhood,

gossip about what was going on in the backyard of a reclusive neighbor helped

uncover an illegal auto repair business.

And other gossip alerted the neighborhood about a poorly controlled,

very dangerous dog that eventually was removed by authorities.

Knowing that our reputation is being monitored by others causes us to do the

right thing when it comes to respecting informal neighborhood policies about maintaining your property,

cleaning up trash, returning borrowed items, or making too much noise late at night.

And consequently, the gossip network helps new neighbors learn the unofficial rules of the

neighborhood that no one's going to come right out

and tell them directly. studies by anthropologists in real life groups

as diverse as hunter gatherer societies,

California cattle ranchers, Maine lobster fishermen,

and college rowing teams confirms

that gossip is used to enforce group norms

when individuals fail to live up to the standards

that were set for them.

In all of these groups,

people who cheated and violated expectations about sharing resources

or meeting responsibilities became the targets of gossip

and ostracism,

which put pressure on them to change their ways.

Neighborhoods are no different.

And finally, gossip creates bonds between neighbors.

People get to know each other through casual day-to-day chitchat about neighborhood business.

And neighbors come to develop trust through gossip.

Sharing sensitive information with another person is a sign of trust

because it shows that you believe this person is not going to use

that information in an irresponsible way.

My wife and I allow our next door neighbors to keep a key to

our house.

This is something that never would have happened without the informal vetting provided by

opportunities for gossip.

Through gossip, we come to learn who the good gossipers are

and who the bad gossipers are.

And this helps us to ascertain the truthfulness of the news that we hear.

Skillful gossipers are usually very popular people and influential members of their community.

They're the friend that we all have in common

and the one that can be counted on to step up

when things need to happen.

Whether it's coaching the kids sports teams, organizing the block party,

or just leading the charge when a neighbor needs help,

they always seem to be where the action is.

They have a reputation for knowing what's going on,

but they're also trusted to be discreet when sensitive information is shared with them.

Their knack for keeping a finger on the pulse of neighborhood life is both

valued and valuable.

Bad gossipers, on the other hand,

are often perceived either

as clueless blabbermouths who indiscriminately share everything

that they hear or

as transparently vicious and manipulative backstabbers.

In either case, no one trusts them to keep gossip to themselves.

Whether you like it or not, whether you intend it or not,

becoming a holier than thou gossipe tells your neighbors

that you don't trust them

and you don't want to be part of their social network.

And this will not endear you to anyone.

Why?

Because we feel subtle pressure to reciprocate the levels of self-disclosure

and helpfulness and yes,

trust that we receive from others.

And if your aloofness signals a lack of trust or interest in others,

that's exactly what you're going to get back in return.

So the next time you catch yourself peeking through the blinds

and feeling tempted to share the news about the new woman sneaking up your

neighbor's driveway or your unemployed neighbor's brand new car,

let yourself off the hook. gophile or now reformed gossophobe.

You're just being a normal person and a good neighbor.

Just as any social group without gossip is not really a social group,

a neighborhood without gossip is not really a neighborhood.