What's Better Than Gossip?

What's Better Than Gossip?

Nothing, for those who are ready for some salacious, juicy entertainment at the expense of others. We are only human after all, right?

Well, it depends on what type of gossip we are talking about. Most of us hear the word gossip and immediately think of rumors, whispers meant to ostracize, half-truths, and character assassination. Yet that modern definition overlooks something fundamental about human nature. 

Long before the printing press, books, newspapers, radio, television, or the internet, our ancestors survived by exchanging information about one another. It is how early humans learned who could be trusted, who shared water and food during droughts and famines, who had discovered a safer route to safety, who possessed valuable knowledge, and who might pose a danger.

Gossip, in its healthiest sense, was humanity's original information highway.

The question about gossip is hardly a new one. A story often attributed to Socrates encourages us to ask whether what we repeat is true, good, and useful. This principle has endured because civilizations have long understood how our gossipy human nature has the power to shape our relationships and our communities, for better or for worse.

Modern research has reached a remarkably similar conclusion. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar argues that social conversation helped human beings maintain increasingly large and cooperative societies.

More recently, psychologists Matthew Feinberg, Robb Willer, Jennifer Stellar, Dacher Keltner and their colleagues introduced the concept of “prosocial” gossip. Their studies demonstrate that truthful reputational information helps people avoid exploitation, identify trustworthy partners, and increase cooperation within groups. Gossip, in other words, is not inherently destructive. Under the right conditions, it is one of the ways strong communities protect themselves.

Consider the conversations that quietly improve our lives.

“She's an exceptional teacher.”

“If you're looking for integrity, you can trust him.”

“That organization genuinely cares about its people. It’s what they do, not just what they say.”

These are all forms of gossip. They are information about other people passed from one person to another. They help us make wiser decisions. They reward generosity, honesty, and competence. Every community depends upon this kind of information because no one can learn everything through personal experience alone.

We cannot set aside, however, that other sort of gossip. The type that stings like a thousand scorpions.

This gossip is careless with the truth. It exaggerates, omits, manipulates, and even invents entire falsehoods out of nothing. It elevates the speaker by diminishing someone else. Instead of strengthening trust, it corrodes it. It creates divides, ostracizes, and condemns without facts or verification. But as it turns out, scorpions’ stings turn on themselves, too.

Research reveals that malevalent gossip comes at a very high price. People who habitually spread malicious gossip become less trusted themselves. Listeners naturally wonder whether someone who speaks unfairly about others will eventually do the same to them. Malicious gossip therefore damages not only its target but also the credibility of its source. This sort of gossip destroys the fabric of human connection, effective teamwork, and ultimately, a community’s own safety and survival.

The distinction between helpful information exchange and malignant, negatively controlling gossip is profound.

Today, generative AI has widened the human information highway beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined. Information can now circle the globe within seconds. AI did not create this challenge on its own, but it robotically responds to the whims of the misguided human who entices AI into action. 

But who knows if, or more likely when, AI will become such a powerful agent for malignant gossip that it could overwhelm our ability to sort truth from falsehood fast enough for us humans to make coherent decisions. Most likely, it is already happening.

What would be the most effective antidote to the malevolent intent of gossip? It is expressed simply, in just one word. 

Kindness. Kindness, really? 

Yes, but that one word does not express the vague, soft, or even vacuous sentiment some might assume.  Kindness is in fact a powerful antidote to poisonous gossip. For in its most literal sense, the root word of kindness is kin.

In kindness, we recognize that we are united with all others. At its deepest level, kindness is the recognition that another person belongs to the same human family. It is seeing ourselves in others before deciding what we will say about them.

Research on the powerful impact of kindness is remarkably consistent. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA Network Open, which examined 30 studies of prosocial interventions, found that acts of kindness were associated with measurable improvements in mental and physical health. These included reductions in depression, increases in physical activity, improved uptake of preventive health measures, and stronger community connectedness. The authors concluded that prosocial acts benefit both those who receive kindness and those who practice it.

The psychological benefits are equally compelling. A 2020 meta-analysis of more than 200 studies involving nearly 200,000 participants found a consistent positive relationship between prosocial behavior and well-being. People who regularly helped others reported greater life satisfaction, stronger psychological functioning, and a deeper sense of purpose. Interestingly, informal, everyday acts of kindness often produced greater benefits than formal volunteering.

Neuroscience offers another perspective. Studies of prosocial behavior have shown that kindness engages neural systems involved in reward, empathy, and social bonding. Researchers have also identified oxytocin as an important modulator of trust, generosity, and cooperation, helping explain why kindness is not simply a moral ideal but part of our biological design for living together.

Kindness does not prevent difficult conversations or honest warnings. Sometimes kindness requires telling an uncomfortable truth. So to be clear, acts of kindness do not include cowardly silence or deliberate withholding.

But what kindness changes is our purpose. We no longer pass along information to wound, impress, or manipulate. We share information to protect, encourage, teach, and strengthen the relationships and the communities of which we are a part. Kindness does not stop the flow of information, but it transforms it. It reminds us that every story we tell involves a human being whose dignity is inseparable from our own.

Kindness is more than a virtue. It becomes the foundational principle that helps ensure how we carry truth, build trust, and strengthen the very communities that make us fully human.

Malignant gossip, amplified by AI, is our greatest challenge. Our greatest task is not simply learning how to build more intelligent systems. It is learning how to become wiser stewards of the information we choose to create, repeat, and amplify.

And kindness, or the committed responsibility to care for all our human kin in equal measure, is the powerful antidote to the scorpion stings of damaging, misleading gossip. It is the ethical standard by which we can decide what belongs on our human information highways.

Deborah Grant is an Erickson Coaching International trained coach and Principal of Grant Global Communications and Grant Global Coaching & Consulting LLC. Born in Tokyo, Japan and bilingual in Japanese, she has spent forty years working across cultures as a business and communications consultant, content strategist, coach, and multimedia producer. Contact deborah@grantglobalcoaching.com or reserve a session at www.grantglobalcoaching.com. 

Sources:

Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J., & Keltner, D. (2012). The Virtues of Gossip: Reputational Information Sharing as Prosocial Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 1015–1030.

Dunbar, R. I. M. (2004). Gossip in Evolutionary Perspective. Review of General Psychology, 8(2), 100–110.

Beersma, B., & Van Kleef, G. A. (2012). Why People Gossip: An Empirical Analysis of Social Motives, Antecedents, and Consequences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42, 2640–2670.

JAMA Network Open (2023). Prosocial Behavior and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2014). Differential Pattern of Functional Brain Plasticity After Compassion and Empathy Training. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(6), 873–879.