Gossip phrased with concern provides female gossipers a social advantage while harming the reputations of their targets, according to research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Research has documented that women engage in intrasexual competition through indirect tactics, such as gossip, to damage the reputation of same-sex rivals. These behaviors serve as adaptive strategies to gain social and romantic advantages without the risks associated with direct confrontation. Studies have also suggested that women may not be fully aware of their harmful motivations when gossiping. In this work, Tania A. Reynolds and her colleagues examined whether women use concern to mask harmful intentions in gossip, and whether this strategy offers competitive advantages in intrasexual competition.
“I am fascinated by women’s competition because it is often overlooked by research and public discourse. However, women throughout history and still today faced incentives to compete for social partners, resources, and opportunities,” explained Reynolds, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico.
“Our tendency to overlook women’s competition/aggression might be due in part to women’s use of more indirect and social tactics, rather than direct confrontations, physical aggression or overt competitiveness. Thus, if we want to document female competition and aggression, we might need to devise more clever methods for investigating these covert tactics.”
The researchers conducted four studies involving 1,709 participants. In Study 1, participants were asked to describe their most recent gossip conversation and rated their motivations using two key scales: a “Negative Social Influence” subscale from the Motivations to Gossip Questionnaire, which measured the extent to which the gossip was intended to harm the target’s reputation, and a newly developed set of four items measuring concern-based motivations. This set included statements like “I was worried about what was going on in the target’s life” and “I wanted to come up with a solution to help the target.”
In Studies 2 and 3, participants were exposed to controlled experimental scenarios where they observed gossip framed in one of three ways: maliciously, neutrally, or with concern. The gossip content remained the same across conditions, but the framing varied to test its impact on perceptions of the gossiper and the target.
After reading the gossip, participants rated the gossiper and the target using several measures. These included trustworthiness scales that included items such as “I believe this person is trustworthy” and “I believe this person’s statements are true,” and interpersonal desirability scales, where participants rated how much they liked the gossiper and target, and how much they would want to be friends with them. Male participants also completed measures assessing romantic desirability, such as how interested they would be in dating or having a romantic relationship with the gossiper or the target.
Study 4 was designed to explore whether the social dynamics of gossip observed in the previous studies would manifest in real-world, face-to-face interactions. Here, 275 undergraduate participants were paired with two female confederates to complete a puzzle-solving task. First, the participant was paired with one confederate (the gossiper) while the second confederate (the gossip target) was in a separate room.
During the puzzle task, the gossiper initiated a conversation about the absent target, delivering gossip that was framed either maliciously, neutrally, or with concern. For instance, in the concern condition, the gossiper expressed worry about the target, while in the malicious condition, she made a derogatory comment. After this interaction, the participant was taken to work with the gossip target. The participant then completed a survey evaluating both the gossiper and the target.
The findings from these four studies consistently showed that gossip framed as concern provided social and romantic advantages to the gossiper while still harming the target’s reputation, particularly in romantic contexts. In Study 1, women were more likely than men to report that their gossip was motivated by concern rather than a desire to harm the target’s reputation, especially when gossiping about same-sex peers.
Studies 2 and 3 showed that female gossipers who expressed concern were perceived as more trustworthy, likeable, and desirable as social and romantic partners than those who delivered the same gossip neutrally or maliciously. The concern-based gossipers were also rated as more trustworthy and interpersonally desirable.
Despite this, the gossip still had negative effects on the targets, particularly in romantic contexts. In Studies 2 and 3, male participants rated female gossip targets as less desirable romantic partners when they heard concern-based gossip about them, indicating that even benevolently framed gossip can damage a target’s romantic prospects. However, gossip framed with concern did not always have as strong an effect on harming the target’s overall interpersonal desirability.
Study 4 reinforced these findings. Even when gossip was delivered with concern during direct interactions, it still harmed the target’s reputation, though the gossiper continued to benefit from the perception of being more trustworthy and desirable compared to malicious gossipers. This demonstrated the real-life implications of concern-framed gossip as a strategy in female intrasexual competition.
“In this paper, we demonstrate that 1.) compared to men, women reported greater concern when gossiping about absent others (but especially same-sex peers) and 2.) professions of concern protect gossipers from social penalties,” Reynolds told PsyPost. “Thus, we uncovered a tactic of gossip dissemination that is more often used by women and grants competitive social advantages. Speakers who disclose their gossip with concern are preferred as social partners relative to those who share the same statements neutrally or maliciously.”
One limitation is the use of hypothetical scenarios, which may not fully capture the nuances of real-life interactions. Nevertheless, this research highlights the dual effect of concern-based gossip: it shields the gossiper from negative social judgments while still damaging the target’s reputation.
“This study contributes to my broader goal of uncovering the subtle and clever ways that women compete for social partners and resources,” Reynolds said. “I have published similar work with my colleague Jaime Palmer-Hague, where we found that women also tend to disclose gossip by sharing how their same-sex friends have harmed them. That is, women were more sensitive than men surrounding transgressions related to kindness (e.g., making a joke at your expense) and commitment (e.g., forgot about your birthday, never reaches out first).”
“Women were also more likely to disclose these transgressions to others than were men. Last, people who disclosed their own personal victimization (e.g., ‘Tammy was mean to me’) were less likely to be perceived as gossiping compared to those expressing identical third person statements (e.g., ‘Tammy was mean to Susan’).”
“Thus, another covert strategy by which women share reputation-relevant information is by disclosing how their same-sex friends have let them down,” Reynolds explained. “These statements are not readily recognized as gossip, just like what we found with the concern-based gossip. Together, these studies suggest that gossip may not fit the malicious prototype we have in mind. Rather a substantial portion of gossip is disclosed in ways that make speakers appear virtuous or innocent.”
Interestingly, Reynolds noted that women often feel more like victims of gossip than perpetrators. This suggests that they may be unaware of their own role in spreading gossip, especially when they frame it as concern, allowing them to avoid feeling responsible for the harm caused.
“Previous research has uncovered a strange pattern whereby women report greater victimization by other women’s aggression than perpetration of it themselves (Archer, 2004; Tracy, 1991),” Reynolds explained. “Our research suggests one potential solution to this puzzle: women are unaware of their gossip perpetration because they disclose such statements out of ostensible concern for their targets.”
“Our findings cannot adjudicate whether the expressed concern for targets is genuine. All we can say is that speakers who express concern will evade some of the social penalties for gossiping. I would imagine that many individuals genuine feel concern for their gossip targets. Some gossipers might consciously use concern as a strategy to protect their reputations.”
“If we want to reduce female aggression, then a first step is making individuals aware of these patterns so they can make informed decisions about which pieces of information to share,” Reynolds said. “That is, people might be harming others’ reputations without actually desiring such outcomes. These findings suggest that benevolent intentions behind sharing gossip may not protect targets from the resultant reputational tarnish.”
“These findings also offer insights into avoiding those who could tarnish our reputations. If someone is often disclosing others’ personal information to us ‘out of concern,’ we should probably be careful about sharing our own information with them. Those who gossip to us are likely to gossip about us, even if they are using tactics that don’t fit our narrow conceptualizations of gossip. We can now be more mindful about recognizing all forms of gossip, and which individuals tend to disseminate it.”
The research, “Bless her heart: Gossip phrased with concern provides advantages in female intrasexual competition”, was authored by Tania A. Reynolds, Jon K. Maner, and Roy F. Baumeister.
