Why do people feel the need to gossip? Even about nice people who do nothing wrong or mean no harm?

Question

People fascinate me in their need to gossip. Why is that? What do gossipers try to prove? We all do it from time to time, but there is always that one person in class, at work, at church, in the neighborhood, or that one friend, that seems to be a chronic gossiper.What is up with that?

Answer 1

Gossip is about "telling the news" and before newspapers, radio, TV and internet it filled a function. Today the gossip doesn't fill the same function. I think that the chronic gossiper is in a way attention seeking. Look at the media, the ones telling the news does get attention, not only their stories. The gossiper gets to bask in attention as long as they tell an interesting story. If the story wasn't good enough they need to find something new and better to get more attention. I also think that the need for attention stems from insecurity. A need to feel more important than others and the attention gives them a false sense of their importance.

Answer 2

Isn't that amazing? I don't understand it myself and I deal with it on a daily basis in my office. My secretary is that person. She is so sneaky and passive aggressive that it drives me crazy. She LOVES to stir stuff up and get the rest of the staff in an uproar. We will never understand the need but in her case it's jealousy and a serious lack of self esteem. I can't say what motivates people to gossip but I would have to venture a guess and say it's from a need to feel more important or powerful. I know it is for her.

Answer 3

That's just life.

Talking about someone else's problems somewhat at times makes you feel better about your problems. Alot of gossip is not malicious, most of the time it's not really how you feel. Its just something you do to vent i guess.

Even the nicest people gossip at one point or another about someone, most of the time deep down you don't want to hurt the person's feelings, it's just fun i guess. Like when someone falls on TV, it's funny. But that doesn't mean you want them to have hurt themselves.

Answer 4

In most cases there is more than one person gossiping. I walk away when people do this. Some people have nothing better to do than talk crap about others.

Answer 5

The need to send and receive information/news is built-in to human nature. That's how we've survived as a species: by warning one another of potential dangers as well as where one can find food and water...

As with any instinct, it's sometimes misused. The need to send information becomes the need to tell juicy tidbits about someone else's private/personal business. The instinct to gather information becomes one to enjoy listening to such gossips!

Answer 6

gossiping can be a dangerous thing it harms people and it can make peoples life's a misery, i believe if you have a problem with that person tell them instead of saying nasty stuff to people around them its unnecessary. i think people do it out of spite or for the sake of it.

Answer 7

on a similar time as reducing is away of coping, it isn't the desirable way. even nevertheless you have no longer have been given a huge forged on your arm, it does no longer propose it is not hurting you. you are able to decrease a substantial blood vessel and die, that's adverse. it is not socially properly-known by way of fact it is not a sturdy factor to do. Tattoos, piercings, and sweetness surgical treatment are not self-harm. nevertheless the approach is painful, people do no longer unavoidably do it to handle issues. sure, elegance surgical treatment could be something people do to overcome insecurities, yet some people actual want it for scientific applications. yet elegance surgical treatment is something people will see, and the guy receiving needs people to work out it. reducing is often something carried out in secret as way of coping with issues you opt for for to maintain see it. this is a cry for interest, yet no longer in all circumstances. some people decrease by way of fact they experience this is the only factor they could administration, and that they experience as though they could't tell all of us, yet on the comparable time they choose for to, and that they desire somebody will see the cuts and care adequate to ask approximately them and their wellbeing. this is incorrect, by way of fact it hurts you, and no, it would not make you unwell. people see it as extraordinary or emo, by way of fact they do no longer consistently placed it in perspective and understand persons are having emotional issues, or they don't be attentive to a thank you to react so as that they are asserting this is extraordinary. it isn't the norm, and it won't be by way of fact this is not any longer a sturdy thank you to help your self. It truly merely hurts you interior the long-term, by way of fact your no longer becoming from it, you;re residing on your issues, and inflicting soreness to handle them, which feels sturdy in view which you think of your coping with it. you ought to consult with somebody you have confidence, or a counselor so which you will extremely cope, yet in a greater constructive way, so which you will initiate off your therapeutic technique.

Answer 8

I think is it either a learned behavior or just a bad habit. I do it to though.

Answer 9

because they have a lot of insecurities and it scares them that other people might see it so they try to divert attention from them to others who are actually minding their own business ....