How will you deal with the gossip mongers individual?
Answers & Comments
HunterxHunter2007
When you find out that your co-worker told half of the staff members at the office that you and your wife are having marital problems, it can feel like taking a kick in the stomach while not being allowed to whisper “ouch!” Office gossip is hard to bear for those who are targets. But gossip at the workplace is likely here to stay. What can you do about it if you are the victim?
Start by looking at your own behavior. Are you yourself an office gossip or an office bully? If so, then your new status as a victim may just be the sweet revenge of your co-workers.
According to psychologist Matthew Feinberg and co-workers, gossip may serve a regulatory purpose. The researchers asked 216 participants, divided into groups, to play a game and make financial choices that would benefit their group as a whole. The game allowed group members to benefit egocentrically by free-riding off of other group members’ financial choices. The researchers then divided the participants into new groups but allowed them to gossip about their prior group members. Future group members then received that gossip and could choose to ostracize free-riding subjects before making their next contributions.
The research team found that the gossip about group members benefitted the groups as a whole. By excluding the selfish group members, other less selfish participants could cooperate with others who were of the same mindset, and the group would thrive in a way it wouldn’t have without the gossip. Other recent research published in the December 2014 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has since then demonstrated that gossip teaches lazy or selfish individuals to think about their own behavior and grow to become less focused on their own good and work toward the common good of the group.
Gossip can thus have a beneficial function in the workplace. It can teach narcissistic or lazy people to cooperate, and even if these individuals never learn, it can allow others to align with those who are willing to add to the work environment in positive ways and thereby contribute to the overall growth of the workplace.
Answers & Comments
Start by looking at your own behavior. Are you yourself an office gossip or an office bully? If so, then your new status as a victim may just be the sweet revenge of your co-workers.
According to psychologist Matthew Feinberg and co-workers, gossip may serve a regulatory purpose. The researchers asked 216 participants, divided into groups, to play a game and make financial choices that would benefit their group as a whole. The game allowed group members to benefit egocentrically by free-riding off of other group members’ financial choices. The researchers then divided the participants into new groups but allowed them to gossip about their prior group members. Future group members then received that gossip and could choose to ostracize free-riding subjects before making their next contributions.
The research team found that the gossip about group members benefitted the groups as a whole. By excluding the selfish group members, other less selfish participants could cooperate with others who were of the same mindset, and the group would thrive in a way it wouldn’t have without the gossip. Other recent research published in the December 2014 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has since then demonstrated that gossip teaches lazy or selfish individuals to think about their own behavior and grow to become less focused on their own good and work toward the common good of the group.
Gossip can thus have a beneficial function in the workplace. It can teach narcissistic or lazy people to cooperate, and even if these individuals never learn, it can allow others to align with those who are willing to add to the work environment in positive ways and thereby contribute to the overall growth of the workplace.