Gossip,
says an Oxford University evolutionary psychologist, provides vital physical
and psychological benefits—and benefits society. But you have to do it right.
We have always been told that all
the best things—booze, chocolate, television, grilled cheese in extremis—are bad for us. And so it is gratifying
that science has finally deduced that one of life’s great pleasures, gossip, is
not only life-enhancing but life-saving.
“The most important thing that will prevent you dying is the
size of the social network,” Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford
University, told the Cheltenham Science Festival over the weekend: “That has a
bigger effect than anything, except giving up cigarettes. Your social network
has a huge effect on happiness and well-being.”
Dr. Jennifer Cole, a senior lecturer in the Department of
Psychology at Manchester University, has written on the “short term effects of gossip behavior on self-esteem” and
appeared alongside Professor Dunbar at the science festival. “We know we are
violating someone else’s privacy and it breaks social rules about politeness,”
she reportedly said. “But if people don’t gossip at all, we don’t
like them, we’re suspicious.”
According to Dr. Cole, who did not respond to requests for
an interview, gossip matters because social connections are important. The
former helps cement the latter.
What a flood of subsequent headlines
missed was the devil in the detail: Gossip wrongly, negatively about people,
Professor Dunbar told The Daily Beast, and your life expectancy could diminish.
Gossip only enhances your life if you gossipright.
Professor Dunbar said he had extrapolated the positive
benefits of gossip from two studies. The first was an overview of 148 other
studies that looked at heart attack patients a year after their surgeries.
“The best predictor of good health was the quality of the
social contact they had with others,” he said. “The only thing that came close
was giving up smoking. It came way above body weight, whether they were obese
or not, what medication they were on or treatments they had had, whatever
therapy they had had, the exercise they took or alcohol they consumed.
“What was a much bigger factor in their recoveries was the
size and vibrancy of their social network.”
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