Research Paper: "Stay Away from Gossips!"
By Adriano Cabral
FORCV.com Editor, Columnist, Manager & Representative for Brockton & Southern Massachusetts
The subject of gossip seems to be increasingly attracting the interest of many researchers of different areas of social sciences because its impact on human lives. There are controversial opinions and findings about the subject of gossip in terms of its purpose, its functions and how it affects social interaction, in sum, whether it is a good or evil. For the sake of defining Gossip, the word has changed its original meaning as it meant during the Middle Ages, a noun to mean a person related to one in God, a close friend, or a companion. It had increasingly acquired some pejorative meaning recently, first because of its change in meaning and also because of its negative connotation as a result of the problems that it creates among people. In Capeverdean language Gossip is translated as “ariola”, “roe na vida de alguem”, “fofoca” depending on the island where the language is spoken. Some researchers continue to suggest that gossip serves a good purpose, such as facilitating relationship building, group bonding, clarification of social position and status, etc. However, the fact that it is based on the unknown or unverifiable information, and shared secretly among people with different and unknown purposes, it fails to serve the purposes that people, in good faith, would like it to serve. Therefore, Gossip should be discouraged as a form of decent form of social interaction because of implications, such as, lack of trust generated in the information shared, breaking of friendships, it promotes social exclusion, and encourage lies.
People who think that gossip is good rather than evil, normally claim that gossip is a form of social control “gossip shepherds the herd” that means it helps people who belong to a certain group or status can use gossip to criticize others and manage the crossing of boundaries to keep some people out of the group – social exclusion. Others even claim, “the proper time to be alarmed about the role of gossip in the society is when there starts to be less of it”. It is important to notice that there is a difference between rumors and gossip, which some people tend to confound.
According to Rosnow, a known College Professor and Social Psychologist in the US, rumors and gossip differs in their functions “Rumors is a public communication that is infused with private hypothesis about how the world works… it is ways of making sense to help us cope with uncertainties… more than rumors, gossip have an inner circleness about it, in that it is customarily passed between people who have common or shared interests”. He says that popular usage defines gossip as “small talk” or “idle talk” but gossip is not inconsequential or without purpose, which mean it is done with something in mind, which we may presume, not a good one.
Gossip seems to take its negative sides because it deals with individual’s private businesses and it is on the expense of an individual who is not present in a conversation.
Some people like the poisonous gossip because it helps them cope with their anxieties in social encounters. They look for anything especially juicy, sinful about others to attract other people’s attention and become part of the inner group. Talking against a common enemy makes the people bond together. Even people in most good faith in the sharing of gossip content will feel part of the insider group and will hate to be on the “gossipee”’s shoes (the one who is the target of gossip).
Gossipers’ intent to serve as judges and to distribute fairness or enforce how individuals should behave, unless discussed openly, or fairly established, gossiping is not always the best option. If gossiping against one person when not present is to force that individual to conform to the group’s rule, who is to guarantee that what is being considered as affecting the gossiper’s attitude is based on the consensus of the people, or group’s rules-abiding premises? Who is to guarantee that what is being held against the “gossipee” and spread about is even true about the person? Who is to guarantee that the gossiper is not just acting on revenge against the outsider? Gossip information is unreliable and founded on the unknown or unconfirmed. Because most of the gossips go along with the presumption that the “gossipees” are not supposed to know about what is being said about him or her, ( please don’t tell anyone- Ca bu fla ninguen ma n’flabo), most of the information is unverifiable. In most cases, except for children who can gossip in front of the other child with a third one, people do not confront the person with what is being held against him or her. The “gossipee” is not given the opportunity to acknowledge the problem, if there is any, to move towards conformity or to explain or defend him or herself against anything.
In small communities where everybody knows everybody, the proportion of gossip per individual is higher and the damage and compensation is also larger than in large communities. Gossip (fala na vida intimo de alguem) seems to work well as a weapon against other people in small communities. Information are easily exchanged for good or for evil.
Do we have this issue in the Cv community?
How do gossiping issue apply to the Capeverdean community? How do the negative effects of gossip affect us? Do people in the Capeverdean community hate the fact that people are too concerned with others own private lives? It seems that people who have lived sometime of their lives in Cabo Verde are more consciously aware of our smallness and are especially concerned with who is who in the community. I am sure you remember people who try really hard to look into your eyes to see if they have seen you anywhere else before, or if they know your parents, or even if you’re not one of his or her cousin. Whereas others are less aware of our smallness and are more loosen up as to what is going on with their neighbor, or even hate people staring at them because it is thought to be impolite, right? The second example is true, for example, for the second and third generation of Capeverdean immigrant in US. This doesn’t necessarily mean that people who act unconsciously “impolitely” is doing harm to anyone, but that it is typical for people of smaller communities to try to know about others with whom they relate in some way, with good as well as evil purposes. In one hand there is “morabeza” and on the other hand “fofoca”, malice. That does not mean, also, that in large communities there are not problems, or this problem, just that their problems tend to take the other end of the continuum – isolation and anonymity of individuals. Both can cause problems to individuals.
It is false the idea that gossiping do more good than evil. People who are in the inside group, extraverted, at revenge, attractive seem to be the one who most probably take part in the gossip sharing. On the contrary, shy, introverted, less attractive people, lower social status, strangers, minorities, seem to be more susceptible to become targeted as “gossipees”. Prejudice derives from the tendency to divide the world into “us” and “them” and so view our in-groups more favorable than the out-groups.
Some people want to show as if they are in the inside track, they agree with what is everybody’s views on a particular issue, but they have their own way of approaching the issue when in the inner circle of his or her own group, meaning, I agree with you that this person is really bad, or what you said is true, but then after, I say to the other person something else about the same person. A typical example that influences people to lie is when people want to let the others perceive he or she is in the inside track in a group, is not being left out, etc. On a research done in US, researchers posted notices inviting college students to a wedding, which never took place. However, 12% of the students reported they had attended the wedding, when questioned, with even description of bride’s dress. Incredible! Unverifiable information, especially deriving from individual’s perception of a situation or fact is often affected by purposeful distortion, misused, or even perceived the wrong way, and therefore, full credibility must be dependent on peer review.
Other people use gossip as pretentious good faith information sharing to promote themselves at the expenses of others. In the workplaces, it takes a lot of time away from work to gossip. Gossip is especially dangerous when it is spread by people who are what a Social Psychologist refers to as “lick upward and kick downward” “ta ngrasha”. These are people who play up their superior, but treat their subordinates with disdain and contempt, in particular, the ones they know well. Many supervisors are very assertive as to how they deal with private issues for the sake of decision making “If you have any complaint against anyone, say it, we’ll verify with that person and we’ll move from there”. In many cases much information, supposedly brought in good faith, turns out to be false only serving the gossiper’s selfish interest, and thus gossip is discouraged. In other instances where information circulates in the form of gossip, the work environment is of distrust, people are divided, and friendships are broken, only to serve few people’s desire to dominate others.
In some way, gossip has been increasingly discouraged. There is a consensual understanding that gossip causes more damage than it helps. HIPA (health Information Privacy Act) is a law that was passed by congress of US and became effective in April 2004 to protect health information of patients in the Health Centers. It also punishes anyone who passes health information in the form of gossip in the hallway in front of other people who are not involved in the treatment, or not an authorized caregiver. It also prohibits disclosing information to anyone other than the patient or without patient consent, including phone calls. In some workplaces like Health Centers, people talk about patient’s information carelessly, others disdainfully, providers and assistants talk on the hallway in a way that anyone can hear, discuss care in front of other people, etc. People with diseases like AIDS are especially vulnerable in these situations. If not controlled, these situations can lead to suicide because patients have no control on their own lives and their health, once in that predicament.
Even the concept of democracy is based on the idea to discourage secret sharing of information with public matters, in other words, to a certain degree discouraging gossip. The idea of Independence and drafting of the first Constitution of US is founded on the premises that the government is to be based on consensus between the governed and the governor - which applies to all democratic form of government like Cabo Verde. Consensus is only possible if information of public matter that leads to decision making, is discussed openly. I quote one of the FORCV forum participants that gossip takes place on the political arena as a key instrument in forming in-group and out-group. If decision is based on information that circulates without proper knowledge on the part of people whom the information concerns, then the information is bound to take a secret way, just like gossip does. I believe that what the Fathers of Independence of US had in mind when they drafted the first constitution is that information, whatever it may be, should be discussed openly, and Democracy was, therefore, in itself, one step towards human development to go against human natural tendency to form in-group and out-group in which the first dominates the second. Senator Barbara Boxer said: “I don’t want a secret government; I want things to be spoken out freely and openly” referring to the war in Irak”.
We can affirm openly that gossip typically is a tactic of tyrants and colonizers. We all know the savvy saying in Portuguese “dividir para reinar” which means divide to be in control. This is achieved with intrigue, scheme, plot in which gossip leads the way. We all have ideas of how colonization is and, we can’t let this happen to us, in our own environment.
People should by all means try to stay away from the environment where gossip is a fest. There are not many ways to know for sure what the truth is.
However, there are ways to help minimize the damages that gossip can cause. According to Michael Zigarelli, a well known Social Psychologist in US, some researchers have found interesting information on how a gossipy conversation progresses and how a participant in that conversation can effectively cut it off. Researchers in the University of Indiana found that when someone in a group conversation expresses a negative opinion about an individual who is not present (when the gossip first begin) the first response to that individual from a member of that group often determines whether more gossiping will occur in that conversation. If the first response to this negative statement supports the comments, the gossip tends to spiral. Other people in the group consider it safe to agree and unsafe to disagree with the opinion, and typically becomes an open season on the target of gossip. On the contrary, if the first response to the negative comment is a challenge to it, meaning, someone immediately disagrees with or question the assessment before other people endorses it, then the conversation is much less likely to become a gossip fest. The result is the person who initiated the conversation tends to moderate or retract back, and after that, people will feel free to agree or disagree with the initial evaluation because they know they do not stand alone. Gossip is a private business; it should be confined to private places. The best idea is to move to a more decent form of conversation, discuss our problems openly and democratically like, for example, on the forum on Forcv.com, Caboverdeonline.com, debate on social clubs, read or write opinions on newspapers, magazines or follow the saying: if you don’t have anything positive to say, don’t say anything at all.
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MY INTEREST IS TO SEE MORE UNITY AMONG US CABOVERDEANS AND A BETTER UNDERSTANDING SO THAT WE CAN WORK TOGETHER TO IMPROVE OUR LIVING CONDITION HERE IN THE USA AND IN CABO VERDE. AS A MATTER A FACT IT MAKES ME VERY HAPPY TO SEE THE GREAT CONTRIBUTION THAT IS BEING MADE,WE WHO ARE SOMETIMES FAR REMOVED FROM CABO VERDE HISTORY AND CULTURE HAVE MUCH TO LEARN FROM OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND ALSO THE OTHER WAY AROUND. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM APPROPIATE AND I WELCOME IT. 