Gossip – is it good for you?

(Author’s note: this topic has been near the top of my list for months, but it wasn’t until Roe called me out that I knew it was time to write it.  We were driving back from Durham, NC when I explained that my next topic had to do with gossip.  I told Roe that, from my vantage point, most people think of gossip in a negative light, to which Roe quickly (and accurately) responded: “Well, YOU certainly do.”  Point taken).

Few would argue (who's with me on this?) that gossip has a negative side.  Gossip is often seen as hurtful, immoral, unproductive and, at times, downright mean.  But there is another side.  In two unrelated studies researchers proved what will now seem obvious – that gossip increases fairness, holds selfishness in check and helps us figure out who to befriend and who to avoid (a key survival tool).

Fairness/Selfishness

Researchers Bianca Beersma and Gerben Van Kleef of the University of Amsterdam conducted a series of studies to see if the threat of gossip would suppress selfish behavior, and, sure enough, the results were striking.  Participants were asked to distribute 100 tickets for a cash-prize lottery, and they were free to decide how to distribute the tickets (that is, they could keep more for themselves or distribute more to the group). In the first round of experiments, participants were told that their choices would be kept totally private.  But in the next round of experiments, they were told that the group was either prone to, or unlikely to, gossip about each other's choices. No surprise here.  In every instance, people became substantially less selfish when they knew they might be talked about.  The authors explained: “When the threat of gossip exists, group members can expect that they will be talked about if they decide to take a free ride.” The authors conclude: “. . . gossip is a powerful tool to control self-serving behavior in groups.  Indeed the grapevine keeps group members in line. Although mostly viewed negatively, gossip may be essential for groups’ survival.”

Gossip as a evolutionary survival tool

Paying attention to gossip may indeed be linked to longevity/survival, according to Northeastern University researchers who found that our visual system is trained – beyond conscious awareness – to remember individuals who are associated with negative gossip. In a fascinating series of experiments using a stereoscope (where two images compete for the brain’s attention), participants were presented with faces linked to positive, neutral or negative gossip (examples: helped an elderly woman with her groceries, passed a man on a street, threw a chair at his classmate).  As you might suspect, faces paired with negative gossip were dominant. And just to make certain that the brain wasn’t simply attending to the negative gossip, the researchers controlled for that variable.  Same result.    

From a survival perspective it’s easy to understand that our brain might be wired, beyond our awareness, to quickly identify people associated with negative gossip.  In an article authored by Christian Jarrett for BPS Research Digest, the Northeastern researchers were quoted as saying: “Our results . . .  [show] that top-down affective information acquired through gossip influences vision . . . so that what we know about someone influences not only how we feel and think about them, but also whether or not we see them in the first place.” Jarrett opined: “The finding lends scientific credence to the established PR wisdom that for entertainers vying for the spotlight, there's no such thing as bad press.”

Confidence or Ability: Which one is more important?

Confidence matters.  And more than you think.  That’s the bottom line from a new series of studies which reveals that when confidence is manipulated (more on this, in a moment), people perform significantly better. 
Much of the research examines the confidence-ability conundrum by testing people’s 3D mental rotation ability – a skill commonly thought to be better in males than females.  And, indeed, in test after test, males do seem to score considerably higher. But when confidence is factored into the mix, the sex differences appear to dissolve. 

How could this be?

Enter the stereotype threat, a psychological term defined as “the tendency for members of a negatively stereotyped group to underperform on tasks relevant to a culturally salient stereotype,” according to Dr. Scott Kaufman, who wrote about the subject recently in the Huffington Post. Kaufman cited four recent studies which confirmed what others have found, and what in some ways is transparent – that when you expect to perform well at a given task, you do remarkably better.  In addition, Kaufman maintains, confidence may be related to working memory; in other words, when your confidence is low it restricts your working memory which in turn lowers your ability to perform well. 

Now back to confidence manipulation.  Angelica Moè and Francesca Pazzaglia of the University of Padau performed a series of experiments to explore if expectation altered performance. First they had both men and women complete a test of mental rotation.  After the first round, some participants were informed that men do better on the task, and others were told that women do better on the task.  Enter, round two. The same participants took another test of mental rotation, and guess what?  Explained Kaufman: “Women performed significantly worse after being told men do better on the task, whereas women who were told that women do better on the task performed significantly better at the very same task. Similarly, men performed better after being told that men are better at the task and performed worse after being told that women are better at the task. What we believe is true matters.”

What’s at work here?  Confidence.  University of Warwick psychology researcher Dr Zachary Estes, working with Dr Sydney Felker from the University of Georgia Health Center, found that confident people, regardless of gender, were more accurate.  Concludes Kaufman: “So confidence matters for everyone.”  And to fully test that confidence really was the difference (and not each individual’s ability to perform a mental rotation task), the researchers injected a sophisticated layer of confidence manipulation . . . and achieved the same results.  

Why does this all matter?  Because, in the classroom, student expectations drive performance. In a 2006 study by Matthew McGlone and Joshua Aronson (University of Texas at Austin), the authors explained: “Stereotype threat research provides insight into how the low standardized test scores of students from stigmatized social groups may derive in part from the negative performance expectations about these groups.” 

What can we do?  We can remind students about their membership in group linked to positive performance.  McGlone and Aronson tested this hypothesis by priming female college students.  And sure enough, women primed to contemplate their identify as students at a selective private college outperformed those who were primed to contemplate their sex or a test-irrelevant identity. 

So, think you’re elite, and you just might be.

Who’s more ethical, the rich or the poor?

Who’s more likely to lie when negotiating, cut people off while driving, or endorse unethical behavior in the workplace?

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley conducted seven related experiments and determined that, in each instance, upper-class participants were more likely to exhibit unethical behavior than their middle- or lower-class counterparts. 

Study author and doctoral student Paul Piff, quoted in a UC Berkeley press release, hypothesized that “the increased unethical tendencies of upper-class individuals are driven, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.”  Added Piff, in a news interview: “When tempted, the less affluent paid attention to fairness while the wealthy were more likely to cheat.” 

More than 1,000 individuals of lower-, middle- and upper-class backgrounds participated in the study, which revealed the following:

·         Negotiating in the workplace – Picture this: you’re a manager, interviewing candidates who want a two-year contract position, but you know that the job will last for only six months. Plus, you’ll receive a bonus for negotiating a lower salary.  What did the study find?  People of upper-class participants were more likely to deceive job candidates by withholding information.

·         Aggressive driving behavior – the study found that upper-class motorists were four times more likely than other drivers to cut off other vehicles at a busy four-way intersection and three times more likely to cut off a pedestrian waiting to enter a crosswalk.   

·         Helping yourself – in a unique study, participants in a lab-setting were assigned a series of tasks. Nearby was a jar of candy, reserved for visiting children, and participants were invited to take a candy or two.  Who took twice as much candy as their counterparts?  You guessed it.

·        Attitudes about greed – In this experiment, participants were primed to think about the advantages of greed and then presented with bad behavior-in-the-workplace scenarios, such as stealing cash, accepting bribes and overcharging customers.  The study revealed that participants NOT in the upper class – if sufficiently primed – were just as likely to engage in unethical behavior.

Where's the good news? Priming, apparently, works in reverse, that is, people can easily be primed to behave more generously.  In an article by Maia Szalavitz, a health writer at time.com, Szalavitz noted: "In an earlier study, Piff and his colleagues found that rich people were less likely to help a person who entered the lab in distress — except when they’d just watched a video about child poverty.”  This led Szalavitz to wonder: “. . . if we are concerned about negative media content harming the moral development of children, we might want to place positive depictions of greed near or even above sex and violence on the list of exposures that are unsuitable for youth.”

Are you a neophiliac? Or, perhaps, a neophobe?

It just might be time to give neophiliacs their due.  Neophiliacs are novelty seekers (an estimated 15% of us qualify) and, despite their reputation for risky and antisocial behavior, a new book urges us to start celebrating neophiliacs on two counts: 1. Their contribution to society; and 2. Their ability to navigate their lives (neophobes, by the way, are their polar opposite – those who adamantly resist change).

The book is “New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change” and author and behavioral scientist Winifred Gallagher touches on the role of neophiliac in society.  Quoted in a New York Times article, authored by John Tierney, she explained: “.  . . a population’s survival is enhanced by some adventurers who explore for new resources and worriers who are attuned to the risks involved.”  Gallagher added: “Nothing reveals your personality more succinctly than your characteristic emotional reaction to novelty and change over time and across many situations.”

Gallagher’s exhaustive analysis was driven, no doubt, by today’s information explosion. Witness these revealing stats:   

·         “We now consume about 100,000 words each day from various media, which is a whopping 350 percent increase, measured in bytes, over what we handled back in 1980,” said Gallagher, as quoted in the New York Times piece;  

·         Research now proves we can process only a little information at a time, or about 173 billion bits over an average life; and

·         By some estimates, the urge for novelty drops by half between the ages of 20 and 60.

Neophilia is also linked to well-being, according to psychiatrist C. Robert Cloninger, who was quoted in that same New York Times article: “Novelty-seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy and fosters personality growth as you age. . . . It can lead to antisocial behavior . . . but if you combine this adventurousness and curiosity with persistence and a sense that it’s not all about you, then you get the kind of creativity that benefits society as a whole.”  (author’s note: more about curiosity, and its importance as a skill, in an upcoming blog entry)

For decades, Cloninger, a professor of psychiatry and genetics at Washington University in St. Louis, has examined the personality characteristics that contribute to well-being, and he has identified three salient traits: novelty-seeking, persistence and self-transcendence.  Quoted in that same New York Times article, Cloninger explained the third trait: “[Self-transcendence is] the capacity to get lost in the moment doing what you love to do, to feel a connection to nature and humanity and the universe.” He added: “It’s sometimes found in disorganized people who are immature and do a lot of wishful thinking and daydreaming, but when it’s combined with persistence and novelty-seeking, it leads to personal growth and enables you to balance your needs with those of the people around you.”

Are you a neophiliac or a neophobe?  To find out, try this quiz (I just did . . . ).

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/the-well-quiz-how-adventurous-are-you/#more-71337