The Wall Street Journal, "Feel-good gossip" - Really?

WSJ, "Feel-Good Gossip," Jan 21, 2012

by C.H. Pak

I was reading The Wall Street Journal today with my morning breakfast and coffee, and came across a story about "positive, pro-social aspects of gossip," by Christopher Shea.  The study that he showcased demonstrated that "gossip can relieve anxiety caused by watching others behave badly."

Before I go any further into my thoughts on the study let me put a couple of definitions on the table. First - gossip is defined in the Free Merriam-Webster dictionary as either: a) a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others; or b) rumor or report of an intimate nature. Gossip, possessing a habitual aspect, stems from a profound lack of humility. It is an offshoot of pride, also known in Christian circles as a deadly sin. Fraternal correction, on the other hand, is named as one of the fruits of charity in the Catholic Catechism (#1829). It is defined in the Catholic Encyclopedia as "the admonishing of one's neighbor by a private individual with the purpose of reforming him, or if possible, preventing his sinful indulgence."

Now, let's return to this little piece in the WSJ. According to the experiment, more than 200 participants watched "cooperation" games involving small amounts of cash. Participants watched these staged games where "one player pursued a relentlessly self-interested strategy over one or more rounds." Watching this apparently caused a certain amount of distress for participants, whose heart rates correspondingly rose. The distress "was eased when participants got the chance to send a note to the subsequent player, warning of the bad actor." There is no indication in this piece that the participants were given the option to confront the offending player directly, only that they were given the chance to warn another player about apparently immoral behavior that was going on. The study's researchers (Matthew Feinberg, Robb Willer, Jennifer Stellar and Dacher Keltner) defined this as a "positive, prosocial aspect of gossip." What actually happened here were instances of redirected fraternal correction, not habitual manifestations of gossip.The participant was motivated to "protect an innocent player from harm," not spread rumors.

I had two problems with what I saw here. The first is that a study dressed with such marketing spin actually made it into a scholarly journal, which is scheduled to appear in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology as "The Virtues of Gossip: Reputational Information Sharing as Prosocial Behavior."  The second is that the popular, eye-catching titles in both the study ("The Virtues of Gossip") and the WSJ article ("Feel-good gossip") can perpetuate confusion among readers about the difference between good and poor behavior. The participants in the study were clearly exhibiting a good reaction (distress) to bad behavior (relentlessly self-interested strategy), yet they were manipulated by the researchers to find a way to correct the problem after being constrained in their options. The choice to warn another player of the offender was defined as "gossip," which relabeled a virtuously motivated act in a way that would potentially make the non-virtuous behavior (the actual form of gossip) seem more permissible.

The lesson in all this - scrutinize fast food media (and in some cases, fast-food research) like you would fast food - read the ingredients, look at the nutrition info, and consume at your own risk.