Gossip is so ubiquitous among college students that it may come as no surprise that 65% of the 16,000 words humans speak each day on average are considered “social topics,” either self-disclosure about the participating parties or discussion of an absent third party. While gossiping is often portrayed as a malicious activity, science shows that “spilling the tea” has significant roots in both evolutionary biology and social psychology.

KAYLEE HARTMAN / DAILY NEXUS
As much fun as it is to gossip about who’s dating whose ex, which pair of former best friends are no longer on speaking terms and whose roommate is a total disaster to live with, gossip used to have a role that was much more central to our species’ survival. Historically, humans have engaged in gossip as a means of exchanging essential information, bonding with each other and reinforcing acceptable social standards via vicarious learning.
In his book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” Yuval Noah Harari describes the “Cognitive Revolution” that Homo sapiens underwent between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago. According to Harari, accidental mutations caused a rewiring of the Homo sapiens’ brains which prompted new ways of thinking and communicating within our species.
“Our unique language evolved as a means of sharing information about the world. But the most important information that needed to be conveyed was about humans, not about lions and bison,” Harari wrote. “Our language evolved as a way of gossiping.”
According to Harari, all apes possess an inclination toward sharing social information, and it’s likely that species of archaic humans did as well. The difference, however, lies in the ability of anatomically modern humans to communicate complex ideas about individuals who were not physically present. The transmission of accurate information about who in the group could be trusted — and who could not — allowed for the creation of larger and more sophisticated social orders. Gossip as a mechanism for inducing cooperation, cultural learning and norm enforcement served as an essential impetus in the creation of human civilizations.
In their study titled “Gossip drives vicarious learning and facilitates social connection,” researchers Eshin Jolly and Luke J. Chang from Dartmouth College conducted an experiment where players were allotted a certain amount of points and given the choice to either keep their points for themselves or invest in a group fund that would be multiplied by 1.5 at the end of each round and divided between players. Players received the quotient regardless of whether they put their points into the fund or not. The experiment was designed to be a “public goods game,” as participants face the dilemma between cooperation or free riding.
In “complete information” rounds of the game, players were allowed to observe all other players’ actions. In “incomplete information” rounds, participants could only observe the actions of their two direct neighbors but could privately communicate with the player opposite of them. The researchers observed an increase in discussion of others’ behavior from 14.9% of messages in complete information rounds to 21.7% of messages in incomplete information rounds. Additionally, the researchers concluded that conversational partners had more influence over each other’s actions, felt more positively about each other and shared similar impressions of other players than non-conversational group members
Jolly and Chang also found that the opportunity to gossip increased cooperative behavior. Although group contributions to the collective fund dwindled in subsequent rounds (as is typical of all public goods games), a positive relationship was found between the amount of gossip that a participant received and the average level of group participation, or how likely participants were to contribute to the collective fund. This relationship existed independent of information visibility, suggesting that gossip itself plays a critical role in promoting solidarity within a group. It’s likely that players who were concerned with maintaining a good reputation among the group felt a social pressure to act in a way that benefitted the collective when they knew that their choices would be discussed by others.
In the discussion of the study, Jolly and Chang advocate for science to move beyond conceptions of gossip as defamatory social taboo and recognize the myriad ways in which it shapes interpersonal relationships and group dynamics.
As Harari writes in “Sapiens,” “It comes so naturally to us that it seems as if our language evolved for this very purpose.”
A version of this article appeared on p.7 of the Jan. 16, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
Re “Yuval Noah Harari” Harari’s MISDIRECTING “Cognitive Revolution” (Homo Deus) propaganda notions on homo sapiens is meant to normalize the sick scheme of transhumanism among the endlessly ignorant/foolish public. Yuval Harari, affiliated with Schwab’s WEF’s [https://archive.md/vrZGf] and one of WEF’s frontman psychopaths [https://www.bitchute.com/video/Alhj4UwNWp2m] and who is sold as an intellectual “genius” or “prophet” by this crazy world, is the person who called you and me and all other commoners “useless people” [https://archive.ph/KlOKx] — while millions of those “useless people” have been buying and recommending his books like candy (to learn his “lessons”), serving him very usefully. It’s one proof that… Read more »