Why we gossip

 Why we gossip

Many primates, such as baboons, live in big groups and use grooming as a social tool to make connections, build trust and form alliances.

The anthropologist Robin Dunbar has argued that humans developed language to serve the same purpose, but far more efficiently. In particular, our use of language for gossip - defined as talking about people who are not present - is the human equivalent of primate grooming. During our evolutionary history, Dunbar explains, human groups expanded to a size and complexity such that regular grooming became impractical as a social glue. Gossip enabled large groups to stay together and helped our ancestors survive because it allowed valuable information to spread across large networks of friends and family, where personal observations or interactions were not possible. Gossip enabled social norms to be communicated and kept bad behaviour in check.

Anthropological research also shows that gossip is a cross-cultural phenomenon, which supports the idea of its evolutionary benefits.

Source ~ ‘ The Little Book of Anthropology’ by Rasha Barrage