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posted by martyb on Saturday October 07 2017, @08:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the can-you-believe-it? dept.

In this study, 290 heterosexual Canadian students between the ages of 17 and 30 years old completed three questionnaires. One measured how competitive the participants are towards members of the same sex as their own, especially in terms of access to the attention of potential mates. The other questionnaires measured the tendency and likelihood of the participants to gossip about others, the perceived social value of gossip, and whether it is okay to talk about others behind their backs.

It was found that people who were competitive towards members of their own sex had a greater tendency to gossip. They were also more comfortable with the practice than others. Women had a greater tendency to gossip than men, and they also enjoyed it more, and saw more value in participating in such chit-chat. Men were more likely to gossip about the achievements of others. Such talk among women often targeted the physical appearance of another, and was used to share social information. Women also found gossip to have greater social value, which may allow them [to] gather more information about possible competitors in the game of finding a mate. It may also help to hone their ability to gossip in future.

There you have it--it's been scientifically proven.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @08:45PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @08:45PM (#578649)

    Could have just spread legs.

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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:40PM (#578659)

    What's the real flamebait here, my comment or the submission?

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:15PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:15PM (#578674)

    The instinct is to spread legs for somebody with good DNA and/or for somebody who can provide resources and protection.

    Gossip lets a woman set higher standards.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @10:40PM (#578682)

      ...all evaluated on highly superficial observations evaluated near the brain stem, the mechanism having evolved hundreds of millions of years ago. It sucks being a living organism, slave to evolutionary history.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:34AM (1 child)

    by looorg (578) on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:34AM (#578729)

    I would assume this is one of the factors that women gossip with other women about, the potential slutiness of other women. Which I guess would be of great value for certain men to know about.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @11:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @11:46AM (#579242)
      1) Most men won't care as much. And for most of the species lifespan why should they care? They're not bearing most of the costs e.g. carrying around the fetus for 9 months, producing milk etc. e.g. It's all good if someone else is paying the cost to reproduce your genes.
      2) Thus sluttiness is probably a plus for some guys. The thing is guys don't need to learn about sluts from women's gossip. The sluts tend to be obvious that's why the other women gossip about them - the sluts are a threat to them.

      It's only in more recent millennia where the guy has to provide for the kids (previously the women were probably gathering much of the food for the kids) and it's not allowed to kill "your kids" even if they aren't actually yours (see what lions do when they take over a pride)...