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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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @11:16PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @11:16PM (#578690)

    People feel embarrassed or guilty about everything from having sex to just generally having fun. Little of it is a character flaw unless you're a 17th century puritan.

    No idea what your definition of fun is or who or what you're fucking to feel embarrassed about it? Let's not gossip about it though eh?

    Seeing how gossiping been part of a successful mating strategy since the dawn of history, it seems having "poor self-esteem" is beneficial.

    It's not the gossip, it's social standing. As the sayings go "those who gossip to you will gossip about you" and (in relation to gossip) "those who care don't matter and those who matter don't care". Engage in gossip, especially malicious gossip - lose your social standing and ultimately your self-esteem because nobody with anything about themselves will want to know you.

    All that psycho-babble is pure nonsense when facing a 50% divorce rate with 95% correlation to changes in income level of one of the partners

    So what is the correlation of changes in income to social standing and self-esteem? When I was younger, I was in relationships with rich girls and poor girls. At no time did their income directly impact the outcome of the relationship.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by pvanhoof on Sunday October 08 2017, @07:41AM

    by pvanhoof (4638) on Sunday October 08 2017, @07:41AM (#578813) Homepage

    When I was younger, I was in relationships with rich girls and poor girls. At no time did their income directly impact the outcome of the relationship.

    Maybe that's because when you were younger, you didn't have much to spend money on. Perhaps the differences start to show when the both of you need to make a decision about what car to buy, what house to build or what place to rent, what kitchen to buy and install, what travels to make. A rich girl will want to spend amounts that are much higher than a poor guy could possibly make. She and her family and friends will probably be used to it. And the other way around (in case the guy has more money).

    When you are young, the amounts to spend are much lower (a motorcycle, a laptop, meh).