You didn’t hear this from me, but YouGov just did a survey on gossiping.
The survey found that majorities of Americans think gossip is bad for society, harmful, and mean-spirited. But at least one-fifth of adults really enjoy gossip.
Most Americans think gossip is always or usually bad for society, including 26% who say it is always bad. 21% say it is good as often as it is bad, and just 4% think it is always or usually good for society.
Adults under 45 (62%) are less likely than people 45 and older (74%) to say gossip is bad for society.
Majorities of Americans say gossip is harmful (66%) and mean-spirited (63%). 33% say it is addictive and 32% say it is sinful. Fewer say gossip is entertaining (29%), fun (15%), or harmless (10%).
Americans 65 and older are especially likely to say gossip is mean-spirited (77%); 49% of 18- to 45-year-olds agree. People between the ages of 30 and 44 are especially likely to find gossip entertaining (44%); 35% of younger adults and 20% of older ones agree.
Although majorities of Americans see gossiping as harmful, mean-spirited, and bad for society, many have partaken. 45% of Americans say they’ve spread a piece of gossip, 36% have not, and 19% are not sure. Among people who have ever spread gossip, 93% say they’ve spread a piece of gossip they knew was true and 20% say they’ve spread a piece of gossip they knew was false.
21% of Americans say they like gossiping very much or somewhat, but more say they don’t like it very much (33%) or at all (41%). Women (25%) are more likely than men (16%) to say they like gossiping. And adults under 30 (39%) are far more likely than older Americans (16%) to say they like gossiping.
Most Americans say they’ve made attempts to correct a piece of gossip. Some have done it successfully: 43% say they’ve successfully corrected a piece of gossip about someone else and 29% say they’ve successfully corrected a piece of gossip about themselves. But many attempts are unsuccessful: 27% have unsuccessfully tried to correct a piece of gossip about someone else and 19% have unsuccessfully tried to correct a piece of gossip about themselves.
64% of Americans have heard a rumor about themselves that was false; fewer (35%) say they’ve heard a rumor about themselves that was true.
If you truly don’t like gossip, you might want to stop reading here.
YouGov’s survey also gave people the option to share some gossip they’d heard about themselves, and whether or not it was true. Some of the pieces of gossip people shared involved romantic relationships, workplace conduct, or family conflicts. Many people shared that they’d felt hurt or angered by the gossip.
Below are a few of the most interesting pieces of gossip that respondents shared; these are not representative of responses overall. Responses have been edited for length and clarity:
- Someone said I was a nudist. It was not true but it was amusing. (I'm vegetarian. I think they just got confused about this new resident from California who was some kind of a weirdo.)
- When I was in college I heard that I crashed someone's house party to the point of ruining it when I was blackout drunk. Honestly it could have been true at the time (turns out my friend who did it just gave them my name because I wasn't there) so it didn't really bother me.
- I heard that a mutual friend didn't like me. I was very hurt to learn that. It was true that she didn't like me.
- I heard that my husband and I were not married since we had different last names. I thought it was funny and explained I was a published professor and kept my name. Married 44 years!
- My father had an industrial accident when I was 10. My mother took a second job, which made me the sitter for my 3-year-old sister when I was not in school. The woman who lived across the street from them spread the rumor that my sister was actually my child. But people believed it. I was devastated. Yes, it was false. And hateful and vicious and destructive.
- That I was a witch and kept a large grimoire in my dwelling.
- That the place I lived at the time was owned by a drug dealer that got arrested and was in the news. I did not live at this place but they had a similar name. No one would listen to me when I tried to explain and correct them. I felt powerless to stop it spreading. It was false but no one cared.
— Taylor Orth and Carl Bialik contributed to this article
Related:
- Most Americans believe gossiping is bad for society, but half of us have done it anyway
- Which actions — and people — do Americans consider immoral?
- I do or don't: Surveying Americans on wedding etiquette
See the results for this YouGov poll.
Methodology: This YouGov poll was conducted online on August 26 - 30, 2024 among 1,122 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of adult U.S. citizens. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to November 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.
Image: Getty (Frank and Helena)
