Interesting article in the International Herald's Tribune on recent research on Gossip. If there's a list of universal human traits, gossip must be part of it:
"Long-term studies of Pacific Islanders, American middle-school children and residents of rural Newfoundland and Mexico, among others, have confirmed that the content and frequency of gossip are universal: People devote anywhere from a fifth to two-thirds or more of their daily conversation to gossip, and men appear to be just as eager for it as women."
"Gossip has long been dismissed by researchers as little more than background noise, self-serving blather that serves no useful function", the article tells us. "But some investigators now say that it belongs front and center in any study of group interaction" - among them an anthropologist (Kevin Kniffin) who has studied gossip among a university crew group for more than 18 months. >> read the whole story
PS: I remember vaguely that anthropologists have already conducted several other studies on gossip. See among others Kate Fox: Mobile(phone) Gossip
is right Lorenz, that gossip must be a natural human trait. have oyu heard this one - if three women are standing together and talking, then there is chat. if one of them leaves, then there is gossip!
but personlly I cannot understand the meaning of ‘theraupetic gossip’ (the mobile study) - there is a fine line between harmless gossip and poisonous slander, don’t you think?