2 Simple Ways to Protect Ourselves Against Gossip

In other words, gossip has the capacity to tear down existing social bonds, potentially creating havoc among groups of people who work together, are part of the same family, or share other connections. A tells B a story about C, and now no one in the little group feels they can trust each other, but C, specifically, can feel so angered as to try to seek retribution.

Maintaining that gossip in the workplace can be particularly disruptive, the French research team focused on an industrial setting. The 306 employees in their sample represented 66 software houses and call centers, all located in Pakistan, who ranged from technical engineers and programmers to those working in the support areas of sales, marketing, and human resources.

The study’s main premise was that employees exposed to negative gossip would be more likely to engage in counterproductive work behaviors toward the company (e.g., taking extra time for themselves during breaks) and toward other workers (e.g., saying something hurtful to someone).

The extent to which participants felt they were the targets of negative gossip, in turn, was hypothesized to predict emotional exhaustion or burnout, and it was this exhaustion that ultimately would lead to higher levels of counterproductive work behaviors.

People exposed to high levels of social media usage at work, furthermore, were predicted to be more negatively affected by gossip.

The authors further hypothesized that not everyone would show this unfortunate pattern. Mitigating the pathway leading from gossip to exhaustion to counterproductive work behaviors, in the model developed by the research team, is “moral attentiveness,” a personality trait encompassing awareness of moral experiences in daily life (perceptual moral attentiveness) and the tendency to take moral issues into account when making decisions (reflective moral attentiveness).

You might be able to relate to the concept of moral attentiveness if you consider your own everyday thoughts and actions. If given a chance to cheat, such as keeping a package sent to you by mistake, would you do it? Would it even seem like a moral issue to you? If so, then you theoretically would be high in the moral attentiveness trait, and in the workplace would be less likely to figure out ways to cheat the company or take aim at your fellow employees, even if gossip made you angry.

The general framework of the Murtaza et al. study falls in the category of a “conservation of resources” model in the organizational literature. This model predicts that gossip leads to “emotional consumption” as employees use their energy at work to fend off hurt feelings.

Even though specific to the workplace, the conservation of resources model can also provide a useful approach to understanding how people react to negative gossip in their own ecosystems of family and friends.

After subjecting the data to the predicted model, the research team found that the highest levels of counterproductive work behaviors were indeed conducted by workers low in moral attentiveness (combining perceptual and reflective varieties) and heavily exposed to social media.

Emotional exhaustion served as the link between gossip exposure and counterproductive work behaviors.

As the authors concluded, “we believe that damaging conversations about someone who is not present can be a toxic virus that spreads and ultimately deteriorates an organization's environment”. The “dark side” of social media use, furthermore, was supported by the findings that the hurt feelings created by gossip on a public platform could create an even greater desire for retribution in the workplace setting.

Turning to the buffering role of moral attentiveness, the authors further go on to note that “attentiveness to ethics plays a role as a resource for facing stressful situations.” People high in moral attentiveness avoid emotional exhaustion because they are able to find strength in their own ability to behave in an ethical manner.

Based on the KEDGE school study, these 2 key strategies can help inoculate us against gossip's ability to bring us down:

1. Shoring up our moral attentiveness: We’ll be less likely to seek retribution, and cause further damage to our relationships, if we vow to take the moral high road, even when attacked.
2. Taking pride in our strength of character: High moral attentiveness can build our self-esteem, a valuable resource to have in any situation.

Those “slings and arrows” of negative gossip, from this standpoint, become tiny insults rather than grave threats to our inner sense of well-being. Let the petty people gossip about us, in other words, it’s their problem and not ours.

To sum up, exposure to gossip is hardly a pleasant experience. However, by digging deep into our own personal reserves, we can let that gossip pass us by as we pursue our own inner path to fulfillment.