Last week we talked about gossip and how to avoid it. Becoming a chameleon can help you camouflage yourself and blend into the environment that you are operating in and hopefully protect you against becoming a target of gossip. But what about if we are gossip addicts, it could be a habit that we have formed over many years and can be hard to break.
Research was conducted with 3-year-old and 5-year-old children. They watched a puppet show where puppets cheated in a game; the 5-year-old children were gossiping about the cheating puppets. This signifies that we all may have engaged in gossip from a very young age; therefore, it is ingrained into our personalities.
There are many ways to kick the habit or at least reduce it to become less harmful to ourselves and others. As I mentioned last week, gossip can be more harmful for the gossiper than the person who is the target of gossip; therefore, there is a strong incentive to get our gossiping habits under control.
You may have heard people use the phrase “If you don’t have anything positive to say about someone, don’t say anything at all”. This is a good mantra to follow. If someone comes to you with some damaging gossip about someone else, you could tell them something positive about that person. Spreading positive feedback about your peers can help them and make you feel good that you are able to put yourself in a positive mindset.
Another way to reduce the habit of gossiping is to try your best to avoid gossipers. If people have a bad reputation for gossiping, maybe you should reduce your time with them to the bare minimum or you could simply change the subject. When you feel that someone is about to gossip and they ask you a question about someone in order to get you engaged in the topic, you could say that you have not heard anything about that and talk about another topic.
People often vent about difficult situations at work as it may be causing stress for them. It can be useful for these people to speak to someone away from the work situation and not gossip to co-workers or classmates. If you need a good listener, feel free to talk to me.
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Preschoolers use gossip to help peers avoid cheaters
https://www.science.org/content/article/gossiping-may-start-early-5-years-old#:~:text=Gossiping%20may%20start%20as%20early%20as%205%20years%20old%20%7C%20Science%20%7C%20AAAS
