Word: gossipeer
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...Gossip is unavoidable. Wherever you go, rumors flow. Entire careers, in fact, have been dedicated to creating it, spreading it, quashing it and corralling it. In his new book, The Watercooler Effect, Nicholas DiFonzo, a professor of psychology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, examines the gossip that buzzes through every community, explaining why people feel so compelled to devour and perpetuate rumors, and what effect that has on society at large. DiFonzo spoke with TIME's Jeremy Caplan about some of history's worst rumors, the peculiarities of Web gossip, why "no comment" is the wrong answer...
Your book mentions that gossip has benefits. What are some of those...
...Gossip - evaluative social chat about another person - may not be so nefarious when one desires to protect someone from harm. Hearing gossip that your son's friend is a drug-dealer may aid you in steering your loved one away from a destructive relationship. Gossip may also simply be a way to gather useful and helpful information about our social worlds without direct and embarrassing inquiry. Gossip - or the fear of gossip - may in this way serve to enforce the social norms that are necessary for any group to exist. And, of course, gossiping with someone signifies that they...
...online rumors and gossip differ from traditional water-cooler gabbing...
...became dissatisfied with their bodies and tried to lose weight. They didn't necessarily want to be like Europeans; they just wanted to look like them. Is it possible that the situation for teens and tweens is the same? They don't want to be like the characters in Gossip Girl (only 16% of whose viewers are actually teen girls) or America's Next Top Model; they just want to look like them, to try on that identity. "Nine-year-old girls do not experience dressing up in a sexy way as a sexy thing," says Deborah Tolman...