We all enjoy chatting about the latest rumors or scandals from time to time, but a new study suggests that gossip among women is driven by jealousy and low self-esteem. Researchers recruited 190 women aged between 23 and 35 and asked them to assess their physical attractiveness and self-esteem on a broad scale. They were then randomly assigned to look at pictures of women who were rated as either highly attractive or lowly attractive.
Participants were asked to imagine themselves in a social group with a "target" man and to envision the woman they saw in the picture entering the group and approaching the man. They assessed their jealousy according to a scale set by the researchers. Afterward, they were presented with negative information about the woman and asked to rate the likelihood of sharing this information in various social contexts.
The analysis revealed that participants were more likely to spread negative information about the woman to their friends rather than to anyone else. They also reported feeling higher levels of romantic jealousy if the woman was attractive, which in turn was associated with a higher likelihood of gossiping about her.
The researchers found that participants with low self-esteem were more likely to use gossip, especially when the rivals were very attractive. The team from Beijing Normal University published their findings in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science. They wrote in their research paper: "This study explored whether young women use gossip strategies and how they employ them to gain opportunities for themselves when facing potentially attractive rivals."
The results suggest that in the presence of attractive rivals, young women experienced higher levels of romantic jealousy and were therefore more inclined to convey negative information that could harm the reputations of potential rivals to their friends. The researchers added: "Women with low self-esteem were more likely to experience higher levels of romantic jealousy and were more likely to pass on negative information to their friends."
