美国国家公共电台 NPR We Gossip About 52 Minutes A Day. That May Not Be As Toxic As It Sounds

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

This story is sure to set tongues a-waggin' (ph). Academic research makes the case in favor of gossip. One study finds that people spend an average of 52 minutes per day talking about other people. And though gossip has a bad reputation as idle, jealous, vindictive¹, it's not always so bad. Here's NPR's Allison Aubrey.

ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE²: If you want to know how much people gossip and what they gossip about, one way to find out is to get them to wear a portable recording³ device that could capture their every word. That's what researchers did as part of the new study. It included about 500 people. Study author Megan Robbins of the University of California, Riverside says she wanted to know how much of gossip is trash talk and how much is positive. But what she uncovered was kind of surprising.

MEGAN ROBBINS: We actually found that the overwhelming majority of gossip was neutral. So about three-quarters of the gossip that we heard in our sampled conversations was neither positive or negative.

AUBREY: In other words, people just love to talk about other people. But a lot of it is just chatter⁵ with no real judgment⁶. Jeremy Cone⁷ teaches psychology⁸ at Williams College.

JEREMY CONE: We share tons and tons of social information, but it isn't necessarily, you know, salacious or extreme.

AUBREY: Think about your own conversations. A lot of it is just - oh, Judy and Ted⁴ went to Florida; Uncle Jimmy had a kidney stone; did you hear Emma got her driver's license⁹?

CONE: Much of that is just simply a kind of documenting of the facts or just sharing information about others.

AUBREY: The study has some other interesting findings, too. Turns out, women and men gossip about the same, and extroverts¹⁰ gossip more than introverts¹¹. Now, many people do engage in negative judgmental gossip, but even this can serve a purpose.

ELENA MARTINESCU: I think gossiping can be a very smart thing to do.

AUBREY: That's Elena Martinescu of King's College London. She has studied the influence of gossip in the workplace.

MARTINESCU: It allows people to keep track of what's going on. It allows people to bond and to create social alliances with other people.

AUBREY: From an evolutionary¹² perspective, we are wired to gossip. She says it can help build group cohesion¹³ and a sense of cooperation.

MARTINESCU: Because when you gossip, you can keep track of who is contributing and who is giving back to the group and who is being selfish - and by sharing this information with your group members, you can exclude those people who are not good group members or who are social loafers.

AUBREY: In one of Martinescu's own studies, she analyzed¹⁴ what happens when a person learns that they're the one being gossiped about. Turns out, people feel hurt and angry. But it can also motivate them to improve.

MARTINESCU: We found that negative gossip makes people likely to repair the aspects of their behavior that they were criticized for.

AUBREY: So if people gossiped that you always got to work too late, hearing that gossip could nudge you to be on time and trigger a change in your behavior for the better.

Allison Aubrey, NPR News.

1 vindictive   

adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的

参考例句：

• I have no vindictive feelings about it.我对此没有恶意。
• The vindictive little girl tore up her sister's papers.那个充满报复心的小女孩撕破了她姐姐的作业。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

4 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

5 chatter   

vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战

参考例句：

• Her continuous chatter vexes me.她的喋喋不休使我烦透了。
• I've had enough of their continual chatter.我已厌烦了他们喋喋不休的闲谈。

6 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

7 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

8 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

9 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

10 extroverts   

性格外向的人( extrovert的名词复数 )； 活跃、愉快、爱交际的人

参考例句：

• In the second half, the students were criticized. Extroverts were unfazed. 在后半部分，举不动时学生要受批评，外向性格的学生表现出不满。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 大脑与疾病
• Extroverts prefer lively conversation to brooding on the meaning of life. 性格外向的人喜欢高谈阔论，而不愿思索人生的意义。

11 introverts   

性格内向的人( introvert的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Extroverts tend to lack self-discipline while introverts lack courage. 性格外向的人缺乏自我约束力，而性格内向的人则缺乏勇气。
• I an introvert and introverts get drawn in. 我是个内向的人而且内向是天生的。

12 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

13 cohesion   

n.团结，凝结力

参考例句：

• I had to bring some cohesion into the company.我得使整个公司恢复凝聚力。
• The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality,creativity and cohesion of a nation. 文化的力量，深深熔铸在民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中。

14 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》