Men 'gossip as much as women'
Wednesday, 06, Jun 2007 08:02
The average man is as big a gossip as his female counterpart, new research has claimed.
A British study says that men are as interested in gossip as women are, although for both sexes girls are the favourite topic of conversation.
The University of Leicester, which conducted the research, describes such tittle-tattle as a "key resource" used by both men and women to find and assess potential partners.
Study author Dr Charlotte De Backer says that her results show gossip about girls centres on whether they are pretty or not, while when men are the subject of the conversation the burning issue is how much money they earn.
She claims that among the surprises thrown up by her research conducted on 84 Belgian undergraduate volunteers is the fact that people in relationships are just as keen to discuss potential romantic partners as single men and women.
"We had expected that respondents who reported being in a relationship would not be as interested in gossip about potential future romantic partners, but our results show that they are as interested as the respondents who reported being single," she explains.
"We also expected that girls overall might show a greater interest in gossip, and remember more gossip, but our study shows that boys are as interested when it concerns gossip about potential romantic partners. This does imply that girls are more likely to be gossiped about than boys."
On gossip itself, Dr De Backer writes that the subject does not receive the scientific attention it warrants despite "dominating a great deal of everyone's daily life".
"It is not because we might consider gossip as a trivial habit that it should not be studied scientifically. Gossip is present in everyone's life, almost everyone gossips - some more than others of course - and we all become the subject of gossip at some point," the academic continued.
"Gossip is no idle chatter: it has clear functions, as previous researchers have shown - and this is an extra study that reveals the function of gossip in everyday life."
Dr De Backer next plans to analyse the role of celebrity gossip, which she dubs the "new social cement of our societies".
She concluded: "We might not have mutual acquaintances to gossip about, but we all 'know' Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Madonna and the Beckhams to gossip about."