Gossip has a very bad reputation. The word “gossip” itself (and its synonyms, like “idle talk,” tittle-tattle,” “hearsay,” “blather,” and “rumor-mongering”) have negative connotations. And this bad reputation is not totally unreasonable, as gossip is sometimes very harmful.
But, on some occasions, it’s actually a very good and useful thing that people gossip. For instance, if someone in a community is genuinely very dangerous, it’s important that the evidence of this is spread throughout the community.
I propose that for healthy, valuable gossip, we use the phrase “Noble Gossip” to differentiate it from its sometimes viscous and often destructive counterpart (which I’ll call “Ignoble Gossip”).
Here is what I would say distinguishes Ignoble Gossip from Noble Gossip.
Ignoble Gossip tends to have these characteristics:
1) It involves spreading false information or information that’s unlikely to be true (without making it clear it’s unlikely to be true).
2) It isn’t clear where the information came from (e.g., “Did you know that X did Y to Z?” leaving out the fact that this is based on a 3rd hand report).
3) It involves vague accusations or vibes (e.g., “I’ve heard that person is toxic” or “I think he’s creepy”).
4) It is mean-spirited or has the goal of hurting people’s reputations (e.g., “everyone knows she’s a s**t and no self-respecting man would ever want to be with her”).
5) It involves schadenfreude or is for the purpose of entertainment (e.g., “Have you heard what happened to X? Serves him right. He’s finally getting what he deserves.”)
6) It includes information that others don’t have a right to know and that it is not societally valuable for others to know (e.g., “Have you heard the kind of depraved stuff they do in the bedroom?”)
7) It would be better handled by taking it up directly with the person who did the allegedly harmful action, but instead, it’s being spread around to others (e.g., “I can’t stand my roommate: they have the most annoying personal habits…but no I haven’t mentioned to them that any of the things they do bother me.”) [Hat tip to Helen Lurie for this point.]
Noble Gossip, on the other hand, tends to have these characteristics:
1) It involves spreading true information or information that’s at least reasonably likely to be true, and it makes it clear how much uncertainty there is in the information while taking very seriously the possibility the information is false or misleading or even that it was purposely spread in order to harm someone, and caveating the information appropriately (e.g., “the source that told me this is pretty reliable, so I’m 80% confident this happened”).
2) The source of the information is clear, or (when that isn’t possible for confidentiality reasons) it is made clear what sort of source it is (e.g., “I was told by a close friend of Z that X did Y to Z”).
3) It involves very specific claims about behavior, not vague categories or impressionistic evaluations (e.g., “Her husband told me that she did PQR but then lied to him right after, telling him she had never in her life done PQR”). The focus on observed behaviors (rather than intent or beliefs) is important because our assumptions about another person’s intent or beliefs are usually just speculations.
4) It has the goal of helping people become aware of information that is important and societally useful or personally protective (e.g., “Before you go into business together, I think you should know that his last business partner told me that he stole money from their business”).
5) It treats the topic seriously and with gravity without making light of people’s bad situations and moral failings (e.g., “His wife told me she was devasted when he did that.”)
6) It includes information that people have a right to know or that is important for people to know to help foster a healthy community or healthy and safe one-on-one relationships (“After I heard that you just went on a first date with him, I want to make sure you were aware that he was previously convicted of sexual assault and spent 3 years in prison for it”).
7) It’s not something that would be better to take up directly with the person who is being accused of harm (e.g., “And then they told me they would lie to my boss to get me fired if I didn’t give them what they wanted”).
One of the worst things about gossip is that it can spread false or misleading information, which can be very harmful. Sometimes false information is spread innocently due to a misunderstanding or mistaken inference, and sometimes false or exaggerated rumors are purposefully weaponized to hurt a person. One of the goals of the criteria I laid out for Noble Gossip is to reduce the chance the information being spread is false or misleading (by citing sources, caveating claims, expressing levels of confidence, being concrete about what exactly is being claimed, and taking seriously the possibility it is false).
Rather than taking either of two extreme positions on gossip (thinking of all gossip as bad or engaging in gossip indiscriminately), I suggest that we differentiate between these two very different types of gossip:
• Ignoble Gossip, which is largely bad and we should aim to avoid (much the way many people try to avoid other unvirtuous behaviors such as lying), and
• Noble Gossip, which we should engage in when doing so is likely to make society or social relationships better or safer.
Not all gossip is the same, and the negative reputation gossip has is only partially deserved. Noble Gossip helps keep people safe and helps communities thrive.
In fact, Noble Gossip is one of the few defenses that communities have against powerful bad actors who have managed to somehow create a positive reputation for themselves.
That being said, even with regard to Noble Gossip we should be cautious interpreting and spreading information about other people. It’s easy to misinterpret events. Additionally, there are usually at least two sides to a story, and even if one side is more right than the other, each side will often conveniently leave out important information because it makes them look bad, and sometimes will exaggerate what they do say to make the other side look worse.
There are also people who purposely spread gossip with the intention of inflicting harm (sometimes this is true information, but other times its information that’s been made up). So, for these reasons, we should spread social information with caution and care. And, when safety and confidentiality are not at stake, and we think that the information seems important, we should try to go to the original source to find out more reliable information and to hear different perspectives on what happened.
I believe that if the guidelines in this article were to be followed, people would end up, on average, gossiping quite a bit less. That’s because I think a lot of gossip is Ignoble Gossip. However, hopefully some of the Ignoble Gossip would be converted into Noble Gossip, which I would see as an improvement.
I think there is a tradeoff between:
(1) Too much gossip being exchanged, which clearly has a lot of harm (e.g., false information being spread, private information that nobody has a right to know/is not societly helpful to know being spread, information being weaponized by bad actors, etc.)
(2) Too little gossip being exchanged (which means that people have a less easy time protecting themselves from very harmful people, and communities have a much harder time detecting very harmful people and evicting them from the community)
However, not all gossip is created equal – some is societally valuable to spread, and some is societally harmful to spread. So just thinking about the amount of gossip, and not the type of gossip, misses something important. My hope with this post is to outline some important considerations regarding what sort of information tends to be societally valuable to spread (Noble Gossip) and what sort of information tends to be societally harmful to spread (Ignoble Gossip)
This piece was first written on January 28, 2024, and first appeared on my website on February 10, 2024.
Re: gossip having a bad reputation, I suspect that’s because it’s a loaded term. We just don’t call it gossip when we don’t judge it negatively.
Re: noble vs. ignoble gossip, I have two big concerns.
1) This only considers the informative impact of gossip. In most cases, I think the role that gossip plays in bringing people and groups closer together is much more important.
Indeed, I think there is a category of what you’d call ignoble gossip but for low stakes that is very beneficial. This is the kind of gossip where you might share, “Did you hear that Brad and Samantha had a 3-way with Claire last night” where it’s shared by their common friends for the titalating or pure amusement value but it’s not the kind of thing that’s really going to harm their reputations. I mean it might embarrass them to hear you talking about their intimate affairs but no one’s reputation is being harmed.
Indeed, I think when we look back on our times with friends and share funny stories or bond over the good old days this kind of stuff is often at the center — even for the subjects of the gossip.
I fear lots of joy and utility would be lost if people tried to refrain from this kind of thing.
2) I don’t necessarily think that your Nobel/ignoble considerations really are all that informative about the value of the gossip to the community.
I mean if you’re trying to date someone, knowing that people are passing around gossip about all their sexual conquests can be useful and if you avoid that unless you are doing it for the right reasons with the right evidence you limit this information transmission.
Yes, you shouldn’t take it too seriously — ideally you don’t just turn them down you say I dunno I’ve heard that you’re quite the player or whatever — but I just don’t think we can infer value all that well from motives and evidence in spreading the gossip.
Perhaps the better rule is to make sure you downplay both the certainty and salaciousness — since my sense the biggest harms come from situations where these get amplified via telephone.