Are you a gossip-monger?

Do you just love hearing and dispensing information about people, even if it’s not true? Whether you do this consciously or otherwise, being a gossip-monger actually ruins your reputation and renders you untrustworthy, as Mwereti Kanjo finds out.

Enelesi Chimtengo (not her real name), was well known among her peers for gossip. If you wanted something hot on a friend, Chimtengo was the person to look for. She remembers that at one time, while at a boarding secondary school, her friends called her into a room to tell her off about her behaviour.

Still, that was not enough to make her change. It was not until later on in life, after she caused problems in her neighbourhood, that she felt the pinch of her behaviour. She told a lie that led to a temporary separation of a certain couple. She thus made a decision to change her behaviour.

If you talk about gossip, a woman is first to come to mind. But there are those, including men, who gossip at a level that is disturbing—they are called gossip-mongers.

Your ears are always alert waiting to hear who did what, where and with whom. You go sniffing around looking for that juicy gossip to tell the next person. It’s likely that everyone around you knows how bad of a gossiper you are that people are afraid of saying anything sensitive in your presence. Sadly, you might not have the slightest clue that you, perhaps your entire family, are gossip-mongers.

Psychologist Sandra Mapemba defines a gossip-monger as someone who actively seeks out information or spreads rumours.  Everyone gossips, but not all are mongers. She says the true, deep-rooted reason for gossip, according to psychological studies, is the feeling of superiority that results from such vicious spreading of information.

This is because the person feels superior not only because they have information to offer that another person does not have but also, by gossiping about someone else, the gossiper feel as if they were a much better person than the subject of the gossip. So, if you fit in these criteria, you are gossip monger!

“According to psychological studies, people who gossip the most rank highest on the anxiety scale.

“Anxious people are not only more susceptible to gossip but they’re the ones who will transmit information to a larger number of people.  Basically, if you look at the nature of someone’s gossip, you can find out what concerns them,” says Mapemba.

To change, Mapemba says you need to identify whether you are a happy person or an anxious unhappy person.  Find out why the negative traits exist and work from there to change.

“This is because happy people spread positive gossip more often and unhappy people spread negative gossip more often.

“In addition, people generally spread negative information about their enemies and positive information about their allies. It’s a unifying force that communicates a group’s moral.  It’s the social glue that holds us all together,” points out Mapemba.

She adds, “The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”