Study finds that women dont spread catty gossip any more than men do

Study finds that women don't spread catty gossip any more than men do Study finds that women don't spread catty gossip any more than men do A new study from the University of California Riverside debunked the stereotype that women gossip negatively more than men. However, it did discover that everyone gossips nearly an hour a day â€" about 52 minutes on average.Gossip was defined by the researchers as talking about someone who isn’t there and isn’t inherently negative.Follow Ladders on Flipboard!Follow Ladders’ magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more!The study was the first to exhaustively examine conversational buzz. “There is a surprising dearth of information about who gossips and how, given public interest and opinion on the subject,” said Megan Robbins, an assistant psychology professor who led the study, in a release.For the research, the researchers used data from 467 people â€" 269 women, 198 men â€" who wore a portable listening device that samples what people said throughout the day. About 10% of participants’ conversations were recorded, and then listened to and analyzed by research assistants.In all, there were 4,003 instances of gossip. The researchers organized the results: About 75% of the gossip was neutral. While women do gossip more than men, they do it primarily in a neutral way that’s meant to shares information. The gossip recorded was “overwhelmingly” about a real-life acquaintance, not a celebrity. Younger people were more likely to gossip negatively than older adults. Another stereotype busted: poor people don’t gossip more than wealthy people. The next time you get a burning in your ear, you can rest easier. People may be talking about you â€" but probably not in a bad way.You might also enjoy… New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy Strangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds 10 lessons from Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule that will double your productivity The worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs 10 habits of mentally strong people