Add this to the benefits of being in a couple: A safe space in which to dish.
“Spill the Tea, Honey: Gossiping Predicts Well-Being in Same- and Different-Gender Couples” is the name of a new study from UC Riverside psychology researchers that found gossip within couples is associated with greater happiness and better relationships.
“Whether or not we want to admit it, everyone gossips,” said Chandler Spahr, first author of the study, which is the first to examine the dynamics of gossip and wellbeing within romantic partnerships. “Gossip is ubiquitous.”
Gossip is more than idle chatter, the study affirmed. Couples’ gossip is strongly and reliably related to happiness. Gossip is also related — albeit to a lesser extent — to relationship quality.
In the current study, 76 same-gender and different-gender romantic Southern California couples participated. Participants wore a portable listening device called the Electronically Activated Recorder, or EAR. The EAR samples what people say throughout the day; about 14% of their daily conversation was recorded in the study, then analyzed by research assistants.
The EAR technology found participants spent about 38 minutes per day gossiping, with about 29 of those minutes gossiping with their romantic partners. Woman-woman couples produced the greatest amount of gossip.
While couples in general reported high levels of happiness, same-sex couples reported higher levels of happiness than different-sex couples. Woman-woman couples reported the highest level of relationship quality.
The authors surmised that gossiping among romantic partners may serve as a form of emotional bonding. Consider a driving-home-from-a-party scenario.
“What do you do in the car?” asked Megan Robbins, a UCR psychology professor and the paper’s senior author. “You talk about everybody at the party. Who said what; what’s going on with their relationship.”
Didn’t Veronica look great? Didn’t Joe look awful? Did you sense tension between them?
“Negatively gossiping with one’s romantic partner on the way home from a party could signal that the couple’s bond is stronger than with their friends at the party, while positively gossiping could prolong the fun experiences,” the study authors wrote.
“It may reinforce the perception that partners are ‘on the same team,’ enhancing feelings of connectedness, trust, and other positive relationship qualities, as well as contributing to overall well-being.”
The authors also suggested gossip may function as a “social regulation tool,” helping to establish expectations and behaviors that contribute to a harmonious relationship.
The study is a follow-up to a study Robbins published in 2019 that dispelled some long-held gossip myths. That study, which also employed EAR technology, found women don’t engage in “tear-down” gossip more than men, and lower-income people don’t gossip more than wealthy people. It also found that younger people engage in more negative gossip than older adults.
Gossip, through the researchers’ lens, is not necessarily negative. It’s simply talking about someone who isn’t physically present, and gossip may be positive, neutral, or negative. Unlike in the 2019 study, in the current study the researchers did not factor the nature of the gossip: positive, negative, or neutral.
The paper was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
