Science Vs - Pssst!! The Science of Gossip

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

We all know gossip can be bad — but some of us still can’t seem to get enough of it. So today we’re digging into the science of gossip to answer questions like: who really gossips? And why do we love it so much? We spill the tea with sociologist Dr. Stacy Torres and neuroscientist Professor Josep Marco-Pallarés. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsGossip In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Gossip has a bad rap (06:21) Who gossips? (17:13) Your brain on gossip (24:14) Can gossip be good? (32:27) How to fight nasty gossip Check out Tuck Woodstock’s podcast, “Gender Reveal,” a podcast that centers nonbinary, transgender, and queer folks. The show interviews LGBTQ+ artists, activists, and educators; answers listener questions; analyzes current events; and gets a little bit closer to understanding what the heck gender is. Find us on instagram: @science_vs This episode was produced by Nick DelRose with help from Wendy Zukerman, Joel Werner, Rose Rimler, and Michelle Dang. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, So Wiley, Peter Leonard, and Bumi Hidaka. Thank you to all the researchers we spoke to, including Dr. Megan Robins, Dr. Jan Engelmann, Dr. Konrad Rudnicki, Dr. Alex Karan, and Dr. Julie Wargo Aikins. Recording assistance from Jaz Williams. Special thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus. This is the show that pits facts against flapping our gums. A little birdie told us that today's show is all about gossip. Today, our very special guest, Tucker Woodstock, the host of the very wonderful podcast, Gender Reveal. Hello. Thank you so much for inviting me to this gossip sesh. How did you feel about, so, you know, we've done this season, we've looked at breathing and seed oils and UFOs, but we were doing an episode on gossip and we're like,

let's bring Tuck in. How did you feel about the invite? No, I feel great about it. It's just so funny because in the lead up to us recording this, there was a lot of being like, do you have any gossip from high school that you could share? And I was like, oh, I don't have any memories. I know it happened, but I don't remember it. I probably blocked it out. It's so funny because I was like,

oh, I've got to bring some gossip for Tuck. So I have an older sister and she was in uni or whatever. I don't think she'll care about me sharing this story. She was with a group of friends and they would sometimes like smoke bongs. And I like joined them once and I was in year nine or ninth grade and I didn't know how to smoke a bong. And so I think I actually sucked it from the wrong end. And like everyone in the circle was so high at that point that they just like looked at me like, whoa. I just have this very, like no one really, they were just like different, not correct.

And I just like, I just passed it along and like said nothing more. And then when I was at school the next day, I think I was like recounting this to a friend. And then all of a sudden, words spread around the school that I was a druggie and I was like smoking bongs. Was it like a cool rumor though? Like you seemed cooler.

It wasn't like Wendy's a huge dum-dum who sucked on the wrong part of the bong. It was like Wendy's a cool druggie. Yeah, Wendy's a cool druggie who smokes bongs on the weekend was the vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. Do I know how to smoke a bong now?

That's the question. Rip a bong? I'm such a nerd. I'm such a nerd, Doug. No, I'm right there with you. They're intimidating. They're so big. You don't need something that big. It with you. They're intimidating. They're so big. You don't need something that big.

When was the last time you knew you were the target of gossip? Okay, so the time that sticks out the most for my entire life is in high school. I was at a music festival with a bunch of people who I was friends with sort of going in and then realized along the trip that maybe we actually weren't friends at all. Oh no! And there was one person who was there who we had never been friends. It was like a friend of a friend situation.

And I got a text from him partway through that said do you like Tuck? But sent to me. Oh no! And I just said, LOL, no. And he said, me either. And I was like, totally.

And then that was just kind of that. What? Wait, he never was like, oh, sorry, Tuck. I think you're overestimating the emotional intelligence of high school students. No, it was never discussed ever again. Right.

Right. Estimating the emotional intelligence of high school students. No, it was never discussed ever again. All right. Oh, man. That's so, oh. That's heartbreaking. It's all right. I got the last laugh. We're talking about it on this podcast right now. So it's fine.

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So gossip feels like this trivial thing. Maybe it feels even silly to some of our audience. But the thing is, we have been doing this for thousands of years, probably more. And in fact, there have been these horrific punishments throughout history for gossiping, particularly given to women.

So I'm just going to send you a picture and I want you to describe it. Oh my gosh, Wendy, what am I looking at? It's like a metal mask that partially covers the face that covers the nose. And then there's like a jagged sort of jack-o'-lantern Halloween style mouth. And then coming up from the top is this little extension up that has a bell hanging off it. So this very creepy mask is called a scold's bridle. It came from 1500s Britain.

It's spread throughout Europe. It sometimes includes a spiked metal tongue that makes it impossible to speak. And women would be paraded around in this mask to be publicly shamed. And that is exactly what the bell is there for, to draw attention to this horrific gossiper. It also looks very cool and kind of kinky. So I think we should bring them back, but like in a fun, hot way. You know what I mean? I do.

I hear that as well. I hear that as well. It's both terrifying and like, hello. Now, despite these horrific punishments and the fact that even today being known as a gossip can mess with your reputation, many of us still love to do it. And that is what we are exploring on today's episode. Like, we are digging into the science of gossip to find out, one, who gossips? So are women really more likely to do it than men? Two, what is happening inside our brains as we gossip?

And three, finally, we're going to look into why we are doing this at all. Like, why do we love hearing and talking about ostensibly other people's business? It's weird. It's weird, and yet we keep doing it. So all that and more is coming up just after the break. I'm so excited. It's season three of The Joy of Why.

And I still have a lot of questions. Like, what is this thing we call time? Why does altruism exist? And where is Jan Eleven? I'm here, astrophysicist and co-host, ready for anything. That's right. I'm bringing in the A-team. So brace yourselves.

Get ready to learn. I'm Jan Eleven. I'm Steve Strogatz. And this is... Quantum Magazine's podcast, The Joy of Why. New episodes drop every other Thursday, starting February 1st. What does the AI revolution mean for jobs, for getting things done? Who are the people creating this technology?

And what do they think? I'm Rana El-Khelyoubi, an AI scientist, entrepreneur, investor, and now host of the new podcast, Pioneers of AI. Think of it as your guide for all things AI with the most human issues at the center. Join me every Wednesday for Pioneers of AI. And don't forget to subscribe wherever you tune in. Welcome back. Today on the show, we are talking about the science of gossip,

and we're here with Tucker Woodstock, gossip enthusiast, gossip ambassador? Yeah, gossip connoisseur, maybe. I'm still workshopping titles. I love gossip connoisseur. Thank you. So one of the first things that we wanted to interrogate was who gossips, because there is this idea that women, nosy women, are the ones that gossip away. But is that true?

And so our gossip girl to tell us all about this is Dr. Stacey Torres. She's at the University of California at San Francisco, and she studies people and different cultures. I'm an ethnographer, you know, or a professional stalker. We spend a lot of time with people. I'm a paid professional stalker now. Before, I was just a poor grad student just begging, like, can I sit next to you and write everything that you're doing? So Stacey is not just an ethnographer. I'm a lifelong nosy gossiper. I love to like overhear conversations and listen to people. And science tells us that it's not just Stacey who is a lifelong gossiper. There are actually studies showing that kids start gossiping from a really young age, like as young as five years old.

But Stacey's research on gossip wasn't happening in a kid's playground. Her journey into the world of gossip started in one of her favorite New York bakeries. It's a spot where Stacey used to hang out in when she was a broke grad student. This was, I would say, you know, a nondescript bakery that almost had this frozen in time aspect, like this place that's preserved in amber. Customers used to complain about like the shabby furniture and the kind of distressed tablecloths. And for all the complaining, people were very diehard, frequent, loyal customers. And so Stacey being nosy Stacey, she starts watching the people who are hanging out at this bakery. And lots of them were in their 60s or even older. And she starts realizing that she's seeing the same people there over and over again.

Wow, it's like me in my 20s and a lot of older people, you know, what are these relationships? And are these people friends or are they acquaintances? Are they neighbors? So she basically starts seeing these regulars who don't look like great friends. Like some of them don't even know each other's names, but they're chatting and laughing. And it just seemed so lovely,

this sort of little petri dish that she was looking at. And she actually ends up doing an entire PhD studying these people, eavesdropping on what they're saying. And she does this for five years. So she's taking all these field notes, like this person did this, said that, she's analyzing this, interviewing them, looking for patterns. And it doesn't take long for one pattern to start showing up again and again and again. Stacey realizes that all these older folks are just talking s**t. They're just gossiping about each other all the time. And this realization kind of flips how Stacey starts thinking about this sort of beautiful

bakery because remember at first she was like this is so beautiful look at this community and like everything is just like you know sunshine and lollipops all day long and then I saw them talking about each other and I thought wow I mean do these people even like each other like they're talking about each like they're calling this other person turkey neck and they're talking about like how enormous and awful this person is. Or another woman would gossip about the women that she didn't want to see at McDonald's

and call them the dementia club. If I found out that one of my friends was calling me turkey neck, I don't even know what I would do. That would be hard to come back from. No, that's incredible. I really, this is one of the best PhDs of all time. I'm so happy for this person.

Yes. So it really just turns out that by accident, Stacey starts studying gossip, which I've got to say isn't unique to Stacey. So another researcher that we talked to also stumbled upon this field of researching gossip after realizing that when you get a bunch of people together and let them talk, they just start gossiping. And so this takes us back to our first question. So who was gossiping the most? Was it the women? Well, pretty quickly, Stacey noticed something. The men also gossiped. Like it wasn't just women sort of being chatty and gossipy. The men were very involved in gossip as well.

So, like, there was this one dude. Well, I would say one of the most vivid and colorful research participants named Eugene. He was so funny. So that's why I'm chuckling a little bit. Eugene was like a World War II veteran, a working writer, had this Southern gentleman kind of ambiance around him. But he gossiped about people a lot. And he also was gossiped about. So Eugene would gossip about this woman called Jeanette. She was another regular at the bakery who would try to get people to buy her coffee. And behind her back, Eugene would call her a scam artist. So Stacey was seeing that both men and women were gossiping away, but she wasn't specifically looking at who was gossiping more. But lucky for us, other scientists have looked into this. Like there's this one really

cool study we found where researchers actually had people wear recorders all day. And these recorders would automatically turn on and off at various points throughout the day. So they'd capture like little snippets of whatever people were talking about. And in this study, they had a definition of gossip, which was anytime you were talking about someone who wasn't there, that was gossip, which is a pretty common definition in science. Okay, so Tuck. Yes. Who do you think was gossiping more in this study? And they just looked at the gender binary. So they were just looking at men and women. Who do you reckon gossip more? I don't know. I mean, everything I've ever been told is that women gossip more, but I would love if there was a surprise reveal and it was actually men

who are gossiping the most. It was actually pretty even. These researchers also wanted to estimate how much time people spent on average throughout the day talking about other people. Do you want to have a guess? I mean, it depends how much you talk in general during the day. I'm going to say an hour a day spent just talking about other people behind their back. It was 52 minutes on average. Wow. Crushed it. Yeah. Absolutely. And researchers found that even if you think you don't gossip, you probably do. Studies show that we severely underestimate how much we gossip. Well, if the definition is just talking about someone who's not there, it's like it would be so limiting to only talk about the people who are in front of you.

You never get to talk about anything. So, of course. Yes. And people did have a lot of what the researchers called neutral gossip so in this study they captured thousands of samples of gossip and they found that people were roughly five times more likely to be saying neutral stuff rather than like mean negative gossip right five times more but of, people did say mean stuff too. Like, you know, the kinds of things that Stacey was hearing over at the bakery in New York.

One woman in particular received a lot of castigation and commentary for her weight, or there was a man who had diabetes and also would eat sweets. And so there was always this talk about, ooh, you know, like, like watching what they're eating. Look at what I mean, like, like, you know, an itemized list, like he had a Toblerone chocolate. He's always eating like these sweets at the bakery, where there was one man who is a smoker for, you know, like, until the end of his life. And he would always go for a smoke break. And then they would say, oh, like, you know, he stinks his like his clothes smell. It's disgusting habit. And meanwhile, the people that are gossiping about the person smoking are also being gossiped about. Tuck, you were shaking your head as if you were ready to put them in the

skull's bridle. I just feel like those are mean things to gossip about. I think gossiping about people's health feels more mean-spirited than gossiping about like a goofy life choice that they made. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And studies show that it isn't just trivial fun, you know, that being the target of gossip can affect your mental health. Studies have been done on kids and adults, and they show that people are more likely to be anxious, have lower self-esteem if they're the targets of gossip. Totally.

A bunch of studies have looked in the workplace where gossip can be rampant and this can also have negative consequences. It can affect your motivation and your performance. Even just being in a gossipy workplace, even if you're not the target of it, can have negative consequences. And so I asked Stacey if we ever grow out of this anxiety about gossip, you know, like stop caring about what people think. I guess you know as an individual that if you are gossiping

about someone else, there is gossip going on about you. Like you know it, but you just don't want to be aware of it. You don't want to think about it. At that age in their life, were they aware? Like, everyone's going to be gossiping, and I don't give a s**t. Or did they still have that sense? Yeah, no, they still had that sense. And so some people would, yeah, they knew. Some of them were careful. I would say just like, you know, the high school cafeteria or, you know, the dorm room, that there was definitely an awareness. People would say, like, they didn't want people talking about them. Yeah.

Okay, so here's where we're at. A lot of us gossip. We spend a lot of our time gossiping. And no matter how old we are, we don't like being the targets of gossip. So our next question is, why do we like spilling the tea so much? Like if it causes pain to those who are the targets and we don't want to be the targets, why do we keep doing it? After the break, we're going to take a peek into our brains on gossip. Welcome back. Today on the show, I'm here with Tuck Woodstock, gossip connoisseur.

Thank you. And host of the podcast Gender Reveal. So now we are going to find out why we love gossip. And for this, we need to talk to Professor Joseph Marco Payares. He studies human cognition and the brain at the University of Barcelona. And Tuck, from speaking to Joseph, I learned that there is some pretty saucy gossip in Spain. Here there were a lot of gossips about the former king and all his lovers. Anywhere you went, people sometimes told you, yeah, he had a lover here, whatever. Wow, even I'm intrigued.

I don't even know this king. It's nice to talk about it. It's juicy. It's juicy. Yeah. Okay. So Joseph normally studies how the brain processes nice, rewarding information. He studies stuff like how our brains respond to music and even like getting money. And that got him thinking about juicy gossip. It really like surprises me the power that they have to attract people's attention, this power of engaging people. And so to find out why gossip is so engaging, he wanted to see what's happening in our brains as we're hearing some juicy gossip.

Totally. So here's what he did. If you imagine that you are in the study, you'd come into the lab, you'd get some electrodes put on your scalp, an EEG, and then Joseph's team would show you these sentences on a screen with a little bit of gossip but with a key detail missing. And then they'd ask, how much do you want to know about that missing detail?

So, for example, one of the bits of gossip was about Obama. How interested are you in that information? The way that I just leaned about two feet more forward in my seat in preparation to learn what this clip was going to be, I'm incredibly interested. So in this case, it was Beyoncé. The rumour was Beyoncé, that Barack Obama was having an affair with Beyoncé. I feel betrayed. I wanted slightly realistic gossip.

This is why when I was chatting to Joseph, I was like, what is going on in Spain? This is nonsense. But this actually was was a rumor circulating in the European press in 2014. And Beyonce even came out to deny it, that it was like so persistent. Wow. I had no idea. Spain, hit us up with the gossip next time. Right? So people in this study are getting these sentences about gossip. And then they'd also be mixed in with trivia questions. So the researchers could compare your brain on gossip and your brain on trivia.

So they'd also ask questions like, where in the world is there a volcano called Terra? So how much do you want to know the answer to that question, Tuck? I guess like a little bit because sometimes I go to trivia, but I really, it has no interest to me. Right. Yes. It's in Antarctica for your next trivia session. Thanks so much. I will forget by then. Okay. So the people in the study, given trivia, given gossip. Right.

And then the researchers analyzed the data and they started by looking at what people said they were more interested in. And of course, as you said, Joseph and his team were expecting that people would say, you know, I am more interested in hearing about the gossip. Yeah. But they actually found the complete opposite. In fact, they said they care more about the information about normal things. So what is the highest mountain? They said that they were more more about the information about normal things. So what is the highest mountain? They said that they were more curious about this information than about the gossip ones.

Wendy, they're lying. So the people in the study said they preferred trivia over gossip. And Joseph's team, who included his grad student, Elena Alicart, they actually were like, oh, no, this whole experiment is a bust. I remember Elena coming and saying, the experiment is not working because people don't care about gossips. I mean. Okay. So, but they were like, well, let's keep analyzing the data that we have,

see what happens. And so despite what people said, the team then analyzed the EEG data to see what was happening in their brains and to see specifically if their brains were paying more attention to the gossip versus the trivia. And also if their brains found the gossip more rewarding. They were looking into the reward network in the brain. And what they saw is that when you looked at people's brains,

one way of putting it is like their brains were more excited by the gossip. So here's how Joseph put it. This gossiping information is rewarding even when you are somehow saying that you are not really into this or you are not interesting. So it's like their brains were like a tattling on them. Yeah.

They couldn't lie. Yeah, yeah. They couldn't lie about it. Their brains gave it away. Totally. You suspected this from day one, Tuck. Well, first of all, I love that the brain is in its own way gossiping about its host. Where it's like, this guy is telling you he doesn't care about Bay Bama,

but he was telling me that he actually cares a lot. And that's beautiful. We love that. I guess we've been socialized to pretend that we don't care, but obviously we care. Yeah, yeah. There's one final little thing that he did. A week after people got their brain scanned and heard about the gossip,

Joseph and the team reached back out to everyone in the study and gave them a little pop quiz. We asked them by surprise about what they remember, and they mainly remembered the gossips. They were most likely to remember the gossip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe they don't care, but they are the ones that they remember the most. So the difference wasn't massive.

Like after a week, Joseph found that the participants remember 30% of the gossip compared to 23% of the trivia. But still, the gossip was stickier. So I asked Joseph, after studying gossip in the lab, has this changed how you think about gossip personally? No, I'm not really into gossip. No, of course not. No, I think that gossiping is pretty universal. Sharing information, okay, with others.

Like, do you know what I have? I know about this. Information is rewarding, no? And this takes us to our big and final question for today, Tuck, which is why? Why are our brains paying so much attention to gossip? and final question for today, Tuck, which is why? Why are our brains paying so much attention to gossip? Yeah.

And, well, like Joseph said, at the end of the day, gossip is information. And we, as human beings, we crave information, even useless information. So, you know, like we are on Twitter, we are on Facebook. Most of the information that we have is not really useful. Oh, right, because we're really living in an age of gossip. Yeah. And then when it comes to celebrity gossip,

which kind of feels like really useless gossip, like, I don't know, the King of Spain from a bar of soap. Why do I care about his former affairs? But Joseph said that even that kind of gossip can be useful because it's a way of assessing values and talking to your friends about where do we draw the line? Is it okay to have an affair? You're kind of like testing out social norms within the petri dish of celebrities. That totally makes sense. And research has found that a sort of completely different reason that we gossip about both celebrities and people that we know

is because gossiping helps us to bond. Yeah. Like who hasn't been in this situation where you might just have met some new friends and you don't really have much to say to them. And all of a sudden you start spilling the tea and then everyone's having fun. And one study actually found that when people heard gossip, they got a boost of this chemical called oxytocin,

which is known as this, you know, so-called cuddle chemical, which can help people bond. I was just thinking about, can you give me any name? Marissa. Great, Marissa, great. So I joined this sports team recently and several weeks ago, I was told by members of my team that there was someone on the other team who they all called Hot Marissa because she was like older and spicy and they were like, she's mean and too serious, but like in a hot way, basically. What's the sport, by the way? Well, if I tell you, Hot Marissa is going to find out.

Oh, it's not like soccer or something? No, it's softball. So flash forward a few weeks, we're playing our final games of the season. And I get put on a team with this older person who is way too intense and really wild, and also very hot. And I was like, that has to be hot Marissa. And so after that game, I like ran up to my teammates and I was like, I have to tell you. And they were like, oh my gosh, tell us everything what's going on. And it's like, yum, yum, yum. And like in that moment, I was like, wow, I can like really feel that this is an incredibly important moment of bonding.

Of me just talking about hot Marissa. Right, right. And there are other ways that gossip can be an incredibly powerful and useful tool. Totally. So I am a trans journalist, and there are a lot of people with a lot of structural power who frankly deserve to be gossiped about more. If there's someone who's known for treating certain people or certain communities unfairly, it is in our best interest to all share that information so that we're prepared. I mean, I think that at its best, gossip is almost a form of unionizing, where it's like, we all don't have power individually, but there's power in the collective in sharing this information among and between each other. And of course, people in power

want to keep their power, and they don't want us to be talking about how maybe they don't deserve that power, or they're not using that power in the best possible way. And so they want to put us all in the little mass with the little bells. not using that power in the best possible way. And so they want to put us on the little mass with the little bells. But this is one of the best tools that we have is our ability to communicate and to share information. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so I think what we're learning here

is that even though gossip is mostly associated with being mean and nasty and spreading malicious things about other people, gossip is actually so much more. Right. And can be so much more and can be this powerful tool to help us bond and spread important information. Yeah. And so, Tuck, as we are winding down our gossipy science sesh, I want to take us back to Stacey's Bakery in New York,

because she told us this story that showed that, you know, even sometimes nasty gossip isn't quite what it seems. So do you remember Eugene? He was that World War II veteran, you know, the southern gentleman who loved to gossip. Absolutely. Okay, so Eugene, like a lot of folks in the bakery, was dealing with his own health issues. And at one point he had major hip surgery. And at the same time, he was dealing with problems with his apartment. Like the plumbing wasn't working. So here's Stacey. So this is a person in his mid-80s and had no working shower or bathtub and had to give himself sponge baths because only the water was working in the kitchen.

And this was going on for weeks and weeks. And so people were always talking about him. And some people would give him suggestions about what he should do. Like, you should call a lawyer, you know. But then as soon as Eugene left, they would start bitching and gossiping about him. Like, why isn't he doing enough to fix the situation? Right. And to a stranger, what was going on might look really mean and really bitchy. But Stacey was no stranger. You know, by now she'd been observing this group for like five years. She'd done these one-on-one interviews, attended wakes,

and made hospital visits. And what she saw wasn't that they were just trash-talking Eugene, but she saw it as them venting about everything that was happening because, bottom line, they really cared about him. People really also rallied to try to help him as best as they could. They visited him in the hospital. They called the building department on his behalf to try to get him help. They gave him numbers of therapists and pro bono lawyers. So everybody was also involved. It really like mobilized the bakery crowd on his behalf.

So where does this leave us? Gossip is information. It can be a little reward, a little release those brain juices. And we use gossip for so many things. It can be mean and cruel, but it's also a way to learn about others as a way to bond. And some researchers in a paper put it like this, contained in gossip are the issues of the human condition, the human community, issues of secrecy, self-esteem, pride, voyeurism, intimacy, and search for security, end quote.

Beautiful. I talked to Stacey about this idea. Big picture from your research, how important is gossip to us as humans? That's hard. It's hard to say. I mean, in terms of, you know, like, we have food and water, shelter, food, water. I mean, I would say it's one, on the one hand, you know, you could say again, food, shelter, all these things are really much more important. But I would say gossip is one strand of social connection. And social connection is crucial. Obviously, we should look to treat other people with respect and kindness and care. But as I learned in my study, gossiping does not preclude that. And in

fact, it actually served as a conduit to express kindness, community, and care. And just to cap this off, when gossip isn't a conduit for kindness, community, and care, and if someone is just being cruel, Tuck, there is actually something that we can do. We have the power to stop it. So cue the Planeteers soundtrack. No, we actually, we don't have the budget for that. Okay. So years ago, scientists did this curious study where they plopped themselves into a middle school cafeteria, many people's worst nightmare. And they wanted to see how kids gossiped when they were in a group.

And they found that once the gossip got rolling, a lot of the time it just got worse and worse, like nastier and nastier. That was except if the first person to hear the gossip pushed back and said, nah, I don't think that's true or I don't think that's interesting, it totally changed the game. And the gossip fizzled out just like some middle school romance. And so I was thinking, you know, Tuck, with this knowledge,

perhaps we can deploy gossip for good, for bonding purposes, for breaking down power structures. And then we could also just cut it off at the pass if people are just being mean. Sounds like a great plan to me. The other option is, of course, if you don't want to be the savior, you could just shove your friend's head in the scolds bridle as well.. So if you could drop the affiliate link to buying the Skulls Bridal, I will snatch one up right away. Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks so much, Tuck.

Thank you. Such a pleasure. Honestly, what a joy. Hi, Nick Delrose, producer at Science verses hey wendy how many citations are in this week's episode what's the goss there are 80 citations 80 citations and if people want to see these citations learn more about the science of gossip where should they go they can go to our show notes they'll find a link to our transcript. Yes. And in the show notes, we're going to have a link to our Instagram account. If you want to see a picture

of the scold bridal, go have a look. It's pretty horrific. Also in our show notes, we're going to have a link to Tuck's amazing podcast, Gender Reveal. You should definitely listen to it. Check it out. Yes, absolutely. It's really fabulous. Oh, and just another thing. In Stacey's study, she changed the names of the people in her study. So if you are hunting around New York for someone called

Eugene, you will not find the gossipy gentleman. Just like Hot Marissa. Exactly. All names have been changed, except Tuck and mine and Nick's. Here we are. Here we are.

Thanks, Nick. Thanks, Wendy. This episode was produced by Nick Del Rose with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, Joel Werner, Rose Rimler, and Michelle Dang. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka.

Music written by Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, So Wiley, Peter Leonard and Bumi Hidaka. Thanks to all of the researchers that we spoke to, including Dr. Megan Robbins, Dr. Jan Engelman, Dr. Konrad Rudnicki, Dr. Alex Karan and Dr. Julie Wago-Aikens. Recording assistance from Jazz Williams. Special thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph LaBelle Wilson. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Science Versus is everywhere. So just find us and share us with your friends. If you are listening on Spotify, though, then follow us and tap the bell icon to receive notifications whenever we put out a new episode. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time. Were you ever gossiped about

or you don't know? I don't know. I'm sure, I think sometimes people talked about me in some form. I know that I was like, again, the student or like that young person. Like I somehow got wind that I had a nickname as well. People didn't know my name. But I guess I should hope that I was. But they were looking out for me.

You know, they cared enough about me to gossip. So I will hope that I was the subject of a few conversations. Oh, that's very sweet. Yeah. Does it make you less anxious? Does it make you less anxious about being the gossipy? No. Happy for them, though.