By Julia Reading, News Correspondent
Imagine walking into a party and hearing a friend whisper that the girl in the bright red halter top steals from her friends. Suddenly, it is seemingly impossible to ignore this girl’s presence. Although negative gossip could deter people from talking to her, new evidence suggests they may be paying more attention than one would expect.
A recent study conducted by Northeastern professor of psychology Lisa Feldman Barrett, published by the journal, Science, May 19, suggested gossip does not only affect how we perceive someone, but it can also change the way we physically see each other.
Using a method called “binocular rivalry,” Barrett and her colleagues showed 117 college-aged participants images of faces with neutral expressions and told them either positive, negative or neutral things about each person pictured. Participants saw two faces at once, and the time each individual spent fixating on each face was measured.
The brain has the ability to be conscious of only one image at a time. Barrett said participants were far more likely to choose to focus their attention on the faces they had negative associations with.
“The brain preferred to look at the faces with negative associations and hold it in consciousness,” Barrett said in an interview with The News. “What you see influences how you feel, but we suspected for a long time that what you feel influences what you see. We directly tested this hypothesis on purpose.”
Not only can gossip be used as a defense mechanism, but Barrett said her research also suggests that learning gossip about someone can be advantageous. She said information about a person’s weaknesses can be helpful from a competitive standpoint.
“Gossip helps to predict who is friend and who is foe without firsthand experience,” Barrett said.
Northeastern students said they agreed with the results of the experiment, and found negative gossip more interesting than positive chatter. Senior psychology major Brad Guillory said he would pay more attention to a person who he had a more negative association with.
“If you hear something negative about someone, that will be top priority,” he said. “If you hear something nice about someone, that’s nice, but you won’t have to worry about them.”
Senior psychology major Colleen Trinh said she is more likely to notice a person she has heard negative things about because she needs to see if there is truth to the inflammatory information.
“If I feel like someone is bad, I want to watch them and see if the rumors are true,” she said. “No one cares if they are nice, and no one cares to watch and see if they are actually nice.”
Trinh said she thinks gossip can greatly influence how someone’s actions are perceived, and feels this is not a good thing.
“I personally don’t like to be told what someone is like before meeting them,” she said. “If someone tells you that someone is mean, and they act mean, you will think that they are a mean person. But if you meet them knowing nothing about them, and they are mean, you still might give them a chance.”
Gossip can easily influence a person’s feelings about someone, even if there may be minimal support for the accusations, Barrett said.
“The quickest way to change people’s feelings is gossip,” she said. “If I just gossip about [a] face to you, you will in a very brief number of times associate the face with negativity.”
Guillory said he agrees with this, and that he prefers to know minimal background about a person before meeting them.
“If you know something negative about someone, they are a threat,” he said. “Your image of the person is tarnished, and you want to pick up on their activity to see if they confirm the rumors.”
