You're at someone's house for dinner and the entire time you're looking around, observing them and their lifestyle in search of reasons to talk bad about them when you leave. It sounds harsh but so many of us do it. Why does talking bad about people seem like a compulsive behavior we can't control?
There are three general motives behind people talking bad about another person.
1. They're talking with someone to solve a problem they're having with the individual, but lack the skill to do it in a kind way. They talk about the problem may go into detail, May exaggerate a little, but their motive is mainly to get an idea of how to solve the problem, and not to hurt the other person. They may talk inappropriately, or in a way that may leave a negative light on the person they're talking about, but it’s not hateful.
2. They want to discredit the other person, or cause harm to the other person. Their motive is to hurt, or they feel they must defend themselves from hurt, so they hurt first. People who talk bad about another person to cause harm: They seem to feel like you have some major impact in their life, and they are scared of you. For example, a friend who feels like her life is determined by how much boys like her will often bad mouth another girl who the boys like more than her or that she thinks they like more than her. She does this because she feels like she must manipulate the people around her to stay safe. If she took responsibility for her own actions, and her own ability to change, to act, she wouldn't feel so threatened by other people. So usually, people who talk maliciously are really very terrified people. They feel they must manipulate the people around them to be safe. They don't start by changing their own actions and choosing how they feel, they let life around them tell them who they are. It’s a very threatened place to live.
3. They want to be accepted, so they find common humor, evil, etc. to talk about to make themselves feel better. They people are a combination of the two categories above. They talk about others because they have nothing better to do. They just talk without considering the people or friendships that will be damaged, it’s just entertainment.
Talking bad about people is something humans have likely done since developing language. I call to mind the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show with Aunt Bea, Clara, and the other women of Mayberry dishing out juicy nuggets of gossip at the diner. Although a comical situation it's a perfect example of how we thrive on talking bad about people.
So what's the appeal? Talking bad about people makes us feel significant. It feels good to notice ways other people fall short of perfect. Maybe someone doesn't keep a clean house, maybe they spend time with a person you don't like, or they work in a field you consider inferior. We're capable of finding just about anything to criticize people for.
It seems the need to talk bad about people is motivated by the "survival of the fittest." How do we get to be the fittest? By ensuring other people are not. And how do we ensure other people are not? By putting them down, criticizing them, talking bad about them.
Notice the next time you're putting someone down that on some level you feel good while doing it. You get a little self esteem boost from it. By the other person being inadequate in some way, you feel more adequate.
What about the claim that we enjoy talking bad about people simply because gossip is entertaining? Why do you suppose it's so entertaining? Because it is motivated by our need to be better, it is driven by our basic survival instincts. It may sound silly, but when you think about it almost everything we do is, on some level, motivated by our drive to survive.
We're not consciously thinking to ourselves as we gossip about others that we are doing so out of a need to survive. It's an underlying force that motivates us to do so.
None of this is to say that every time we criticize someone or say something negative about them that we're doing it in order to feel superior; it's the compulsive almost addictive tendency to talk bad about people that seems to be driven by our need to be superior.
So, if you’ve ever wondered why it is that talking bad people seems to be so appealing, well here you have it.
LETS SEE WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY
its dumb
ReplyDelete