Findings - Ethnographic Study Looks at Gossip in the Workplace - NYTimes.com - The Diigo Meta page

• 04 Nov 09
  

  gossip findings study

• 03 Nov 09
  

  Vicki Davis

  Office gossip (this study on an elementary school and their gossip against a principal) hurts EVERYONE including your school and in this case, test scores declined. Remember that when you gossip, you also hurt yourself and if you didn't already know this, take a read here about office gossip and how to intervene and stop it.

  education learning gossip psychology edu_news

  • once someone made a negative comment about a person who wasn’t there, the conversation would get meaner unless someone immediately defended the target.
  • gossip in the workplace also tended to be overwhelmingly negative, but the insults were more subtle and the conversations less predictable, says Tim Hallett, a sociologist at Indiana University.
  • Office gossip can be a form of reputational warfare
  • Dr. Hallett found that the teachers became so comfortable with him and his camera that they would freely insult their bosses during one-on-one interviews. But at the teachers’ formal group meetings, where they knew that another teacher might report their insults to the principal, they were more discreet.
  • they sometimes offered obliquely sarcastic comments to test the water
  • praise the predecessor
  • The teachers’ gossip never got as blatantly mean as the teenage girls’
  • The principal felt that her authority was being undermined by gossip and retaliated against teachers she suspected (correctly) of criticizing her.
  • in this case it was also a form of warfare that brought everyone down
  • it is more realistic to try managing it.
  • That simple question, a dare made in a pleasant voice
  • “Don’t we have some work to do here?”

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