GOSSIPING AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES: THE MAIN THEORETICAL APPROACHES

Abstract

The article presents an overview of main scientific interpretations to the study of gossip processes, developed in the field of social and humanities knowledge. In particular, paradigmes of psychoanalysis, functionalism, evolutionism, feminism, interactionism, social exchange are characterized. Special attention is given to describing the attribution approach, in which tendency to use personal characteristics of “targets” (internal attributions) as “exhaustive” prime cause of any actions and events as the essence of gossip is analyzed. Types of attribution distortion as being characteristic of gossip are described, among them being the fundamental error of attribution, belief in a just world, illusory optimism. This approach opens up new opportunities to study gossiping as a specific type of estimation.

Keywords

• gossip
• gossip research
• causal attributions
• internal attributions
• distortions of attribution