"That's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets."
Mean Girls and pop culture has taught us to fear gossip as toxic and cruel, the whispered fuel of cliques and drama. But what if we've been getting gossip all wrong? New research from UNM's organizational behavior team suggests that some gossip might actually help teams thrive. When defined more precisely—as talking about someone who isn't present—gossip can serve surprising social functions, from boosting morale to reducing social loafing in group work. In fact, positive gossip might just be the unsung glue that holds collaborative teams together.
The research titled, "More than idle talk: Examining the effects of positive and negative team gossip" was led by The University of New Mexico's Anderson School of Management Associate Professors Trevor Spoelma and Andrea Hetrick. It turns out that not all gossip is negative. In fact, it acts as an informal warning system in the workplace, helping teams share important social information, steer clear of problematic coworkers, and even strengthen group cohesion. It's not just drama—it might be strategy.
"You can have more positive types of gossip where you're talking about someone that's not there to hear what is said, but you're saying good things about them," explained Spoelma.
The researchers were specifically interested to what extent gossip affected social loafing behaviors. Social loafing is an organizational behavior concept in which someone puts in less effort on a task, relying instead on the efforts of others. Hence the "loafing" term used essentially means free riding on the group's work.
"This behavior isn't good for group functioning because it creates a sense of unfairness," Hetrick explained. "People don't like it—especially if you're the one doing all the work and others are getting credit for the final product without contributing."
In order to determine how gossip behaviors affect social loafing dynamics, the researchers sampled undergraduate project teams where the students had to produce a final group paper. The final sample contained 63 student project teams with five students per team on average. The total sample had 727 students, with 78% of them having some sort of work experience.
The researchers gave them two surveys during the semester. After the students had worked together for a few weeks, the first survey was sent asking students about their perceptions of gossip behaviors within their working team.
Questions included, "Since the beginning of the semester, how often have you…" "criticized a teammate while talking to another teammate?" for negative gossip and "complimented a teammate's actions while talking to another teammate?" for positive gossip.
The second survey was then given a few weeks later and asked about social loafing behaviors. "To what extent do you feel like members of your team would..." "not do their fair share of tasks?" or "have other things to do when asked to help out?" This survey was to gauge to whether the individual feels there is or is not a fair distribution of the work.
Finally, the researchers took the final paper produced and had two raters go through and rate the team's performance on the paper. The coders rated the paper on idea clarity, writing clarity, and overall quality.
"What we found was that positive gossip actually led to people of the group being less likely to social loaf and it created this beneficial, positive environment where people were talking good about each other," explained Hetrick.
Hetrick explains that the theory and argument used was that the group members felt excited about contributing to the group because no one wanted to let the others in their group down. Another concept was the team member realizing they would be recognized for their efforts once they saw members of the group talking positively about what others were doing.
"So, if you do something good, it would be noticed, and this fueled their motivation to have their teammates talking about other teammates beneficially," said Hetrick.
However, on the flip side, the researchers did not find any effects for negative gossip on social loafing behaviors.
"We did not find any effect for negative gossip, which was kind of interesting," said Spoelma.
Spoelma and Hetrick utilized expectancy theory, which is a theory of motivation that states that motivation boils down to whether members believe as though their future efforts will translate into successful team performance. For this sample in particular, the researchers could generalize that the students who hear about the successes and positive reputations of other team members will be more motivated to contribute.
"If you think all your teammates are going to social loaf or not put forth effort, you won't want to invest, versus if you think everyone is going to contribute because they're motivated by the positive gossip. The idea is that everyone's positively gossiping in my work group, so I think that if I put forth effort, everyone else is going to do a good job, too. And so, my effort won't go to waste," said Hetrick. "We don't want to put effort into something that we either don't value or we don't think the effort is going to turn into something good."
Now taking this and applying it to employees in the workforce, Spoelma and Hetrick offer some advice. First, they recommend that managers try to implement a system and set aside some time for employees to have the opportunity to say good things about their coworkers. That is just one way for how this work can be implemented.
"I've heard of organizations now implementing positive Gossip Fridays," said Hetrick.
Research has also shown that praise can act just as effectively as bonuses.
"There's a number of studies that show that your manager giving you genuine, specific praise, can really bolster your motivation. Our work shows that coworkers giving praise about each other could work similarly," said Hetrick.
One way managers can curb social loafing within their teams is to recognize individual effort during group tasks. This new research builds upon this prior work to show a different and unique way to stop these free riding behaviors.
"We introduce positive gossip as one way to try to enhance the interpersonal functioning of a work group, as it creates a more positive environment that reduces free riding," said Spoelma.
While gossip is often viewed negatively in the workplace, managers should maybe reconsider the impacts of positive gossip.
"We wouldn't necessarily tell managers to try to curb gossiping behaviors. It can be valuable information for work groups to know how other teammates are performing, how they're acting. It can be a way to kind of indirectly hold people accountable for their actions and to help potentially boost performance," said Hetrick.
Spolema and Hetrick also noted that within their research there was no "manager" in the group or any hierarchy or organizational hierarchy.
"If organizations are going to implement self-managing teams, gossiping—particularly positive gossip—and fostering opportunities for kudos or shout-outs can really help teams self-regulate," Hetrick said. "It bolsters motivation in a unique, indirect way that's not tied to formal rewards or performance evaluations."
That doesn't mean employees need a corporate mandate to practice this. Positive gossip can be woven naturally into day-to-day workplace conversations.
"Think about how you talk with your coworkers," Hetrick said. "Mention when someone did a great job on a presentation or really pulled their weight on a project. It doesn't have to be formal—it's just about being intentional with recognition."
Hetrick recalled a mentor from graduate school who exemplified this. "She would consistently point out the strengths of her colleagues—even when they weren't in the room. She'd say, 'Oh, this colleague is brilliant in this field,' or 'She's such a great collaborator.' It wasn't performative—it was just part of how she communicated," Hetrick said. "That modeled for me how to be thoughtful, appreciative, and team-oriented."
That kind of talk doesn't just build goodwill—it can subtly signal that you're a strong teammate who values the group's success. "It shows you're collaborative, you care about team performance, and you're paying attention to what others are contributing," Hetrick said. "That contributes to healthier, more functional team dynamics."
In their study, the researchers hypothesized that negative gossip might increase social loafing by lowering morale and draining energy from the group. They also believed social loafing could be the mechanism that links both types of gossip to team performance.
But the data told a more specific story.
"We only found support for the first and third hypotheses," Hetrick said. "Positive gossip reduced social loafing, and that reduction led to better team performance. But since negative gossip didn't influence loafing, it also didn't impact performance."
That distinction is part of what makes the study an important contribution to gossip literature, she said.
"There's been a lot of back-and-forth about what elements of gossip are good or bad," Hetrick said. "By breaking gossip down into positive and negative categories, we're getting more nuanced information about how these behaviors actually affect people at work."
Not all talk about others is created equal. Gossip, she noted, can be specific, objective, free of emotion, free of making untrue claims, and even helpful.
"Sometimes you're not trying to be malicious—you're warning someone about a teammate's behavior," she said. "Saying, 'Hey, just so you know, they didn't finish that presentation on time'—that can be true and relevant without being personal."
Ultimately, gossip is a complex workplace behavior that deserves more attention—not just avoidance.
"There's still a lot of work to be done," Hetrick said. "But our research shows gossip isn't inherently bad. In fact, when used thoughtfully, it can strengthen teams, boost motivation and improve performance."
