Gossip changes our outlook on others

Picture taken by d3l - Flickr

A team of researchers led by Lisa Feldman Barret from the Northeastern University has shown that gossip can change how we perceive other people and thus how we react towards each-other.

Changes how we see each-other visually

The research team conducted an experiment where participants saw faces that were paired with either neutral, positive or negative gossip. What the research showed was that when the face was paired with another image, such as a house, the faces that were previously paired with negative gossip were more likely to be seen consciously.

This means that gossip does not only change our opinion of the person to which it entails but also that we see them differently visually as well. The findings are somewhat extraordinary because it shows that our feelings actually make an impact to how we see the external world. In other words, when you see someone you dislike that person can possibly be seen as less attractive and so on.

Researchers have assumed that what we see visually has influenced what we felt but in this case it seems to be the other way around.

Reflections

This is very interesting since it shows that what we hear about another person actually can make an impact on how we perceive them. This means that it might be possibly to explain why some people perceive others in a vastly different way than others. It might also help to further understand how the mind works and why it works that way.