Developmental and Gender Differences in

MERRILL-PALMER QUARTERLY, V O L . 4 8 ,

No.

2

Developmental and Gender Differences in Preadolescents' Judgments of the Veracity of Gossip Ami Flam Kuttler, University of Miami Jeffrey G. Parker. Pennsylvania State University Annette M. La Greca, University of Miami

Hypothetical vignettes were used to examine 384 preadolescents' understanding of gossip in varying circumstances. Children correctly labeled talk about nonpresent others as gossip and considered it inappropriate. Skepticism was higher for gossip than for firsthand information and was greatest in the presence of cues suggesting that speakers were unreliable or harbored ulterior motives. Surprisingly, skepticism of gossip decreased with age. Attributions for speakers' behavior were sensitive to subtle contextual cues, and in the absence of clear motives, children, particularly girls, were likely to assume that gossipers spread false information out of jealousy. Overall, preadolescents appear to have a relatively mature understanding of the limitations of gossip, treat gossip with skepticism, and judge harshly gossipers who spread false gossip.

Like those of adults, the spontaneous conversations of preadolescents and adolescents ordinarily contain many examples of gossip— that is, references to the personal qualities, behaviors, and atlairs of others (Eder & Enke, 1991; Gottman & Mettetal 1986; Parker,

Ami Flam Kuttler. Department of Psychology'; Jeffrey G. Parker Department of Psychology'; Annette M. La Greca. Department of Psychology. The authors acknowledge and appreciate the assistance of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida and the Washtenaw County Public Schools in Michigan in conducting this study. Special thanks are extended to the principals, teachers, and students at Virginia A. Boone Highland Oaks Elementary. West Laboratory. Hillel Community Day, Ponce De Leon Middle Schools in Miami. FL, and Dicken Elementar>' schools in Ann Arbor, ML We gratefully acknowledge Kathya Cabrera, Margarita Jimenez, Rebecca Santana, Erica Schneider, and Kristina Steel for their dedicated assistance with data collection. Correspondence may be sent to Ami Flam Kuttler, Department of Psychology, Anne.x, P.O. Box 249229, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124. Electromc mail may be sent to akuttler(a;mianii.edu. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. April 2002, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 105-132. Copyright C 2002 by Wayne State Umversity Press, Detroit, MI 48201

105

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

Teasley, Meissner, & McClellan, 1994). In everyday usage, the term gossip may be mistakenly used in a restricted way to apply only to derisive comments made about outside others (Fine & Rosnow, 1977). Gossip technically encompasses equally all evaluative comments or conversations about third parties. Hence, both admiring and pejorative statements made by children about others represent gossip (Fine & Rosnow, 1977; Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Parker et al., 1994). A shared property of all gossip, however, is that the target or targets of discussion are not present and thereby are not directly party to the conversation (Eder & Enke, 1991). This "behind-the-back" quality lends gossip some of its most distinctive and important interpersonal features and distinguishes it from other significant forms of evaluative talk, such as self-disclosure or public ridicule. As a form of speech, gossip has attracted intermittent scholarly attention over the years for its presumed roles in children's groups, relationships, and individual development (e.g., Eder & Enke, 1991; Fine, 1986; Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Suls, 1977). In groups, for example, gossip may increase cohesion by clarifying and enforcing behavioral norms (Eder & Enke, 1991; Fine & Rosnow, 1978; Gluckman, 1967; Suls, 1977). Further, differential access to gossip among members has been shown to correlate with group social standing and acceptance (Abrahams, 1970; Parker & Seal, 1996). In relationships, participating in gossip about others may bring partners' understanding of social events and norms into closer agreement, contributing to a sense of similarity (Gottman, 1983). Observational studies suggest that children fmd gossip with their friends highly entertaining and use gossip as a basis for building solidarity against others through self-disclosure (Gottman, 1983; Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Parker & Gottman, 1989; Rysman, 1977). Finally, for individuals, gossip is a form of self-expression. By gossiping about others, individuals may enhance their selfunderstanding through social comparison, and discrediting others publicly may help children project and maintain a positive self-image in areas of private concern (Fine, 1986; Fine & Rosnow, 1978; Suls, 1977). Although the special nature of gossip has long been recognized, little systematic research has focused on the communicative features and requirements of this form of talk among children. Nonetheless, a comparatively rich ethnographic literature exists in this area (Eder & Enke, 1991; Fine, 1986, Goodwin, 1990; Poveda, 1975). These accounts, which consist of detailed qualitative analyses and interpretations of extended episodes of gossip, suggest that gossip is a conversational achievement of considerable complexity. Moreover, the accounts high-

Preadolescents' Understanding of Gossip

107

light the important role that social context can play in the direction and success of gossip. Eor example, several authors have noted that participants' evaluation of gossip can depend as much on the target as on the topic of discussion. As Eine (1986, p. 409) notes, "some teens can 'do no wrong,' whereas others can 'do no right.'" Moreover, because assertions about others may be subject to multiple interpretations, speakers often initially couch them tentatively and closely monitor their effects on listeners (Eine, 1986; Goodwin, 1990). Listeners, for their part, appear strongly motivated toward consensus and may directly or indirectly ratify speakers' remarks, even if they disagree with them in principle (Eine, 1986). Einally, the relative status of speakers and listeners may also play a role. High status children appear to play a central role in determining the targets and topics of gossip, thereby shaping the opinions and judgments of those in their social group. Low status children participate actively in gossip, but they generally support and validate gossip introduced by others and rarely introduce it themselves (Eder & Enke, 1991). In short, existing descriptive research provides a glimpse of gossip as a complex communicative process and highlights some of the communicative skills required of speakers and listeners for participation. However, at present, our understanding of children's gossip as a communicative process is hampered by a lack of expenmentally based studies of how children interpret and react to gossip. The present study was designed to address this gap in the existing literature. The phmary twofold purpose of the present experimental study was to document the conditions under which children question the veracity of gossip and to explore the influence of specific cues on this process. As already noted, a hallmark of gossip is that it occurs outside the presence of its targets. As such, targets cannot refute, support, or elaborate assertions unless (and until) they later become aware of the gossip. We reasoned that, given these circumstances, listeners are often left with uncertainty regarding the accuracy of the speakers* claims (see Suls, 1977). Yet, misconstruing gossip may have important social consequences for listeners. Eor example, misguided listeners who act on false information may offend others, engage in inappropriate behavior, or leave themselves vulnerable to manipulation by others. At present, however, very little empirical insight exists regarding how children make sense of the information they receive through gossip or the circumstances that prompt them to become suspicious of the gossip they hear. Although research concerning children and gossip has been sparse, studies that have addressed the way in which adults disambiguate infonnation through second-guessing may provide a useful model for


understanding how children may react to gossip (e.g., Hewes, Graham, Doelger, & Pavitt, 1985; Hewes, Graham, Monsour, & Doelger, 1989). Second-guessing refers to the cognitive process that listeners go through when they suspect that information communicated by others may be intentionally or unintentionally biased, incomplete, or inaccurate (Doelger, Hewes, & Graham, 1986; Hewes et al., 1985). Studies in this tradition have shown that adult listeners tend to regard information from others suspiciously compared to firsthand knowledge and that a variety of specific cues to the reliability of a message can influence listener skepticism (Hilton, Fein, & Miller, 1993). Skepticism is heightened, for example, when messages contain internal inconsistencies or gaps in logic and coherence. Listeners also use a variety of extrinsic social and contextual cues to second-guess messages (Doelger et al., 1986; Hewes et al., 1985). For example, studies (e.g., Doelger et al., 1986; Hilton et al., 1993) suggest that individuals engage in more active reflection and are more skeptical of messages when they are led to believe that speakers may harbor ulterior motives. Likewise, listeners also grow more skeptical of information when they are given cause to suspect that speakers themselves have been misled or are operating on a mistaken belief or assumption. In the present study, we reasoned that similar processes may also operate with children in the context of gossip. Accordingly, we constructed hypothetical dilemmas that manipulated the presence or absence of specific cues to test how they influenced children's reactions to gossip. Children's responses to gossip were then compared through a priori planned contrasts to test specific hypotheses regarding the influence of cues. A first set of analyses was planned to compare children's confidence in gossip with their confidence in information received firsthand. Like adults, children were expected to be more suspicious of information gleaned secondhand, through gossip, than of knowledge obtained directly from the source. A second set of planned analyses examined how raising the ambiguity of the situation by introducing conflicting information might alter children's skepticism. Two alternative means of introducing ambiguity were used. In the first, children heard gossip that conflicted with information stemming directly from the source. In the second, children heard gossip from one secondary source that directly conflicted with gossip from another secondary source. Through planned comparisons, children's skepticism to conflicting conditions was contrasted with skepticism they expressed toward gossip without any conflicting information. Based on previous research indicating that listeners are more skeptical of messages with inconsistencies (Doelger et al., 1986), we


109

expected that a comparison of simple, secondhand information to the two conditions featuring contlicting information would reveal that children become more skeptical in the face of contlicting information. We further expected that between the two conditions featuring conflicting information, the condition in which a gossiper disagreed with the direct source would generate more skepticism. A final set of planned comparisons addressed the intluence of cues in two conditions that cast suspicion on the reliability of the speaker by impugning the speaker's motives. In the first, the circumstances surrounding the gossip suggested that the assertions were inaccurate because the speaker was intentionally distorting them. In the second, the circumstances suggested that the speaker had accidentalh misconstrued critical information and was passing along incorrect information benignly. Based on past literature suggesting that listeners are more skeptical when the moti\es of speakers are suspect, we expected that a comparison of simple, secondhand information to the two conditions featuring unreliable speakers would re\eal that children become more skeptical in the face of cues undercutting confidence in the speaker. Further, to discern whether evidence of intentional and unintentional distortion was equally potent, children's responses to these two conditions were compared in a final planned contrast. The second goal of the present study was to examine de\ elopmental changes in children's understanding of gossip. The penod oi middle childhood and adolescence is characterized by a number of key advances in children's understanding of deception and by important increases in perspecti\ e-taking skills. For example, important developmental changes occur from childhood to adolescence in children's use of nom erbal cues to detect deception. Research suggests that while elementar>^-school-age children are aware that deception exists, they are subject to halo etlects and tend to associate honesty more closely with positive affect than is warranted (DePaulo. Jordan. Ir\ine. & Laser. 1982). As children mature into adolescents. howe\en they reh more on cues in the surrounding social environment to detect truth and lying and display an increase in accuracy (DePaulo et al., 1982; Rotenberg, Simourd, & Moore, 1989). The timing of this developmental change is especially interesting because it coincides with an increase in the frequency and time spent gossiping (Gottman & Mettetal. 1986: Parker & Gottman. 1989). This increased exposure to gossip, together w ith these newfound social cognitive skills, suggests that children's wariness of gossip would also increase from middle childhood to preadolescence. Accordingly, we compared children in middle childhood to preadolescents. We expected that in general, older children would be less confident in gossip than younger children.

110


A third goal of the study was to examine children's attributions about speakers who pass along false gossip. The literature on social attributions, which has grown dramatically, suggests that children's attributions guide their behavioral responses and have important consequences for children's adjustment (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Graham & Juvonen, 1998). In addition, this research shows that in circumstances for which others' motives are largely ambiguous, children show stable variability in their tendencies to attribute provocative events to personal hostility. This hostile attribution bias, in turn, is related to social rejection and aggression. However, to our knowledge, this research has not been extended to circumstances involving false gossip. Yet, as noted, if accepted uncritically, false gossip could leave listeners socially vulnerable. Hence, listeners' assumptions about the speakers' motives under these circumstances are of interest. Accordingly, in the present study, we examined children's attributions for false gossip by presenting children with various contrasting motives and asking them to rank the motives in terms of the likelihood that each motive was guiding the gossipers' behaviors. We expected that children would use available cues to guide their attributions. In particular, when cues were benign, children were expected to make more benign attributions (e.g., a misunderstanding) for false gossip. Conversely, when cues suggested that the gossiper harbored an ulterior or malicious motive, more hostile attributions (e.g., jealousy, self-serving) were anticipated. Moreover, children's use of cues was expected to grow stronger with age. Finally, in order to examine children's attributions in circumstances that parallel those that have been predominant in past research, we presented children with vignettes in which no cues were present and the gossiper's motives were ambiguous. No specific hypotheses were advanced for these vignettes, but we wanted to ascertain whether children would treat these ambiguous circumstances as more similar to malicious or to benign circumstances. The fourth and final goal of the study was to examine gender differences in children's interpretation of gossip and attributions of speakers' motives. Recent research on aggression suggests that boys and girls have different strategies for expressing aggression. Whereas boys are more likely to target other children's physical well-being and rely on overt physical means of aggression, girls tend to focus on attacking other people's relationships and rely on more indirect means of aggression, including disparaging others behind their backs to damage their friendships (Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, & Kaukianen, 1992). In addition, according to popular belief, women gossip more than men


111

(Buss & Dedden, 1990; Rysman, 1977; Poveda, 1975). To date, however, few studies have been conducted on this topic. Although one study found no gender differences in the frequency of gossip behavior in the spontaneous conversations of young adults (Levin & Arluke, 1985), other studies have suggested that gossip may be more common (Kless, 1992; Nevo, Nevo, & Derech-Zehavi, 1993), more negative in tone, and encouraged more (Leaper & Holliday, 1995) in the spontaneous conversations of girls than boys. The tendency for girls to rely on negative gossip in preference to more physical and direct means of aggression suggests that gossip plays a more salient role in establishing and maintaining status within girls' groups than within boys' groups (Fckert, 1990; Leaper & Holliday, 1995). In turn, this suggests that girls and boys may have different beliefs and express different levels of skepticism regarding the accuracy of the claims made by gossipers. Specifically, because girls are assumed to have greater exposure to gossip and victimization through gossip, we anticipated that compared to boys, girls would be less confident in the veracity of gossip, more sensitive to cues suggesting distortion in the claims made by gossipers, and more willing to attribute false gossip to hostile motives on the part of speakers. In summary, the present study was designed to enhance our understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of gossip. Children were given a series of short vignettes of gossip in which cues were manipulated to learn their effects on children's judgments about and confidence in the gossip. Children were expected to be less confident in information revealed through gossip than information obtained from firsthand knowledge. Furthermore, children were expected to be less confident in gossip that contained cues suggesting bias in the information than firsthand information and gossip without cues. In addition, children's attributions for the motives of speakers who spread false gossip were examined. Finally, the influence of age and gender on children's confidence in gossip and their attributions about the motives of speakers who passed along inaccurate gossip was explored. Method

Participants A total of 384 children in the third and fourth {n = 192) and fifth and sixth (n = 192) grades of four schools located in Miami, Florida, and one school located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, participated. Average age for the younger group was 9.65 years (SD = 0.70); average age for the older group was 11.40 years {SD = 0.83). The sample included 193

112


Figure 1. Sample line drawing used in the birthday party vignette.

boys and 191 girls. The ethnic breakdown of the sample was 58.0% White in = 222), 21.7% Black (n = 83), 18.8% Hispanic {n = 72), and 1.6% Other (« = 6). Vignettes Participants were read six hypothetical vignettes involving two focal children having a conversation. In each vignette, one child was speaking while the second child listened. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in the role of the listener. To clarify and make concrete the respective roles of the characters in the vignettes, a line drawing displaying two children talking accompanied each vignette. Five of the six vignettes made reference to a third child, who was described as not present during the conversation. In these vignettes, a line drawing of a third child appeared slightly apart and above the foreground drawing of the two conversing children (see Figure 1). All children depicted in the stories and drawings were of the same gender, which was matched to the gender of the participant. Each vignette began with the development of a premise. For the five vignettes involving talk about an outsider, a speaker claimed to have knowledge about an impending or past event. For example, in one vignette of this type, a speaker (e.g., Ann) claims that an outsider (e.g., Becky) did not intend to invite the subject to her upcoming birthday party. In the sixth vignette, the children do not refer to an outsider; instead, the speaker makes an assertion about his or her own intentions or past experience. Continuing the previous example, in this alternative presentation, Becky talks directly to the subject about her birthday party. Depending on the cue condition, vignettes usually included


113

additional information, such as information that appeared to contradict the speaker's assertions (discussed in the following section, "Cue Conditions''). After being presented with the premise and any additional information, participants were asked whether they considered the speaker's behavior to represent "gossip" and were questioned briefly about their confidence in the speaker's assertion (see "Attributions of Gossip and Confidence in Premise").' Following the first questioning interlude, the vignette continued with an outcome phase, in which the story's conclusion is played out for the subject and the claims that were made earlier either prove or do not prove true. Thus, to continue the example, subjects who had heard earlier that they were not going to be invited to the party discover that they are invited after all. In the five vignettes involving claims about outsiders, the speakers' assertions prove false. Speakers' assertions about themselves always prove true. After hearing the outcome, participants were questioned a second time concerning their level of surprise and their attributions for the behavior of the speakers. The topics for the six vignettes, selected on the basis of extensive pilot testing, involved situations that are commonly experienced by children. The topics of the vignettes included (1) the birthday party invitation, (2) whether a child failed a test, (3) whether a child skipped school, (4) whether a child was good at sports, (5) whether a child was going on a fun vacation, and (6) whether a child received a particular gift. As noted, line drawings clarified the roles of characters in each vignette. The order of presentation of vignette topics was random.

Cue Conditions Cue conditions were presented as a within subjects variable—that is, all participants heard six stories representing each of the following six cue conditions: (1) no gossip, (2) simple gossip, (3) conflicting-firsthand, (4) conflicting-secondhand, (5) unreliable speaker-unintentionally false, and (6) unreliable speaker-intentionally false. Table 1 outlines the six cue conditions as they relate to the birthday party topic. In the no gossip condition, speakers made assertions about themselves and thus were speaking from firsthand knowledge and were not gossiping. In this case, the subject hears directly from the speaker that she is invited to the speaker's birthday party.

' To ensure that younger children were essentially as familiar and comfortable with the concept of gossip as older children, the term gossip was clarified for children during testing when they asked for help or appeared confused.

114

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly Table 1 . Abridged Protocol for Birthday Party Scenario

Condition No gossip. Becky (herself) told you that you ore going to be invited to her birthdoy porty. Simple gossip. Ann told you thot Becky is not inviting you to her birthdoy porty. Conflicting-firsthond Becky (herself) told you thot she is inviting you to her birthdoy porty, but loter Ann told you thot Becky is not inviting you to her birthday party. Conflicting-secondhand Lisa told you thot Becky is inviting you to her birthdoy party, but later Ann told you thot Becky is not inviting you to her birthday porty. Unrelioble speoker-intentionally folse. Ann is upset because she knows that she is not invited to Becky's party. Last night, Ann told you that Becky is not inviting you to her birthdoy porty. Unrelioble speoker-unintentionolly folse. Yesterday, while Ann was coming home from school on the bus, which is always very noisy, she thought she heard Becky talking about her birthday party. Later, Ann told you that you are not going to be invited to Becky's birthday party.

In the simple gossip condition, speakers made assertions about nonpresent third parties and were therefore gossiping. Unlike the remaining conditions, however, this cue condition included no conflicting information or information about the speaker's motive. Here, a speaker (e.g., Ann) tells the subject that the subject is not invited to the third party's birthday party. This condition served as a baseline to which other cues were compared. In two conditions, participants had reason to question the accuracy of the speaker's assertion about the third party because it directly conflicted with information the participant already possessed. In the conflicting-firsthand condition, the speaker's gossip contradicted information provided previously by the target (i.e., firsthand information). Specifically, in this cue condition, participants heard information about the same event both firsthand and secondhand, and the information provided by these two sources was directly contradictory. Using the previous example, in this condition, after being invited to the party directly from Becky, the subject hears from Ann that the subject is not invited. Participants were then asked to make judgments about the assertions and actions of the gossiping (i.e., secondhand) source. The order in which the gossiper and direct source spoke was counterbalanced across participants. In the second conflicting gossip condition, the conflicting-secondhand condition, the gossip contradicted previously provided second-


115

hand information (i.e., other gossip). Like the preceding condition, participants in this condition heard two conflicting pieces of information. Here, however, both speakers were gossiping about a nonpresent other and therefore were speaking from secondhand knowledge. The subject thus receives two pieces of conflicting information from secondhand sources. For example, the subject hears from one person (e.g.. Lisa) that she is invited to the party and then receives contradictory information from another person (e.g., Ann) that she is not invited to the party. The order of speakers was counterbalanced across participants. Two further conditions suggested that features of the speakers made them unreHable sources. In the first of these, the unreliable speaker-intentionally false condition, participants were provided additional information that suggested that the speaker harbored an ultenor motive for deliberately misleading the listener. For instance, in this condition, the subject is told that she is not invited to the party after learning that the speaker (e.g., Ann) is upset because she herself was not im ited to the party. In the unreliable speaker-unintentionally false condition, additional information suggested that the speaker had misunderstood the situation and was innocently passing along false information. For example, the speaker (e.g., Ann) overhears the birthday girl (e.g., Becky) talking about her party on a noisy bus. The speaker (e.g., Ann) then informs the subject that the subject is not invited to the party To avoid having the cues influence responses to the baseline conditions, participants were always presented with the no gossip cue condition in the first vignette and the simple gossip cue condition in the second vignette. The remaining four cues were counterbalanced for order. Attributions of Gossip and Confidence in Premise After hearing the premise of each vignette, but before hearing the outcome, each participant was asked (1) whether or not (yes/no) they considered the speaker's statements to be gossip (e.g., *'Do you think Ann was gossiping?"), (2) whether (yes/no) they felt it was okay for the speaker to talk about the target in that way (e.g., "'Do you think it was okay for Ann to be talking about Becky in that way?"), and (3) how likely it was that the speaker's statements were true, rated on an 11point scale, in which 0 represented not at all likely and 10 represented extremely likely (e.g., "How likely is it that you are not imited to Becky's birthday party?").


Surprise and Attributions of Intent After hearing the vignette's outcome, participants were asked to express their level of surprise at the outcome on a 11-point scale, in which 0 represented not at all surprised and 10 represented extremely surprised {Q.g., "How surprised are you that Becky really did invite you to her birthday party?"). For the five vignettes whose outcome proved contradictory to the speaker's assertion, participants were further asked to rank the following reasons or motives concerning the gossiper's intent: (1) the speaker was jealous (e.g., "Ann was jealous that you were invited to Becky's party and she was not"), (2) the speaker was being self-serving (e.g., "Ann was trying to make herself feel better because she was not invited to Becky's party"), (3) the speaker was being altruistic (e.g., "Ann was trying to make you feel better since she really thought that you were not invited to the party"), (4) the speaker was being malicious (e.g., "Ann was trying to make you upset and hurt your feelings"), or (5) the speaker had misunderstood the event (e.g., "Ann misunderstood and really thought that you were not invited to Becky's birthday party"). The order in which the reasons were presented was random for each vignette. Vignette Realism After hearing the gossip vignettes and responding to the questions, participants were asked to respond to a question regarding the ecological validity of the stories they heard. Specifically, participants were asked, "Do you think what happened in the stories could actually happen in real life?" Responses were recorded as "yes" or "no. " Procedure Permission forms were distributed to approximately 900 students enrolled in the targeted schools and grades. From this pool of students, approximately 50'^^) of children received parental consent. Participants were recruited from these respondents to fulfill the requirements of an experimental design that featured a complete counterbalancing of order across four cue conditions (i.e., 4! = 24), crossed with two levels of gender and two levels of age group. For each cell of the matrix created by the two levels of gender and by the two levels of age, four individuals were recruited for each of the 4! (i.e., 24) permutations of order, resulting in a fmal sample of 384. Across participants, the assignment of the six vignette topics to the six cue conditions was done randomly. Children were interviewed individually. After completing the interview, children


117

were thanked and received a small gift for their participation. The total time of administration was approximately 30 minutes for each child. Results

Preliminary Analyses of Ethnicity Although there were no a priori expectations for difTerences among the ethnic groups who participated in this study, exploratory analyses also examined participants' ethnicity (White, Hispanic, Black, Other). The results of analyses involving ethnicity are reported here only when they differ from the main analyses reported.

Attributions and Acceptability of Gossip Children heard speakers discussing other children who were not present in five of the six cue conditions, namely, simple gossip, conflictingfirsthand gossip, conflicting-secondhand gossip, unreliable speakerintentionally false gossip, and unreliable speaker-unintentionally false gossip. The majority of children in all these conditions labeled all discussion about nonpresent others as gossip (84%, 85%, 82%, 84%, and 75%, respectively). Likewise, the proportion of children who approved of the speaker's behavior was less than 25% in every condition (24.0%, 12.5%, 16.7%, 15.9%, and 22.5%, respectively). Chi-square analyses indicated no significant gender, age, or ethnic differences in either the likelihood of labeling the statements as gossip or in judging that behavior as unacceptable for any condition. Table 2 shows the link between children's conclusions that a speaker was or was not gossiping and their judgments that such behavior was acceptable versus unacceptable for each of the five cue conditions involving gossip. Chi-square analyses indicated a strong association in every condition between concluding that the speakers' behavior was gossip and judging that behavior as unacceptable. Because of the number of comparisons conducted, a Bonferroni corrected significance level of .01 was adopted for these analyses. Results indicated that children were three to six times less likely to say the speaker's behavior was acceptable if they concluded that the speaker was gossiping about someone else (see Table 2).

Influence of Cues on Confidence and Surprise Children's ratings of their confidence in the claims made by the speaker in each scenario related strongly to their ratings of surprise when, later in the interview protocol, the speaker's claims proved to be

118


(N

* CN

CO CO

o CO

CO

CO

CO

>6

K

K

00 CO

a.

O

CO

d)

(N

>6

CO

o O o "o CD Z "o o Q. 00 to

o

o

d o CO O O CO

CO

Q CN U U

CN

CO

d> _Q

I...

0)

c O

U ts

o-

•— (> CO

q

o

CO

00

CD

O

c

q

CN 00

d> o

•—_ 00 CO

.Q.

U c O

E O O _c

O D

a

d) U U

VP

>O CO

O

CO

d

u u < c O

o ^ q CD —

s

_dj

y

to

I O5 c

c

o U

O

-;:; o

U

eo

-I

E

^ -

ct

.0

d) I—

d)

-S(

"5 -£ o

s

CT>

Q-

tJ _d) =

-Q

c o U o -^

o -=;

c

o "c "c 'c Z)

o o V


119

false; rs ranged from .50 to .66,/7S < .001. Hence, the more confidence children placed in the gossip they heard, the more surprise they reported when the gossip later proved false. Such a relationship would be expected if the confidence ratings have validity. Because of these high correlations, however, surprise ratings were not analyzed further to avoid redundancy in analyses.To determine how various social contexts atlected children's confidence in speakers, a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted. Gossip condition (i.e., no gossip, simple gossip, conflicting-firsthand, conflicting-secondhand, unreliable speakerintentionally false, and unreliable speaker-unintentionally false) served as six levels of the within subjects factor; age group (younger, older) and gender served as between subjects factors. The main effects and interaction effects involving age group and gender were tested directly in these analyses. The ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of age group, F(l, 378) = 12.30,/? < .001. Younger children were significantly more skeptical (A/^^^ = 4.17, 5'£ = .09) of speakers than were older children (Af^.^ = 4.59, SE = .09). No main effect of gender was present, and no significant interactions involving age group or gender were detected. "* The ANOVA also revealed a significant main effect of condition, F(5, 1890) = 117.81,/? < .001. Because we were interested in comparisons between specific conditions rather than an overall condition effect, follow-up analyses were conducted using five sets of planned comparisons between specific conditions among the within subjects factor. A first planned comparison examined children's skepticism for gossip in comparison with information related firsthand. A second set of planned comparisons examined whether children's skepticism of gossip was sensitive to the contextual ambiguity introduced when gossip conflicted with either firsthand information or other gossip. A third set of planned comparisons addressed how cues about speakers' motives or knowledge affected children's skepticism of gossip. - To ensure that findings based on surprise ratings did in fact mirror those found using children's confidence ratings, parallel analyses to the ones conceming confidence ratings were run using surprise rather than confidence ratings. Results revealed the same pattern of findings by either criterion. One exception was that the significant main effect obtained for age group was reduced to the level of a trend (p < .10). ^ In order to ensure that differences in children s confidence was not due to variations in vignette, a repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted with vignette as the within subjects factor and gender and age group as the between subjects factors. Children's confidence ratings for each vignette, collapsed across condition, served as the dependent variables. No main effects of vignette or interactions of gender or age group with vignette were observed.


Firsthand versus secondhand information. A repeated-measures planned comparison was conducted to examine how children's confidence in the speaker was affected by the switch from learning about something firsthand from the source to learning about something secondhand, through gossip. The no gossip and simple gossip conditions were used as two levels of the within subjects factor, and age group and gender were the between subjects factors. Results indicated a significant main effect for condition on the mean confidence ratings, F(381) = 236.21,/7 < .001. As expected, children were significantly more confident in information received firsthand (M = 6.84, SD = 2.20) than information received through gossip (M = 4.38, SD = 2.50). This main effect of condition did not interact with age group or gender. Conflicting information. To examine how knowledge of conflicting information affected children's confidence in the speakers' assertions, confidence ratings for the conflicting gossip conditions (i.e., conflictingfirsthand and conflicting-secondhand) were contrasted with confidence ratings in the simple gossip condition. Specifically, two mixedmodel repeated-measures planned comparisons were conducted—one comparison contrasting the conflicting-firsthand and conflictingsecondhand conditions with the simple gossip condition and one contrasting the conflicting-flrsthand and conflicting-secondhand conditions with each other. Age group and gender served as the between subjects factors in both analyses. The analyses showed that children were significantly more confident in information received through gossip without conflicting information (simple gossip) (M = 4.38, SD = 2.50) than conflicting gossip in general (M^^^ = 3.73, SE = .08), ^(381) = 98.53,/? < .001. Furthermore, children were significantly more confident in information received through conflicting-secondhand gossip (M = 4.12, SD = 2.21) than in information received through conflictingfirsthand gossip (M = 3.35, SD = 2.25), F(381) = 23.02,/? < .001. Age group or gender did not qualify these effects. Unreliable speakers. To examine whether children were sensitive to cues suggesting that the information they received through gossip was unreliable, and whether some cues were more powerful than others in this respect, confidence ratings for unreliable speakers (i.e., unreliable speaker intentionally false and unreliable speaker-unintentionally false) were contrasted with confidence ratings in the simple gossip condition. Specifically, two repeated-measures planned comparisons were conducted—one comparison contrasting the combined intentionally false and unintentionally false conditions with the simple gossip condition, and a second comparison contrasting the intentionally false and unintentionally false conditions with each other. Age group and gen-

Preadolescenfs' Understanding of Gossip

121

der were the between subjects factors in these analyses. This analysis showed that the children were less confident when there were signs of an unreliable speaker gossip (i.e., unintentionally or intentionally false gossip; M^^^ = 3.79, SE = .09) than when such indications were not present (i.e., simple gossip; A / = 4.38, 5"/) = 2.51), /'i381) = 19.16,/? < .001. However, the intentionally false {M = 3.68, SD = 2.56) and unintentionally false (M = 3.90, SD = 2.50) gossip conditions did not differ significantly from each other. No interactions with age group or gender were found. Attributions of Intent To examine children's attributions of the motives of speakers who passed along false gossip under various conditions, we conducted a repeated-measures ANOVA. The average rankings children gave for various attributions (i.e.. jealousy, self-serving, altruistic, malicious, misunderstanding) served as the first within subjects factor in this analysis. Three contrasting cue conditions served as a second within subjects factor. Specifically, the first two levels of the cue condition factor were the intentionallv false and unintentionallv false conditions. For the third level, the remaining three gossip conditions (i.e.. simple gossip, conflicting-firsthand, and conflicting-secondhand) were combined to represent ambiguous circumstances because the listener lacked any way of deciphering the intentions of the speaker in all three conditions. Finally, gender and age group served as the between subjects V ariables. The ANOVA revealed a significant main etlect for type of attribution, Wilks' ^(4, 370) = 243.42, p < .001. However, this main effect was qualified by interactions with condition. Wilks' F(8, 366) = 9.53,/? < .001, and gender. Wilks' F(4, 370) = 2.42,/? < .05. Table 3 shows the means corresponding to these effects. To examine the attribution by condition interaction, post hoc comparisons among attributions were made within each condition. As shown in Table 3, regardless of conditions, jealousy attributions were ranked higher than self-serving attributions, which in turn were ranked higher than all remaining attributions. The relative ranking of the remaining attributions varied with condition, however. In ambiguous circumstances, children ranked altruistic motives higher than misunderstanding and significantly higher than malicious motives. Misunderstanding was ranked higher than malicious motives, but not significantly so. By contrast, in the intentionally false condition, children's rankings of both malicious and altruistic motives were significantly higher than their rankings of misunderstanding. Finally, as would be expected, in the unintentionally


false condition, children gave higher rankings to misunderstanding than either malicious or altruistic motivations {ps < .05). Post hoc tollow-up of the gender by attribution interaction revealed that boys and girls differed only in their ranking of jealousy (p < .05). Specifically, girls were significantly more likely to attribute false gossip to jealousy than were boys. Boys and girls did not differ in their rankings of other motives, however. When ethnicity was included as an additional factor in the ANOVA, a significant three-way interaction between ethnicity, age group, and attribution was detected, Wilks' F(12, 945) = 2.17,/? < .01. Follow-up analyses revealed significant age group and ethnicity effects only for self-serving attributions. Younger Black children (M = 3.10, SD = 0.66) were less likely to attribute false gossip to self-serving motives than were younger Hispanic (M = 2.50, SD = 0.76) or younger White (M = 2.62, SD = 0.64) children {p < .05). No ethnic differences for attribution were detected in older children.

Vignette Realism Children were asked at the conclusion of the experiment to answer questions regarding the validity of the stories. The vast majority of children (89.5%) indicated that they felt the stories were reahstic. This suggests that children's judgments about the stories in this experiment reflect their judgments of gossip that occurs in naturalistic settings. No significant differences of gender or age group were revealed. Discussion

Although gossip is a ubiquitous feature of the conversations of preadolescents and adolescents, little reliable information exists concerning what children regard as gossip or how they evaluate, filter, and interpret the information they receive about others by this means. Children in the present study already showed a relatively mature understanding of the special nature and inherent constraints on information about others that is received indirectly. To begin, in every condition, most children who heard a third party make evaluative comments about someone who was not present readily labeled such behavior as "gossip" and suggested that it was inappropriate. Indeed, across all circumstances, a tight relationship existed between concluding that a speaker was gossiping and judging such behavior negatively. This was the case even though the topics raised by the "gossipers" in this experimental context (e.g., failing a test, skipping school, not invit-


123 C/3

C

CD -^

O

c O

1

^

O

O

»O ^

O CM CN Csi

CO

'^ 00 CO

CO O CO

o -^ hv CO

o

.37

C

CO

00 CO

O

CN

00

O^

£

00

— o o

^O

^

CO

CN

CO

CO

o

CO CM

CM

o

00 CO

I 00

c

OO

o o o

CO

CO

CO

CO CO

CO CM U-) CO CO

o o

CO

CN CO

CO

CO

80)

25)

43)

CO

16)

CO*

CO

(Zl

04)

1 scor es ran h dit1XTent supcrsci ipt!

CO ^^

(08

o

CN

.20

(D

00 ^ CO

CO -^ CO

'O Tf CO

CO CO CO

— CO CO

-^ CO CO

CO

O

O

"^

>q

to

>o >o

£ 0

CO

CO

CO

CO

O >O

I\ l\

CO l\

UO CN

t\ O CM CM

00 ^

CO CM

CO CN

-^ O

o

_Q C

o

£

o

u 3

u

EXJ

o IO

c

o 3 _Q

O CM

'O csi

K CN

CC) CN

h^ CM

^

'— D. O^ —

c -o C

00

o c I/)

c o

"o z>

o
- 2

o

."o

o ^ C

3

."O

CT)


ing someone to a birthday party, being poor at sports) were not especially inllammatory Apparently, children do not require an assertion to be especially shocking to listeners or extremely unflattering of a target before they are willing to label it as gossip and judge it disapprovingly Children's pejorative views of gossip are interesting in light of descriptive accounts of social interaction at this age, which have emphasized the pervasiveness of gossip in children's speech (e.g., Eckert, 1990; Eder & Enke, 1991; Fine, 1986; Goodwin, 1990; Poveda, 1975). The juxtaposition of our findings with this larger literature seems to suggest that although children are aware of cultural norms against talking behind the backs of others (Fine & Rosnow, 1978; Gluckman, 1967; Haviland, 1977; Paine, 1968; Rysman, 1977) and are worried about such betrayal by their friends (Silverman, La Greca, & Wasserstein, 1995), their knowledge of these norms does not discourage them from engaging in such behavior. Some authors (e.g., Paine, 1968) have likened gossip to an interpersonal commodity, which, when brokered well, can reap rewards for individuals in the form of status and power over others. Others (e.g., Rysman, 1977) have stressed the putative role that gossip plays in drawing friends together, uniting groups, or permitting individuals to express themselves in clever and attractive ways. At present, however, children's motives for gossiping are poorly understood and can only be surmised. Clearly, a greater understanding of the motivational basis for gossip among children is required before progress can be made on understanding how children reconcile their generally negative attitudes with their actual behavior in this realm. Children in the present study were also relatively mature in their awareness of the potential for error when receiving information from third parties. This awareness was expressed most clearly in the skepticism surrounding vignettes involving secondhand information. As hypothesized, a sharp disparity appeared between the skepticism with which the children approached information gleaned from third parties and the skepticism they expressed about events told to them by the involved parties themselves. Clearly, children had an appreciation of the fallibility of gossip per se. Given the strong incentives that exist for children to remain wary of secondhand information, it is probably not too surprising that even children as young as third grade expressed skepticism under these circumstances. As noted, whether passed intentionally or unintentionally, false information presumably is a source of costly disputes and conflicts among friends. Children of this age may already have considerable experience with the danger of spreading rumors and thus understand the consequences of misrepresenting information about third parties.


125

Along with a general sensitivity to the decreased reliability of gossip as compared to information received firsthand, children also demonstrated some understanding of the differing value of specific cues with respect to errors in gossip. For example, as hypothesized, when presented with conflicting information from two sources, children were less certain of its reliability than when confronted with information from a single source. It is probably not uncommon for children to receive contlicting information from multiple sources, but our understanding of how children reduce their uncertainty under such circumstance remains incomplete. One possibility is that the preferred strategy of children who possess conflicting information is to disambiguate the circumstance by polling additional children or by going directly to the target of gossip for confirmation. Our study is only partially helpful on this point. On the one hand, the fmdings suggest that children are more likely to trust information from a target than from a third party when these pieces of information conflict. However, our design did not permit us to assess children's willingness to approach targets of gossip in conflicting circumstances or to explore children's willingness to exercise other ways of reconciling conflicting information that involve actively approaching others. Future research should explore these strategies further. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that children can consistently rely on approaching others as a way to resolve conflicting information. One difficulty is that others with knowledge of the circumstances may be unavailable, especially when the topic of the gossip is something relatively private. Further, it may be difficult for children to explore others' views without contributing to the spread of an assertion that may in fact be false, something they may be reticent to do. Likewise, confronting the targets of gossip directly must be done skillfully if the topic of gossip is sensitive, and confrontation may carry costs, including the possibility of betraying the confidence of the original sources. Accordingly, many circumstances may arise in which children, like the participants in our study, are faced with conflicting information but denied active, interpersonal strategies. What information can children of this age use to gauge the reliability of gossip without resorting to asking others? In these situations, children probably rely on their general knowledge of the source and their understanding of the specific circumstances under which the claims are being made. In the present study, we explored two possibilities of this type: (1) information on the closeness of the source of gossip to the events in question and (2) cues embedded in the gossip that could signal that speakers were intentionally or inadvertently distorting the facts. Children of both sexes and of all ages proved sensitive to


these factors. Children distrusted information more when they believed the speaker to be speaking secondhand (as opposed to personal exposure) and when they easily recognized and readily used cues suggesting that speakers were mistaken in their beliefs or were intentionally attempting to misrepresent a claim. In this regard, our results fit with findings from the rapidly growing body of research exploring children's developing theory of mind (see Wellman, 1990). In particular, the findings of that research suggest that children's understanding of others' intentions and states of knowledge is already well developed by the early elementary school years. Researchers have been attracted to studying children's developing theory of mind in part because of an assumption that the sophistication of children's reasoning about others' beliefs and desires affects in important ways their participation in social interaction (Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1995). To date, however, less attention has been devoted to how such reasoning is manifest in interpersonal interaction than to understanding the intrapersonal cognitive structures that make such reasoning possible in the first place. The present findings suggest that the study of children's gossip could be one means of closing the gap between the cognitive developmental tradition of studying children's theory of mind and social developmental questions conceming individual differences in children's behavior and relationships. Another interesting issue for future examination would be how children's skepticism toward gossip may be affected by their relationships to the speaker. Past research (e.g., Ray & Cohen, 1997; Ray, Norman, Sadowski, & Cohen, 1999; Whitesell & Harter, 1996) has shown that children's judgments of others' behavior can be influenced in important ways by an existing friendship. In the present instance, because friendships are formed and maintained on the basis of trust and open, honest disclosure (Bukowski & Sippola, 1996), we could expect children to be less skeptical of gossip told to them by friends than by nonfriends. Further, because children can anticipate further interaction with their friends, we might expect them to feel less urgency to resolve ambiguity in gossip relayed to them by friends compared to nonfriends. On the other hand, because children trust their friends more than nonfriends (Bigelow, Tesson, & Lewko 1996; Rotenberg & Morgan, 1995), they may be more vulnerable to deliberate manipulation of gossip by friends as compared to nonfriends. Interestingly, although all children in the study were relatively skeptical of gossip, this skepticism was found to decline with age. This pattern was not expected, and the reason for it is not immediately apparent. One explanation may be that younger children understood


1 27

the experimental task or the concept of gossip less well than older children and that their responses reflect this relative uncertainty. Direct data on this point are absent. Nonetheless, several aspects of the study and its findings weaken this interpretation. As noted, the vignettes employed were derived from extensive testing of children, line drawings were used to clarify the events, and the term gossip was clarified for children when they appeared confused. In addition, although skepticism generally decreased with age, younger and older children responded similarly to other facets of gossip (i.e., labeling of gossip, judgments of acceptability, and attributions of motives). Moreover, the absence of significant interactions with age in any analyses suggest that while skepticism generally decreases with age, younger and older children apply their skepticism in similar ways. If younger and older children understand gossip in similar ways, the developmental decline in skepticism is interesting in light of previous research, albeit limited, that suggests that gossip increases developmentally in importance to the formation of children's reputations and in the facilitation of self-disclosure between friends (Parker & Gottman, 1989). Perhaps as children grow more familiar with gossip, they also grow less skeptical of it, at least in the absence of specific cues suggesting unreliability. Is children's declining skepticism a foolhardy faith in an unreliable behavior? At present, we lack hard data on the frequency with which gossip ultimately proves inaccurate or even deliberately misleading relative to the volume of helpful information they receive through this channel. Thus, children's relatively benign stance toward gossip may be well placed, given the roles that gossip can play in their lives and their own growing skills for spotting cues to unreliability when present. Another goal of this study was to evaluate children's attributions regarding the causes of false gossip. The inferences that children make surrounding false gossip are likely to guide their responses and thereby have important implications. We had anticipated that children of this age would already be accomplished at varying their attributions in response to subtle cues in the social context. And indeed, even the youngest children in the study showed this skill to some degree. For example, if the context suggested that a speaker might have been misinformed, children in both age groups rated a misunderstanding as a more likely explanation for the speaker's behavior than malicious intent. Even so, the most striking finding of our analysis of attributions was the unanticipated tendency for all children to assume that speakers who conveyed false gossip had done so intentionally. Indeed, the tendency was so strong that children inferred jealous or self-ser\ ing motives behind false gossip even in the face of cues suggesting that the gossiper was acting

128


innocently on the basis of misinformation. Because jealousy is known to play a large role in the dissolution of friendships at this age (Selman, 1980), the fact that children so readily attributed false gossip to jealous motives should be of interest to researchers engaged in understanding the basis for children's choices of and changes in friends at this age. More generally, the emphasis that children placed on jealous and self-serving motives is interesting in light of the fact that children did not also assume outright malicious motives on the part of speakers. Apparently, in children's eyes, false gossip is perhaps more informative of the speakers' own insecurities, frustrations, and upset than their antipathy toward a listener or target. Although vignettes designed to exaggerate malicious intent may override this effect to some extent, the emphasis by children on the affective and defensive motives of gossip contrasts in some ways with the assumptions of researchers, who have tended to view gossip as cold, calculated forms of social and relational aggression (Bjorkqvist et al., 1992). Are children being naive by ignoring the possible sinister end to which gossip can be used? Or on the other hand, have researchers tended to see gossip in overly deliberate terms? In all likelihood, both intrapersonal and interpersonal factors lie behind and motivate gossip; therefore, careful attention to this distinction needs greater consideration in future research. Another goal of the present study was to examine gender differences in children's interpretation and attributions for false gossip. Overall, the reaction of boys and girls to false gossip was similar. Specifically, boys and girls generally approached gossip with the same degree of skepticism and disapproval and showed a similar readiness to label statements as gossip. Although these similarities are noteworthy, it must be remembered that the children were asked to reason abstractly about gossip in hypothetical contexts. Gossip could well have a different impact on boys' and girls' emotions, or boys and girls may react differently to gossip or differ in their tendency to use gossip in socially manipulative ways. Moreover, consistent with our hypothesis, gender differences did emerge in children's attributions for false gossip. Here, girls were much more likely to attribute false gossip to jealousy than were boys. Many authors (e.g., Bjorkqvist et al., 1992; Bjorkqvist, Osterman, & Kaukianen, 1992) have noted that compared to boys, girls tend to rely more on gossip as a means of aggression. Our findings suggest that girls' greater familiarity with gossip as a tool of social aggression has left them, if not more skeptical of gossip overall, at least more sensitive to the ulterior motives behind gossip. Finally, several limitations to the current work should be noted. First, the participants in our study were preadolescents. Given the

Preadolescenfs' Understanding of Gossip

129

increase in frequency of gossip (Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Parker & Gottman, 1989) and the continued development of cognitive skills during adolescence, it is reasonable to expect that children's understanding of gossip becomes more sophisticated through the adolescent years. As a result, there is a need for replication and extension of the present findings to older age groups, particularly adolescents. In addition, other limitations follow from aspects of the format in which gossip was presented or aspects of the procedure utilized. Gossip was presented in the form of hypothetical vignettes. When questioned at the end of the experiment, the vast majority of the children in this study indicated that the vignettes represented situations that are commonly encountered with peers. Nonetheless, hypothetical vignettes may not have the same emotional immediacy and impact as real-world experiences. Thus, more observational work needs to be conducted to better understand how children and adolescents respond to and judge gossip. Relatedly, the line drawings used to depict the characters in the study vignettes were cartoonlike figures whose ethnicity appeared Caucasian. This may have contributed to the absence of main effects and relative absence of interactions involving ethnicity in our data. Because the primary comparisons among cue conditions were conducted within subjects, the ethnicity of cartoons could not have affected these findings. Likewise, the fact that the cartoons were highly stylized may have made the ethnicity of the story characters less salient and offset this limitation to some degree. Nevertheless, it is possible that Hispanic and Black subjects had more difficulty imagining themselves in the roles of the characters and emotionally investing themselves in the stories. Future research should therefore try to use drawings that match subjects' ethnicity when using hypothetical vignettes. In addition, the absolute level of skepticism should be interpreted cautiously. Because all of the secondhand information that appeared in the vignettes ultimately proved false, it is possible that children's overall level of skepticism grew as a result of this cumulative experience. Likewise, the absolute level of skepticism may also have been increased by our procedural decision to ask children whether statements were gossip before appraising their level of skepticism. Having committed to calling a statement gossip, children may have felt more compelled to express skepticism in it. As noted, the content of the gossip was only slightly negative in tone and had relatively few consequences for the targets. Future research should examine children's judgments about gossip that is more negative in nature (e.g., people who steals their friends' possessions). Further-

130


more, our study was not specifically designed to test the impact of varying content on children's approval and labeling of gossip. Thus, it will be important in future research to manipulate in a more systematic and compelling way the content of what children are discussing to determine how judgments about the appropriateness and labels of gossip are made. It is also important to note that considerable variability has been observed in the rates of spontaneous gossip among children (Parker et al., 1994). Yet, the present study did not include a focus on individual difTerences in children's normative beliefs about the appropriateness of gossip. An important goal in future work should be to establish whether ditTerences in children's views of the acceptability of gossip account for differences in their willingness to engage in such behavior in natural settings and whether children's attitudes toward gossip influence their attraction to others who frequently engage in such behavior. References

ABRAHAMS, R. D. (1970). A performance-centered approach to gossip. Man. 5. 290-301. BIGELOW, B. J., TESSON, G., & LEWKO, J. H. (1996). Learning the rules: The anatomy of children's relationships. New York: Guilford Press. BJORKQVIST, K., LAGERSPETZ, K. M. J., & KAUKIANEN, A. (1992). Do girls manipulate and boys fight? Developmental trends in regard to direct and indirect aggression. Aggressive Behavior. 18. 117-127. BJORKQVIST, K., OSTERMAN, K., & KAUKIANEN, A. (1992). The development of direct and indirect aggressive strategies in males and females. In K. Bjorkqvist & P. Niemela (Eds.), Of mice and women: Aspects of female aggression (pp. 51-64). San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. BUKOWSKI, W. M., & SIPPOLA, L. K. (1996). Friendship and morality: (How) are they related? In W. M. Bukowski, A. F Newcomb, & W. H. Hartup (Eds.), The company they keep: Friendship in childhood and adolescence (pp. 238-261). New York: Cambridge University Press. BUSS, D. M., & DEDDEN, L. A. (1990). Derogation of competitors. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 7, 395-422. CRICK, N. R., & DODGE, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin. 115, 74-101. DEPAULO, B. M., JORDAN, A., IRVINE, A., & LASER, P S. (1982). Age changes in the detection of deception. Child Development, 53, 701-709 DOELGER, J. A., HEWES, D. E., & GRAHAM, M. L. (1986). Knowing when to "second-guess": The mindful analysis of messages. Human Communication Research, 12, 301-338.


131

ECICERT, P. (1990). Cooperative competition in adolescent "girl talk." Discourse Processes, 13, 91-122. EDER, D., & ENKE, J. L. (1991). The structure of gossip: Opportunities and constraints on collective expression among adolescents. American Sociological Review. 56. 494^508. FINE, G. A. (1977). Social component of children's gossip. Journal of Communication. 27. 181-185. FINE, G. A. (1986). The social organization of adolescent gossip: The rhetonc of moral evaluation. In J. Cook-Gumperz, W. Corsaro, & J. Streeck (Eds.), Children's worlds and children's language (pp. 405^23). Berlin: Mouton. FINE, G. A., & ROSNOW, R. L. (1978). Gossip, gossipers, gossiping. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 4. 161-168. FLAVELL, J. H., GREEN, F L., & FLAVELL, E. R. (1995). Young children's knowledge about thinking. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. 60 {\, Serial No. 243).

GLUCKMAN, M. (1967). Psychological, sociological, and anthropological explanations of witchcraft and gossip: A clarification. Man. 2. 20-34. GOODWIN, M. H., (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Bloomington, IN: University Press. GOTTMAN, J. (1983). How children become fnends. Monographs ofthe Society for Research in Child Development. 48 (3, Serial No. 201). GOTTMAN, J., & METTETAL, G. (1986). Speculations about social and affective development: Friendship and acquaintanceship through adolescence. In J. Gottman & J. Parker (Eds.), Conversations offriends: Speculations on affective development (pp. 203-237). New York: Cambridge University Press. GRAHAM, S., & JUVONEN, J. (1998). Self-blame and peer victimization in middle school: An attributional analysis. Developmental Psychology. 34, 587-599. HAVILAND, J. B. (1977). Gossip as competition in Zinacantan. Journal of Communication. 27. 186-191. HEWES, D E., GRAHAM, M. L., DOELGER, J., & PAVITT, C. (1985). "Second-guessing" message interpretation in social networks. Human Communication Research. 11. 299-334. HEWES, D E., GRAHAM, M. L., MONSOUR, M., & DOELGER. J. (1989). Cognition and social information-gathering strategies: Reinterpretation assessment in second-guessing. Human Communication Research. 76.297-321. HILTON, J. L., FEIN, S., & MILLER, D. T. (1993). Suspicion and dispositional inference. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 19. 501-512. KLESS, S. J. (1992). The attainment of peer status: Gender and power relationships in the elementary school. Sociological Studies of Child Development. 5. 115-148. LEAPER, C , & HOLLIDAY, H. (1995). Gossip in same-gender and crossgender friends' conversations. Personal Relationships. 2. llllAd


LEVIN, J., & ARLUKE, A. (1985). An exploratory analysis of sex differences in gossip. Se.x Roles, 12. 281-286. NEVO, O., NEVO, B., & DERECH-ZEHAVI, A. (1993). The development of the tendency to gossip questionnaire: Construct and concurrent validity for a sample of Israeli college students. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 973-981. PAINE, R. (1968). What is gossip about? An alternative hypothesis. Man, 3, 278-285. PARKER, J. G., & GOTTMAN, J. (1989). Social and emotional development in a relational context: Friendship interaction from early childhood to adolescence. In T. J. Bernt & G. W. Ladd (Eds.), Peer relationships in child development (pp. 95-132). New York: Wiley. PARKER, J. G., & SEAL, J. (1996). Forming, losing, renewing, and replacing friendships: Applying temporal parameters to the assessment of children's friendship experiences. Child Development, 67, 2248-2268. PARKER, J. G., TEASLEY, S. D., MEISSNER, R. M., & MCCLELLAN, T. L. (1994, June). The social construction of preadolescent gossip: Content, gender, and interpersonal constraints. Paper presented at the annual symposium of the Jean Piaget Society, Chicago. POVEDA, T. G. (1975). Reputation and the adolescent girl: An analysis. Adolescence, 37, 127-136. RAY, G. E., & COHEN, R. (1997). Children's evaluations of provocation between peers. Aggressive Behavior, 23. 417^31. RAY, G. E., NORMAN, R , SADOWSKI, C J., & COHEN, R. (1999). The role of evaluator-victim relationships in children's evaluations of peer conflict. Social Development, 8, 390-394. ROTENBERG, K. I , & MORGAN, C. J. (1995). Development of a scale to measure individual differences in children's trust-value basis of friendship. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 156, 489-502. ROTENBERG, K. J., SIMOURD, L., & MOORE, D. (1989). Children's use of a verbal non-verbal consistency principle to infer truth and lying. Child Development, 60, 309-322. RYSMAN, A. (1977). How the "gossip" became a woman. Journal of Communications, 27. 176-180. SELMAN, R. L. (1980). The growth of interpersonal understanding: Developmental and clinical analyses. New York: Academic Press. SILVERMAN, W K., LA GRECA, A. M., & WASSERSTEIN, S. (1995). What do children worry about? Worries and their relation to anxiety. Child Development, 66, 671-686. SULS, J. M. (1977). Gossip as social comparison. Journal of Communication, 27, 164^168. WELLMAN, H. M. (1990). The child's theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. WHITESELL, N. R., & HARTER, S. (1996). The interpersonal context of emotion: Anger with close friends and classmates. Child Development, 67, 1345-1359.