A new UC Riverside study asserts that women don’t engage in “tear-down” gossip any more than men, and lower income people don’t gossip more than wealthy people. It also holds younger people are more likely to gossip negatively than their older counterparts.

加州大学河滨分校(UC Riverside)最新研究表明，女性并不比男性参与更多“拆毁”八卦，而低收入的人并不比富人有更多绯闻。事实上，越年轻的人更有可能传播负面消息。

It’s the first-ever study to dig deep into who gossips the most, what topics they gossip about, and how often people gossip — 52 minutes a day on average.

这是有史以来第一次深入研究谁绯闻最多，他们谈论什么话题，以及人们闲聊的频率-平均每天52分钟。

“There is a surprising dearth of information about who gossips and how, given public interest and opinion on the subject,” said Megan Robbins, an assistant psychology professor who led the study along with Alexander Karan, a graduate student in her lab.

助理心理学教授Megan Robbins和她实验室的研究生Alexander Karan进行该项研究。她们认为“即便公众对某个话题存在兴趣和意见，但他们对绯闻主角以及事情发展却知之甚少”。

If you’re going to look at gossip like an academic, remove the value judgment we assign to the word. Gossip, in the academic’s view, is not bad. It’s simply talking about someone who isn’t present. That talk could be positive, neutral, or negative.

如果你想像学者那样看待绯闻，那就不要带着有色眼镜去看待它。在学术界看来，绯闻并不是坏事。它只是在谈论一个不在场的人。这种谈话可以是积极的，中立的，也可以是消极的。

“With that definition, it would be hard to think of a person who never gossips because that would mean the only time they mention someone is in their presence,” Robbins said. “They could never talk about a celebrity unless the celebrity was present for the conversation; they would only mention any detail about anyone else if they are present.”

Robbins说：“有了这个定义，很难想到一个从不说闲话的人，因为这就意味着他们任何议论都是当面的。他们只在名人在场时谈论名人；只在绯闻主角在场时提及他们的各个细节。”

“Not only would this be difficult, but it would probably seem strange to people they interact with.”

“这不仅会很困难，而且对与之交往的人来说也可能显得很奇怪。”

In the research, Robbins and Karan looked at data from 467 people — 269 women, 198 men — who participated in one of five studies. Participants were 18 to 58 years old.

在这项研究中，Robbins 和  Karan 共调查了467人的数据，其中269人是女性，198人是男性，他们参与了5项研究调查中的一项。参与者年龄在18至58岁之间。

Participants wore a portable listening device Robbins employs in her research called the Electronically Activated Recorder, or EAR. The EAR samples what people say throughout the day; about 10 percent of their conversation is recorded, then analyzed by research assistants.

参与者戴着一种便携式监听设备，Robbins在她的研究中使用了一种名为“电子激活记录器（EAR）”的装置。EAR对人们的日常交谈进行了采样，大约10%的谈话都被记录了下来，然后由研究助理进行分析。

The research assistants counted conversation as gossip if it was about someone not present. In all, there were 4,003 instances of gossip. They then filtered the gossip into three categories: positive, negative, or neutral.

如果谈论对象是不在场的人，研究助理们就把该段谈话当作绯闻。共收集有4，003条，并以积极的、消极的或中立将其分成三类。

The assistants further coded the gossip depending on whether it was about a celebrity or acquaintance; the topic; and the gender of the conversation partner.

助手们还根据各绯闻是关于名人或熟人、以及话题和对话者的性别来进一步编码。

Among the results:

结果发现：

•Younger people engage in more negative gossip than older adults. There was no correlation with overall frequency of gossip when all three categories were combined.

·年轻人比老年人更爱传绯闻。当这三种分类（积极、消极或中立）结合在一起时，八卦的总频率没有相关性。

•About 14 percent of participants’ conversations were gossip, or just under an hour in 16 waking hours

·参与者约有14%的谈话是闲聊，或在清醒的16个小时内，绯闻时间不到1小时。

•Almost three-fourths of gossip was neutral. Negative gossip (604 instances) was twice as prevalent as positive (376)

·几乎四分之三的绯闻都是中性的。消极流言(604条)是积极流言(376条)的两倍。

•Gossip overwhelmingly was about an acquaintance and not a celebrity, with a comparison of 3,292 samples vs. 369

·在比较了3292个样本和369个样本后发现，绯闻绝大多数是关于一个熟人，而不是名人。

•Extraverts gossip far more frequently than introverts, across all three types of gossip

·在三种类型的绯闻中，外向的人比内向的人更爱传绯闻。

•Women gossip more than men, but only in neutral, information-sharing, gossip

•女人比男人更爱传绯闻，但是只是没有立场的信息共享。

•Poorer, less education people don’t gossip more than wealthier, better-educated people. This runs contrary to assertions found in popular “best habits of the rich” books.

•贫穷、受教育少的人并不比富裕的、受过良好教育的人爱传绯闻。这与流行“富人的最佳习惯”中发现的断言相反。

A final result? Everyone gossips. “Gossip is ubiquitous,” the study concludes.

最终结果？大家都爱说闲话。“流言蜚语无处不在，”研究总结。

The paper, “Who Gossips and How Often in Everyday Life,” was published online this week in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

文章“日常生活中的绯闻传播者和传播频率”将于本周发表在《社会心理学和人格科学》杂志上。