Recent research published in evolutionary psychology investigated why physically attractive women are often the targets of negative gossip, a phenomenon highlighted by the treatment of the character Malena in the film of the same name. Previous research has suggested that this gossip stems from intrasexual competition, where women compete with each other for desirable partners. In this study, Yijia Dong and colleagues further investigated how romantic jealousy and self-esteem play a role in this behavior, finding that while jealousy drives women to gossip about attractive rivals, their level of self-esteem We propose to alleviate this tendency.
Evolutionary psychology provides a framework for understanding these phenomena and suggests that psychological mechanisms developed to solve adaptive problems of survival and reproduction influence mate preferences. Men’s preference for women’s physical attractiveness as an indicator of health and fertility creates a competitive environment in which women use gossip as a strategy to undermine rivals.
Forty adults participated in a pilot study assessing the physical attractiveness of female faces for the purpose of selecting stimuli for the main study. Images of Asian women were rated on a scale from 1 (very unattractive) to 10 (very attractive). Female participants rated the images from both their own perspective and the perspective imagined by men, whereas male participants rated them only from their own perspective.
This process utilized images from previous studies and categorized them into attractive and unattractive categories. This rating resulted in the selection of the three least attractive and three most attractive faces for use in the included study, according to the consensus of both male and female raters.
A total of 190 heterosexual women between the ages of 23 and 35 participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to groups that were shown images of women categorized as either highly attractive or unattractive based on the results of a pilot study.
Participants first rated their own physical attractiveness on a seven-point scale. Participants were then introduced to a hypothetical scenario in which they imagined that they were a woman in a social group containing a target man, and a new woman (Woman Y) entered the group and approached the target man. I did. Participants rated their jealousy on a 7-point scale and were then presented with negative information about woman Y and asked to rate the likelihood of sharing that information in various social contexts. .
Participants also completed a measure of self-esteem using Rosenberg’s 10-item scale and a measure of social desirability using items from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
The researchers found no significant main effect of a potential competitor’s physical attractiveness on gossip propensity. However, a significant main effect emerged for gossip recipient, indicating that participants were more likely to spread negative information about a competitor to their own friends than to the target man or mutual friends. . Although the physical attractiveness of a potential competitor did not affect the propensity to gossip about target men or mutual friends, it did influence gossip about participants’ own friends.
Participants with low self-esteem were slightly more likely to gossip, especially when their competitors were highly attractive.
A potential competitor’s physical attractiveness was positively correlated with participants’ level of romantic jealousy, which in turn was associated with increased gossip propensity among all recipients. This mediation effect was significant, highlighting romantic jealousy as a key mechanism promoting gossip about attractive competitors.
Moreover, self-esteem moderates these effects, and low self-esteem amplifies the influence of a competitor’s attractiveness on jealousy and gossip, especially for personal friends. These findings indicate that while attraction and jealousy promote gossip, the extent of this behavior is further shaped by individual differences in self-esteem.
The researchers note that future research should consider using implicit measures of social desirability.
The study, “Potential Competitors’ Physical Attractiveness Influences Women’s Gossip: The Effects of Romantic Jealousy and Self-Esteem” was authored by Yijia Dong, Wenqi Li, and Yu Kou.
