3/8 (Tue.) Can gossip be good for you? (host: Christine Wang)

[Rosie]

It is our pleasure to have Christine Wang to host 3/8 Tue evening meeting. She is a senior member and has not shown up for hundreds years. Let's join the meeting to welcome her.

Article :
The Science Behind Why People Gossip
https://time.com/5680457/why-do-people-gossip/

Questions for discussion

Session one:

1. What do you think about gossip? What do you usually gossip about when you chat with your family/friends/colleagues?

2. Is gossip always a negative and toxic thing? Can gossiping be positive and beneficial?

3. Have you had any experience of good gossips? what did you handle it? Please share with your stories.

Session two :

4. Do you agree with “the theories of gossip as a form of cultural learning”? Do you agree that office gossip is an essential part of the workplace and it’s a necessary skill to advance your career?

5. Do you like to gossip? Are you usually the one who raises the subject or are you always the listener? How do you feel when people are gossiping about you?

******************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
7:50 ~ 8:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:15 ~ 8:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
9:00 ~ 9:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
9:20 ~ 9:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements

Meeting Date: As shown on the Subject Line
Meeting Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $80)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘

Important Notes:
1. We advise participants to print out the discussion questions and bring them to the meeting for reference. As for the supporting articles, feel free to print them out, as well, according to your preference.
2. We suggest that participants read the articles and think about the questions in advance.
3. Newcomers should prepare a two-to-three minute self-introduction in English to deliver when called upon by the host before the start of the discussion. The host may also ask you to give brief feedback about the meeting at the conclusion of the meeting.
4. We conduct the entire meeting in English. All participants should have at least moderate English-conversation skills and be able to articulate your ideas for each discussion question.
5. We welcome newcomers and other guests to attend the meetings and join the discussion freely for three times. After that, we hope you will consider becoming a YoYo English Club member. We charge a NT$1000 lifetime membership fee.

[Iris Wu]

Why do people gossip? The inconvenient truth is that it is much easier for people looking outward (focusing on others) than looking inward (dealing with the unsettled self).

Gossip, by definition, is “communication about a person who isn’t present in a way that involves evaluation of that person”. It is not just the talk behind a person, but more importantly a judgment is usually involved.

When judgmental comments involved, the gossips are usually dichotomized, positive gossip or negative gossip.
Positive gossips are like “word-of-mouth marketing”; it may boost the morale and motivation, if in a workplace, it can even create viral effect. Unfortunately, in the real world, we are more likely to deal with destructive gossips. Ideally, if the back-fence talks are related to our personal traits or ability, we’ll have to reverse our emotional downward spiral and be determined, making these negative gossips as the transformational stepping-stones to our self-improvement.

[Rock]

Believe it or not, we male homo sapiens gossip much less, and mostly positive. Join our conversation and you know who we talk about behind their backs.

[Michael-liu]

Believe it or not, we male homo sapiens gossip much less, and mostly positive. Join our conversation and you know who we talk about behind their backs.

Men's gossips are mostly positive evaluation? I beg to differ. At least, not in my case.

[Iris Wu]

Rock:
Believe it or not, we male homo sapiens gossip much less, and mostly positive. Join our conversation and you know who we talk about behind their backs.

Men's gossips are mostly positive evaluation? I beg to differ. At least, not in my case.

How come you cannot tell that Rock was sarcastic?

[Michael-liu]

[quote=Rock post_id=34112 time=<a href="tel:1646575070">1646575070</a> user_id=1956]
Believe it or not, we male homo sapiens gossip much less, and mostly positive. Join our conversation and you know who we talk about behind their backs.

Men's gossips are mostly positive evaluation? I beg to differ. At least, not in my case.

How come you cannot tell that Rock was sarcastic?
[/quote]
I can not，because people like me, who have 亞思伯格 syndrome usually can not. We just take words literally at their face value.

[Michael-liu]

By the way, when someone says "believe it or not" in the first place，I wouldn't expect they are going to say something sarcastic. I guess we need to invite Rock to speak for himself. Haha.....

[Iris Wu]

You are probably right. Maybe because I’ve always assumed Rock disguises himself by being sarcastic! If I’d gossiped about Rock, that’s what I would say.
Let’s see how he defends himself.

[Rock]

You are probably right. Maybe because I’ve always assumed Rock disguises himself by being sarcastic! If I’d gossiped about Rock, that’s what I would say.
Let’s see how he defends himself.

Sarcasm is a fine art that I am yet to be striving for, but this time I'm literally describing the behavior of male homo sapiens I know when they are talking behind others-- they talk about ladies. And it's always positive, sometimes even too positive, as one can think of.

[Iris Wu]

Sarcasm is a fine art that I am yet to be striving for, but this time I'm literally describing the behavior of male homo sapiens I know when they are talking behind others-- they talk about ladies. And it's always positive, sometimes even too positive, as one can think of.

Thanks for the clarification!
So Michael was right and he does not have Asperger syndrome! It's me who has either "Belief Bias" or "False Memory Bias"! Haha!

But I'll have to rebut your theory. My counter-argument is that last time Sherry hosted a similar topic and she said her male co-workers were extremely vicious when gossiping their female boss.
(I know you may said it's because she was the boss! When it comes to "boss-employee relationship", hardly any good stuff can be talked about! )

[Sherry Liao]

Sarcasm is a fine art that I am yet to be striving for, but this time I'm literally describing the behavior of male homo sapiens I know when they are talking behind others-- they talk about ladies. And it's always positive, sometimes even too positive, as one can think of.

But I'll have to rebut your theory. My counter-argument is that last time Sherry hosted a similar topic and she said her male co-workers were extremely vicious when gossiping their female boss.
(I know you may said it's because she was the boss! When it comes to "boss-employee relationship", hardly any good stuff can be talked about! )

That's right. I guess men may feel more threatened by female bosses(?). Also, it's my observation that men are more interested in talking about people around their working places.

When having lunch with my female coworkers, I noticed that they spent significant amount of time talking about what they purchased recently, or what were in their dreaming lists. When they were talking about others, most of the time the topics were about their family, especially their children. But when having lunch with my male coworkers, the topics were usually about people at work – other coworkers, ex-coworkers, our acquaintances of the same profession or vendors. My conclusion (at least for people around me) is men gossip more than women do.

[Rock]

My conclusion (at least for people around me) is men gossip more than women do.

That's very true. I personally feel like gossiping when I am around you, too.