八卦的心理健康代价:集体主义与尽责性的作用

Psychological Cost of Gossip:The Role of Collectivism and Conscientiousness

八卦可以促进社会联结,但也常带来情绪困扰,具有功能的两面性。本研究通过问卷调查发现,以社交娱乐、碎片化加工为特点的八卦与消极情绪、心智游离显著正相关,与尽责性、宜人性人格显著负相关;集体主义在八卦与消极情绪之间起调节作用,即八卦的心理健康代价主要发生在低集体主义者中,且尽责性在八卦与消极情绪、心智游离之间起完全中介作用。进一步的访谈发现,相对于低集体主义者,高集体主义者从八卦中感受到更多的情绪调节收益。总之,八卦可能损害心理健康,但集体主义起缓冲作用,且尽责性是八卦影响心理健康的中介因素。这提示,研究者与社区工作者可通过集体主义价值观与尽责性人格的培育来减少八卦的不利影响。

Gossip refers to the interpersonal behavior of informally sharing unverified and private information about the absent between individuals,which is extremely common in the daily lives of different cultures and groups.Gossip can be a two-edged sword:on one side,it has information,social and entertainment functions which promoting social bonds;on the other side,it is an immorally interpersonal behavior that negative gossip invades others'privacy and harms others'reputation.However,the psychological cost of gossip on mental health at the individual level is still unclear.Study 1 explored the personality basis and mental health function of gossip,to analyze the cost of gossip on the individual level,Study 2 further verified the conclusion of study 1 by interview.The results found that gossip was significantly and positively related to negative affect and mind wandering,and significantly and negatively related to conscientiousness and agreeableness.Whereas curiosity was significantly and positively related with openness,conscientiousness,and positive affect.Furthermore,collectivism moderated between gossip and negative affect,the psychological cost of gossip was significant for the ones with lower collectivism but not the ones with higher collectivism.Besides,as shown by path analysis,conscientiousness played an important mediation role between gossip,curiosity,and mental health variables.The interview research provided support for high collectivists to receive more emotional regulation benefits from gossip than the low collectivists.In short,the lower conscientiousness of gossipers had a negative impact on their mental health,indicating that they may tend to be immoral and may be personally harmful,especially for the people with low collectivism.The results in these two studies provide inspiration to the researchers and the community workers that,in the current situation of excess information and insufficient attention resources,individuals should be guided to reduce their pursuit of trivial and purposeless gossip information,to cultivate a positive personality and promote mental health.