Gossiping the (recipient's) day away: The impact of supervisor-directed gossip on recipients' rumination, sleep quality, vitality, and work outcomes.

Abstract

Despite gossip research's predominant focus on gossipers and gossip targets, existing theoretical views and the limited yet important empirical studies converge to suggest that gossip benefits its recipients. Our research builds on conservation of resources theory to shift this consensus by examining the negative effects of supervisor-directed gossip on recipients. We theorize that hearing negative supervisor-directed gossip triggers both cognition- and affect-focused rumination, which consume resources, and we develop a research question around the moderating role of hearing positive supervisor-directed gossip. Furthermore, we propose that the aforementioned effects have cascading implications for recipients' work behaviors the following day. In a 15-day experience sampling investigation of 122 workers, we found that on days when employees hear negative gossip about the supervisor, they are more likely to engage in cognition- and affect-focused rumination, and hearing positive supervisor-directed gossip strengthens these positive relationships. In addition, we found that cognition- and affect-focused rumination lead to poor sleep quality and diminished next-morning vitality, which in turn results in reduced work engagement and supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behavior. We conclude by discussing the implications and future directions of our work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).