Fear Brought On By Gossip

Gossip damages a person on a psychological level because it disrupts their sense of placement within a community or society at large. When a person joins a community they naturally seek to feel comfortable in it, and to do that, they must find their niche, their little spot in the community which they fulfill.

But when a person learns that they are being gossiped about, especially fiercely, their sense of equilibrium with the rest of their community is thrown off. If someone, or even some people, are talking about them, then the next natural question to ask one self is whether or not the rest of the community is talking about them as well.

It's even worse when a person learns who exactly is talking about them, and that person acts completely normal when interacting with or around the person targeted by the gossip. That person, who has suffered the gossip, after seeing how someone can effectively stab them in the back and keep smiling and talking to them, must then wonder what the rest of the community is like.

It's sort of a Young Goodman Brown moment for many people, it makes them see in their mind's eye the entire community they are in speaking badly of them, but then treating the person well to their face.

When this occurs, the person may become parannoid: rejected job applications, bad car sales, trouble with the neighbors, whenever a person suffers troubles in their life of a social nature they may naturally wonder if some of it is due to the gossip. If people in the community think ill of them, maybe that's why they didn't get that job or got a bad deal on that car? Somebody put words in the ear of the would-be employer or car salesman.