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  3. Word on the street is that gossip is the worst. An Ann Landers advice column

Word on the street is that gossip is the worst. An Ann Landers advice column

游客2023-06-22  3
问题    Word on the street is that gossip is the worst. An Ann Landers advice column once characterized gossip as "the faceless demon that breaks hearts and ruins careers. " The Talmud describes it as a "three-pronged tongue" that kills three people; the teller, the listener, and the person being gossiped about. And Blaise Pascal observed, not unreasonably, that "if people really knew what others said about them, there would not be four friends left in the world." Convincing as these indictments (控告) seem, however, a significant body of research suggests that gossip may in fact be healthy.
   Despite gossip’s evil reputation, a surprisingly small share of it—as little as 3 to 4 percent—is actually malicious. And even that portion can bring people together. Researchers at the University of Texas found that if two people share negative feelings about a third person, they are likely to feel closer to each other than they would if they both felt positively about him or her.
   Gossip may even make us better people, and it is pretty pervasive. A team of Dutch researchers reported that positive gossip inspired self-improvement efforts, and negative gossip made people prouder of themselves. Moreover, the worse participants felt upon hearing a piece of negative gossip, the more likely they were to say they had learned a lesson from it.
   By far the most positive assessment of gossip, though, comes from the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar. In Dunbar’s account, our primate ancestors bonded through grooming (梳理毛发), their mutual back-scratching ensuring mutual self-defense in the event of attack by predators. But as hominids (原始人类 ) grew more intelligent and more social, their groups became too large to unite by grooming alone. That’s where language—and gossip, broadly defined—stepped in.
   So the next time you’re tempted to gossip about others, fear not—you may actually be promoting cooperation, boosting others’ self-esteem, and performing the essential task of the human family. [br] What did researchers at the University of Texas find?
选项 A、Negative gossip makes people feel bad.
B、Positive feelings make people become self-satisfied.
C、Malicious gossip draws people together.
D、Gossip makes people better.
答案 C
解析 事实细节题。由定位句可知，德克萨斯大学的研究人员发现，如果两个人对第三个人都有消极看法，相比对该人产生积极印象而言，他们可能会感觉彼此更亲密。第二段第二句也提到，这一小部分有恶意的流言也能让人相互接近，故答案为C)。A)“负面的流言使人感觉糟糕”，第三段最后一句指出参与者听到负面流言时的感受越差就越可能从中吸取教训，说明听到负面流言时感受差是正常反应，而非大学研究人员的发现，故排除；B)“积极的感觉使人变得自满”，第三段第二句指出负面的流言使人更加骄傲，选项所述与此处相悖，故排除；D)“流言让人们成为更好的人”，第三段第一句指出，流言甚至可能会让我们成为更好的人，但并非本研究的发现，故排除。
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