My objective today:

1. Why do people not like us?
2. Why do people gossip?
3. How to avoid hating other people and prevention from gossiping
4. How to cope with the feeling of people who have emotionally hurt you.

Introduction

Recently, one of my friends was diagnosed with depression because a group of people are talking about her. That brought me to these questions. Did you ever wonder why do people do not like someone else? Why does someone always gossip about others? How can we avoid or stop hating each other and preventing from gossiping? Lastly how to cope with the feeling of people who have emotionally hurt us? Do you ever have these questions in your mind? If you do, I hope we can find the answers here together. Do take note that I am not a professional psychologist; rather than being a person like you who is struggling with gossiping other people or being a victim of a gossiping object by others.

Why do people not like someone else?

According to Hamlin et al., (2013), “Adults tend to like the individual who is similar to them”. Meaning that when two individuals have a similarity such as some characteristic, hobby, and so on; they are more likely to connect. On the other hand, to those who are opposite from them a more like end up dislike. Does that make any sense to you? Just because someone is different from other people, these individuals end up disliking him or her worse even hating him or her like crazy. The word “similarity” itself makes it so powerful until it can influence to whom the person prefers to interact with, giving positive expectations, more trustworthy, fairer, more intelligent. In contrast, dissimilar brings others to unkind, untrustworthy, and unintelligent (DeBruine, 2002). So, what is that mean that someone must change themselves to reach the standard of “similarity”? No one should change himself or herself to become like others. Because no matter how much the person tries to be alike, there are always other things that make people dislike him or her which cannot explain.

Why do people gossip?

According to Beersma and van Kleef ( 2012), “Gossip is defined as the exchange of information with evaluative content about absent third parties”. The phrase “absent third parties” here is the person who is being an object gossip. In one experiment, researchers want to find out the factor structure of the motives to gossip questionnaire. There are 5 motives to gossip: social enjoyment, information gathering and validation, negative influence, group protection, and emotion venting (Dores et al, 2019). You can read more the article to know about the result. The first motive to gossip is social enjoyment. It is so sad that talking about other people becomes entertainment. People gossip because their friends give them a negative influence. People gossip because that is what they think about the third party without knowing the person.

How to avoid hating other people and prevention from gossip?

Remember when someone talks about other people without that person, this is gossiping. So what makes it a big deal, isn’t everyone doing the same thing? Well, you are correct but first, let me ask you back. What do you feel if someone you know is talking bad about you? Are you really okay about that? If not, let’s remember this together, “You do not want to gossip because you do not like others talking about you either!”

One of the techniques that can be used when you’re tempted to talk about others is to put yourself as that person. Remember the question before, do you like when other people talk about you? So do others.

How to cope with the feeling of people who have emotionally hurt us?

1-: Cry

Yes, it is okay to cry. Please do not hold that emotion. Cry as much as you want. When you cry it can help you to reduce the pain within you. It is more painful if you do not express your own feeling. Therefore, just cry it out.

2-: Pray

It might look simple but I know some of you have a hard time praying especially when you are in pain because of other individual reason. But there is no other more trustworthy than Our Father.

3-: Learn to love yourself.

It is so hard to love yourself, especially you do not get enough love from others. But along with self-love, you try to understand how beautiful you are and how worthy you are.

4-: Make a list of what you’re thankful for.

It can be anything such as you have a wonderful father and mother who unconditionally love you, it can be your talent or anything that you can think of. You can make a grateful jar where you can read everything you are thankful and grateful for. After that, try to read that every day or any time you feel hurt.

5-: Cut the person from your relationship list or make a line.

Sometimes it is hard to cut the person off because of any reason. It can be because the person is in the same school, class major or roommate, suitemate, or even family members. Therefore, we can try to make a line. Try to make the conversation short.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let us learn together to love each other no matter how different we are. We can prevent ourselves from hurting each other. Even though it is hard but at least we have tried our best. Hope this can help us to be better people. Let’s grow together.

References

Beersma, B., & Van Kleef, G. A. (2012). Why people gossip: An empirical analysis of social motives, antecedents, and consequences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(11), 2640–2670.

Hamlin, J. K., Mahajan, N., Liberman, Z., & Wynn, K. (2013). Not like me = bad: infants prefer those who harm dissimilar others. Psychological science, 24(4), 589–594. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612457785

DeBruine L. M. (2002). Facial resemblance enhances trust. Proceedings. Biological sciences, 269(1498), 1307–1312. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2034

Dores Cruz, T. D., Balliet, D., Sleebos, E., Beersma, B., Van Kleef, G. A., & Gallucci, M. (2019). Getting a Grip on the Grapevine: Extension and Factor Structure of the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1190. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01190

Noted from Author: Hello guys, I have attached a digital journal. It is free for you to download. I hope it can help you try to grow mentally and spiritually. Blessing.

1. Personal Journal.pdf