Yasmina Kattou/Photo credits: FRÉDériC CIROU / ALTOPRESS / PHOTOALTO VIA AFP 9:59 a.m., March 11, 2024
Scientific studies show that gossiping releases oxytocin, the hormone of attachment and pleasure, in our brain.
Gossip promotes attachment between the people who will exchange it.
Brain Week opens for a 26th edition this Monday.
Scientists meet across France and some are clear: gossip is good for our brain.
Gossip in particular releases a good dose of the happiness hormone.
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We keep coming back to this guilty pleasure, particularly because gossiping releases oxytocin in our brain, explains Sylvie Chokron, neuropsychologist and research director at the CNRS.
"A psychiatrist realized that exchanging gossip will release oxytocin, which is the hormone of attachment, of love at first sight, the hormone which is also released when we give birth and when we becomes attached to her baby. And finally, to promote attachment between the people who will exchange this gossip", she explains on the microphone of Europe 1.
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And this attachment allows us to create social bonds and stronger relationships.
For the record, the very first documented gossip dates back to 1,500 years BC.
This piece of gossip, engraved on a stone from Mesopotamia, reveals the affair between a married woman and a powerful man of the time.