A widely held belief among consumers is celebrity gossip attracts too much attention.
This research offers an explanation for the pervasiveness of celebrity gossip (i.e., gossip with a favorite celebrity as the target) by taking a novel relational approach to specifying how the nature of the sender-target relationship influences an individual’s propensity to gossip.
Individuals and celebrities often constitute a one-sided imbalanced “parasocial” relationship, with the former extending emotional energy, interest and time, while the latter is unaware of the former’s existence.
In contrast, social relationships with friends and acquaintances are more balanced in terms of reciprocal influence.
Taking a relational approach, we first document how, in general, the likelihood of spreading gossip depends on the opposing forces of: (1) how guilty one anticipates feeling about gossiping, and (2) how exciting sharing the gossip is perceived to be.
Next, we find that gossiping about favorite celebrities, who exert substantial influence, but are not themselves influenced by the person gossiping, results in less anticipated guilt and more excitement than gossiping about alternative targets.
Alternative targets generate a lower tendency to gossip because of higher guilt (friends) or less excitement (acquaintances).
Consequently, we find gossiping about favorite celebrities is seen as: (1) less of a betrayal, and (2) less likely to damage the relationship as compared to gossiping about friends, while also (3) considered a stronger signal of liking for favorite celebrities than other targets.
Taken together, this research helps explain why people are so prone to gossip about their favorite celebrities.
Gaia is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Gaia did her PhD in Business Administration and Management with a major in Marketing at Bocconi University in Milan.
During her PhD she spent a semester at the University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business.
She also holds a MSc in Marketing Management and a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University.
In her research, Gaia mostly focuses on interpersonal communication and information exchange.
In particular, she investigates gossip both conceptually and empirically by focusing on its antecedents and consequences, including phenomena related to the celebrity gossip industry.
Her research has been published in the Journal of Marketing.
Her work has been presented at leading academic conferences and doctoral colloquiums such as the Association for Consumer Research, the AMA Winter Academic Conference, Marketing Science, the Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, and the European Marketing Academy.
Gaia's other research projects focus on authenticity and decision biases.
The seminar will be held in English.
Organizator: Leonardo Corbo (leonardo.corbo@unibo.it)
Major information: Annamaria Tuan (annamaria.tuan@unibo.it).