Gossip Sharing Willingness in Primary School Children: The Role of Competition and Potential Allies

ABSTRACT

The present study conducted two experiments to investigate Chinese children's willingness to share positive and negative gossip, as well as the roles of competition and potential allies in gossip sharing among children aged 8 to 12 years. In Experiment 1 ( N = 242), vignette‐based scenarios were used to examine differences in children's willingness to share gossip with different valences in competitive and non‐competitive contexts. In Experiment 2 ( N = 246), we further explored how the presence of potential allies influenced children's gossip‐sharing willingness within a competitive context. The results showed that: (1) children were generally more willing to share positive gossip than negative gossip; (2) children's willingness to share positive gossip was lower in competitive contexts than in non‐competitive contexts; (3) children were less willing to share negative gossip about competitors with potential allies than about those without potential allies; and (4) willingness to share negative gossip increased significantly with age, whereas willingness to share positive gossip showed a nonsignificant decline. These findings highlight the valence preference and context dependency of children's gossip‐sharing willingness and provide insights for future research on how interaction contexts and interpersonal factors shape children's gossip behavior in school settings.