Why “Snitching” Makes Us So Uncomfortable
“Snitching” means exposing wrongdoing by a colleague or friend who is part of your workgroup or social network. In other words, snitching is a form of gossip.
When is Gossip “Good”?
Gossip has a bad reputation, but research has confirmed that people are less likely to disapprove of gossip if it serves the greater good of the group rather than just the selfish interests of an individual, as when a cheater is exposed who is undermining the effectiveness of a workgroup.
Such gossip has been referred to as “good gossip” by gossip researchers.
Laboratory studies have even discovered that people will rat out selfish, exploitative individuals in experimental game situations even when they have to spend their own money to do so. In other words, gossiping for the benefit of the group is so rewarding that people will even incur a cost for the opportunity to engage in it.
Sometimes, it seems that gossip is not only OK, but it may even be the moral thing to do. But doing the moral thing is not always easy, and this is just as true for sharing good gossip as it is for anything else.
The Snitch’s Dilemma
I worked at a large bingo hall by a lake during my high school summers. The employees were mostly high school kids like me, with a few slightly older workers sprinkled among us.
One summer, I faced a classic “good gossip” conundrum. It was clear that someone was dipping into the till and stealing money, but it was impossible to tell who it was. Consequently, we were all under suspicion.
The proprietor of the business was now in a very foul mood all of the time, and what had been a fairly easygoing, fun-loving place to work became tense and uncomfortable.
Our local gossip and rumor mill was running at full speed, and it eventually outed the culprit to us rank-and-file workers. Since the boss was definitely not privy to our closed network, however, the offender was still in the clear as far as the authorities were concerned.
It turned out that one of my coworkers, who I thought of as a friend (albeit not a close friend), was helping himself to small amounts of cash on a regular basis. When I heard this bit of gossip, I faced a painful choice.
I could cover for my friend and leave it to the boss to solve the crime on her own, or I could turn him in and defuse the tension and suspicion that was ruining the camaraderie that we had previously enjoyed at work. If I ratted him out, he was certain to lose his job.
After much angst, I finally turned him in, and it was the end of our relationship. He got fired and was angry at me for betraying him, and I was angry at him for placing me in such an awkward position.
This experience taught me a lot, and many decades later I recognize that I was caught in a dilemma that whistleblowers have faced ever since there have been whistles to blow. A person in a situation like the one I faced is trapped between two conflicting gossip pressures.
The power of gossip to bond people to each other in groups is accompanied by an obligation of loyalty; a tacit agreement that damaging gossip about allies, friends, and coworkers that may come your way will not be shared recklessly.
On the other hand, detecting a bad actor in your midst by way of gossip also creates a sense of obligation to act in a way that benefits the group as a whole at the expense of that individual.
An unpleasant place to find yourself in, for sure.
The Psychology of Whistle-Blowing
The tension between these competing gossip impulses is reflected in the mixed feelings that have always surrounded those who implicate colleagues in wrongdoing. Think of all of the labels we have for such people, none of which are positive: snitch; rat; stool pigeon; tattletale; squealer; fink; double-crosser; informant; narc; betrayer; and there are more.
The plots of many movies and television shows exploit this universal human quandary. Honest cops who become aware that some of their colleagues are crooked, or “bent” in the U.K.; soldiers who witness war crimes by their comrades-in-arms; a young up-and-comer in a government job who discovers that his trusted mentor is on the take.
What is a person to do?
The many investigations and scandals surrounding Donald Trump’s presidency and campaigns can offer a real-world example of such gossip dilemmas. Trump regularly labels former subordinates and colleagues who shared information with the press or with grand juries and congressional committees as “leakers,” weak,” or “disloyal.”
He routinely invokes “executive privilege” in an attempt to stem the tide of gossip that might surface if his associates started talking.
The series of public hearings into the January 6 Capitol insurrection conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives made for riveting TV. It was exciting to watch in a large part because we saw people dealing in real-time with the very same unsettling choice I had faced in the more trivial arena of my high school bingo job: managing the balance between loyalty to individuals versus loyalty to the group.
Testimony from witnesses such as White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson was a firehose of gossip snippets about what type of food was thrown against the wall by the president, who whispered what to whom about what was happening in the White House while the insurrection was unfolding, and exactly what type of altercation with Secret Service agents took place inside the President’s vehicle after his speech at the rally preceding the riot.
Hutchinson was demonized as a traitor by some (mostly Trump supporters) and lionized as a hero by others (mostly Democrats), depending upon which side of the gossip divide they came down on loyalty to an individual, or loyalty to a group.
There may be no completely satisfactory way to navigate this problem. However, a key component of making a decision to engage in this form of “good gossip” surely must be balancing the trade-off between the potential good it will do for the group versus the potential harm it will do to the transgressor.