Interplay of Gossip, Self-Esteem and Personal Insecurity: An Exploratory Research

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship among variables of gossip, self-esteem and personal insecurity among young adults aged 20- 30 years, in a social setting. A quantitative research design was employed. Pearson’s correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationships among the variables, and one-way ANOVA analysis to examine variation in gossip and self-esteem across dimensions of personal insecurity. The results indicated a significant positive correlation between gossip and personal insecurity. However, no significant relationship was found between gossip and self- esteem and between self-esteem and personal insecurity. The one-way ANOVA analysis indicated that self- esteem did not show significant variation across the domains of insecurity, but gossip showed significant variation across the Study and Prospective domains. These finding suggest that gossip is more closely associated to personal insecurity than with self-esteem.