Even the closest friend groups have their grievances. One friend might have an unhealthy relationship with another, choosing to confide in a mutual third party. How they go about it can bring them closer to their other friends, based on a small new study published in Evolution and Human Behavior.
Because there haven’t been many studies about how people within social groups compete for attention and affection, the study looked at how venting about others can boost a person’s likability — while decreasing the likability of the one they’re venting about.
“We all need a safe space to process what we’re feeling,” Abby Wilson, LCSW, who was not involved with the study, told Business Insider. When done as a way to work through friction with someone else or bond with a friend, venting can be helpful, she said. It can bring groups of people closer together, whether they’re friends or coworkers.
Wilson shared how venting can actually improve your relationships — when done with care and caution. Because the study also found that venting in an aggressive or antagonistic way can actually cost you friends.
Certain kinds of venting build closeness
Venting can mean a lot of different things, from sharing frustrations with a friend to ragefully tearing someone down.
The venting performed in the study was made to look like less of “an act of aggressive social competition.” As a result, participants who vented about others were rated as favorably as people who shared neutral gossip or unrelated issues, because they didn’t look like they were actively out to get someone.
Wilson said that how you vent makes a difference in how relatable it feels to the person you’re venting to. For example, if a person in your friend group feels like an energy vampire, you might talk to a mutual friend about how that friend’s self-centeredness makes you feel. You might then bond because you both dislike one-sided relationships, making the conversation more about your values than just dunking on someone.
“If there’s this curiosity and openness, it’s still venting and it’s still processing how you’re bothered by the other person, but there’s not this judgmental, harsh cruelness to it,” Wilson said.
People can also prefer venters
Another interesting finding of the study was that listeners preferred venters over the people they vented about — even if they shared the same flaws.
Wilson had a few explanations for this. One is that venting can feel vulnerable — that you’re letting a friend into your inner world, which boosts closeness.
Another possibility could be that venting about one friend can make someone want to win your approval because they see you disapproving of someone else. “It kind of becomes this chase for their approval or acceptance, and somehow that acceptance is of higher value if they don’t openly or easily give it to others,” Wilson said.
How you vent matters
The study emphasized that venting only has social benefits when it doesn’t look like you want to bring someone down.
Wilson said that making judgmental comments about someone, such as about their appearance or style, communicates to other people that you’ll likely do the same thing to them. To a mutual friend, “you’re not a safe person if you’re just purely gossiping to put someone else down,” she said.
That’s why she said it’s helpful to look at why you want to vent about another friend in the first place. It’s one thing if you want to get a gut check from a mutual friend or brainstorm ways you can resolve an issue, Wilson said. But venting “becomes harmful when it’s the only way of bonding with people” or becomes the only thing you talk about.
Venting, done with good intentions, can be a bonding experience with friends willing to listen and offer advice. But doing it too often outweighs all its benefits.
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