Do tell anyone, but gossip changes our behavior, whether we intend to change it or not –compelling us to look harder and longer at people associated with unpleasant behavior. The Washington Post reports that researchers at Northeastern University required 59 college students to view a several faces, each one accompanied by a negative, neutral or positive piece of information, such as the person had “hit a small child,†“made a racist comment†or “threw a chair at his classmate.†The researchers found that the participants spent significantly more time  on average, half a second more  focusing on negatively associated faces than on positively or neutrally associated faces.
Read more in the Washington Post.
Ya, of course, gossip has unlimited effects on us, whether we admit it or not.