My primary goal was to test two main theories of gossip: the social grooming theory and the cultural learning theory. Participants (N = 197) watched 30-second videos depicting four conditions where a gossip statement or a target present statement contained negative content that was: 1) relevant and violated a norm, 2) relevant and did not violate a norm, 3) irrelevant and violated a norm, or 4) irrelevant and did not violate a norm. Participants rated the speaker’s intent on the following dimensions: 1) sharing information, 2) strengthening relationships, 3) entertaining the listener, and 4) socially influencing the listener. They additionally rated the speaker’s attitude. Participants’ ratings indicated that statements that were relevant to the listener and contained a norm violation were better serving of gossip’s four functions than irrelevant statements without norm violations. However, this was generally the case for both gossip and target present statements with some caveats. Strengthening relationships ratings were increased in gossip conditions, albeit with a small effect size. However, when statements included a norm violation, gossiping increased entertaining and speaker attitude ratings. My findings indicate that both social grooming theory and cultural learning theory capture the main social function features of gossip, with the cultural learning theory having the largest impact Further, these features are impacted by gossip and target present scenarios by either strengthening or dampening the effects depending on the social function being measured.