Happiness is also talking to strangers

In childhood, it is very often not recommended to talk to strangers. Later in life, however, having deep and meaningful conversations with strangers would improve well-being. This is what researchers from the University of Chicago concluded in a study published on September 30 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

A paradoxical result

Connecting with others in a meaningful way tends to make people happier, although most seem reluctant to engage in deeper, more meaningful conversation with strangers. “This struck us as an interesting social paradox: if connecting with others in deep and meaningful ways increases well-being, then why aren’t people doing it more often in everyday life?”, asks Nicholas Epley, lead author of the study.

More connection and fun than expected

The researchers conducted a series of twelve experiments with more than 1,800 participants. They asked pairs of strangers to discuss topics that were sometimes profound and sometimes superficial. The superficial questions included typical and clichéd conversation topics such as, “What’s the best TV show you’ve seen in the last month?” or “What do you think of the weather today?”. The deeper topics were guided by emotions and encouraged pairs to share more personal and intimate information. To help the conversation flow naturally, the researchers let the pairs brainstorm their own conversation topics.

The study authors found that the deepest conversations led to feelings of connection and delight greater than participants expected. While they imagined preferring superficial conversation, they conceded that they preferred longer conversations. Moreover, these proved to be much less troublesome than expected by the volunteers.

Humans, profoundly social beings

For the researchers, participants would underestimate how interested strangers are in learning more about their deepest thoughts and feelings. “People seemed to imagine that revealing something meaningful or important about themselves in a conversation would be met with blank stares and silence, only to find out that it wasn’t.noted Nicholas Epley. Human beings are deeply social and tend to exchange in conversation. If you share something meaningful and important, you’ll likely get something meaningful and important in return, which will lead to a dramatically better conversation..”

Go beyond small talk

In other experiments, researchers examined whether having more specific expectations about an interlocutor increases interest in having a deeper conversation. To test this, they asked participants to imagine that they would talk to a particularly caring and interested person, or to a particularly indifferent and indifferent person. As a result, those who expected to talk to caring people chose to discuss deeper issues than volunteers who expected to talk to an indifferent partner.

“Our participants’ expectations for deeper conversations weren’t terribly wrong, but they do prevent people from engaging a little deeper with others in their daily lives.concludes the author of the study. As the pandemic recedes and we all get back to talking with each other, being aware that others also enjoy meaningful conversations could lead you to spend less time chatting and have more enjoyable interactions as a result..”