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Key points
- Opportunities to make new friends are all around us.
- Research suggests that strangers are more open to talking to us than we predict they will be.
- The more we talk to strangers, the more positive, less awkward, and more confident we will feel about initiating conversations.
This post was written in collaboration with Victoria E. Gillison, MSSP.
When I lived in New York City and felt lonely, I’d look around and see tables of friends and wonder how they found their people. I wanted to make friends, but it felt taboo to admit this, and intimidating to try. If I tried to converse with someone, would they ignore me? Judge me as strange? Get annoyed?
You probably know this about me by now, but I often turn to research as a way to soothe my fears. Like a reassuring friend, studies often tell me that the scary thing I think might happen probably won’t. And even if it does, I’ll survive.
One such study is called “Talking to strangers: A week-long intervention reduces psychological barriers to social connection.”
For a week, participants in this social experiment were asked to either observe a stranger who matched a description (e.g., wears shoes you like) or strike up a conversation with them. Those who were repeatedly asked to talk to strangers, rather than just observe them, at the end of the week felt more positive, less awkward and more confident in their ability to talk to strangers, and expected to enjoy conversations with strangers more. Even more, they still felt this way one week later.
The study also found that people predicted strangers would be open to talking to them 40% of the time. The reality? Strangers were open to talking to them 87% of the time.
What does this mean for friendship? It means opportunities to make new friends are all around us. The study found that 41% of people who had to talk to strangers exchanged contact information to follow up. Initiating conversations with strangers can be intimidating but if we can move past that first moment, we’ll find out that it’s not as intimidating as we think and more rewarding than we imagine.
Our inaccurately pessimistic predictions of social interactions are also revealed by research on something called the liking gap. A study done at Yale University showed that participants underestimated a partner’s enjoyment in their conversation and how much that partner liked them after their conversation. We underestimate how much others are not only interested in talking to us, but how much they like us as well.
The liking gap also applies to observers of interactions. When participants were asked to observe another conversation and report how much it seemed the pair were enjoying the conversation and liked one another, non-participant observers demonstrated the liking gap. They underestimated the perceived enjoyment and likability compared to the actual reports from conversation partners.
Research on the liking gap and talking to strangers reassures us that our social words are more open than we assume.
Keeping this in mind, here’s what I suggest if you’re looking for friends. Strike up a conversation with someone:
- Commuting with you
- Sitting at your coffee shop
- Serving you food or drinks
- Waiting in line beside you
- Taking an exercise class with you
- Attends your social group (book club, running club, language class, etc.)
The science tells us it’s not as scary as we think.
References
Sandstrom, G. M., Boothby, E. J., & Cooney, G. (2022). Talking to strangers: A week-long intervention reduces psychological barriers to social connection. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102, 104356.
Boothby, E. J., Cooney, G., Sandstrom, G. M., & Clark, M. S. (2018). The liking gap in conversations: Do people like us more than we think?. Psychological science, 29(11), 1742-1756.
