Today we’re going to discuss talking with strangers.
So, there are a lot of things that we believe would make us happy or miserable. And one of them is that we would be better off if strangers didn’t talk to us.
I remember years ago when I used to fly before there were no headphones. Somebody would start a conversation, sometimes I would, sometimes the person next to me, and I would meet people and sometimes I would get greeting cards from them or would send greeting cards to them. Occasionally, the conversations were tough or complex or led nowhere or were tedious but, on average, they were great. Then everybody started flying with headphones, everybody got busier, and there were no more conversations. If you fly business, of course you don’t talk to your neighbor, and all these conversations went away? Am I better or worse or worse off?
Nick Epley did a bunch of research on this topic and it’s fascinating. He took people who were about to board a train and asked whether they thought their life would be better or worse off if they picked a random stranger and talked to them? People said it would be worse off. And they were quite sure about it. Then he got another bunch of people to agree that if they fall into the random condition, they would strike up a conversation with a random stranger. What do you think happened to the people who were forced to start a conversation?
It turns out, on average, they were much better off. Not always because sometimes you meet a stranger that you prefer not to have a conversation with. But, on average, this increases the quality of life.
This idea that we have predictions that are different from reality is something that we see over and over but it’s particularly interesting with social connection. We meet lots of people, and we have lots of conversations. How can it be that on average, talking with strangers benefits us but we don’t predict it?
It’s because, of course, we focus on the few times that it went very badly. And because of loss aversion we don’t want negative things, so we also take out the positive things.
What’s the conclusion? Very simple. Don’t trust your intuition especially in a place where you have the possibility for a bad outcome. Realize that intuition oversamples bad outcomes and gives up things on the upside.
Most importantly, when you’re in an elevator or a train and you have a chance to talk to somebody, remember this research. Odds are that you would be better off if you talk to them than if you didn’t.
So, to better social life for all of us.
