And her research indicates a deeper fear: that other people don’t find them interesting. In her workshops, people are most afraid of awkwardness or embarrassment.
Friendly chit chat how to#
Sandstrom felt so strongly about the need for small talk that she leads How to Talk to Strangers workshops and works with a nonprofit called Talk to Me, which organized a “Talk to Me Day” last July. They’re making friendly noises at each other to see if they can find something to talk about.” “They’re not really talking about the weather. We do it in a secret language, where we say ‘Lovely day today, isn’t it?’” Fleming explains. “The whole purpose of small talk as we know it is to send out the signal, ‘Will you be a friend to me?’ But we do it in disguise. Carol Fleming, a communication coach with a background in speech pathology, finds an almost universal loathing for small talk among her clients - particularly the go-go executives she works with who don’t want to “waste time.” The problem, she thinks, is they don’t understand the purpose. With all those benefits, why do so many of us dread small talk?ĭr. Of course, knowing it’s good for you doesn’t help you actually do it. And doctors who spend more time talking to their patients are less likely to be sued.
Researchers at the University Of Michigan found that friendly social interaction can boost our ability to solve problems. Small talk could even give you a cognitive boost. Those who talked to strangers were happiest, even if they had been dreading the task. In another experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago asked commuters to either engage in small talk, “enjoy their solitude” or commute as usual. This matters, because we are social creatures - psychologists think we have a need to belong, and suffer physically and mentally when we don’t feel as connected as we want,” Sandstrom says. “What I’m finding over and over is that talking to people makes us feel connected to others. It's not what you say that's important in small talk. Even college students who talked to more classmates than usual felt happier at the end of the day. And people who broke the silence at the Tate Modern were in a better mood afterward and enjoyed the exhibit more. Those who engaged in chit-chat were again happier.
She followed up with a study at Starbucks, asking people to either talk to their baristas or get their coffee with maximum efficiency. She asked people to count their social interactions for six days and found that those who had more daily interaction with acquaintances were happier. Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the University of Essex, noticed that “just saying hi to the lady at the hot dog stand” gave her a bounce in her step. And it doesn’t just make parties way less awkward - it could actually make you happier.
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