AP31532

1532 AP3 General Psychology Talking to Strangers

 People are very social, yet when we get near another person we tend not to speak. Why is this? According to a new study by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professor Nicholas Epley stated, we do not understand the benefits of social connections. In “Mistakenly Seeking Solitude” published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Epley and co-author Juliana Schroder found that people who participated in the experiment underestimated others interest in both being spoken to and speaking with a stranger. In the experiment four groups were made up from morning commuters, one group was asked to start a conversation with a stranger, the next were asked not to talk at all and the third was to carry on as they would normally do. The fourth group filled out a questionnaire about how they would feel talking to strangers.  The first group reported they had a better time in the commute when they talked to strangers, but the fourth group predicted the opposite in their questionnaire of what happened. This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the psychological consequences of social engagement. Professor Epley conducted a total of nine experiments on this subject and concluded that humans feel better when they talk to strangers, but have a misunderstanding about talking to strangers. Should you talk to strangers? Studies show that you should.

Epley,N., Schroader, J. Mistakenly Seeking Solitude, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General. 2014

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