New findings contradict headline-grabbing paper that suggested excessive small talk makes us miserable

By Emma Young If you want to feel happier, avoid small talk and aim instead for profound conversations. That was the message the mainstream media took from a well-publicised paper published in Psychological Science in 2010 (e.g. Talk Deeply, Be Happy? asked the New York Times). But now an extension of that study, in press at the same journal (available as a pre-print), and involving two of the psychologists behind the original work, has found no evidence that how much – or little – time  you spend chatting about the weather or what you’re having for dinner will affect your life satisfaction. “The failure to replicate the original small talk effect is important as it has garnered considerable scientific and lay interest,” note the authors. The original work, led by Matthias Mehl at the University of Arizona, involved just 79 US college students, and given that students are surrounded by a host of potential new friends, not exactly representative of the general population in terms of daily social interactions. So Mehl, Simine Vazire at UC-Davis, and other researchers assessed the conversations of three new groups of people – 50 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and their partners; 184 medically healthy adults; and 122 adults who had recently separated from their partners. These participants also completed life satisfaction and personality questionnaires. As in the original paper, the participants wore Electronically Activated Recorders (EARs) that...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Emotion Replications Social Source Type: blogs