Getting beyond small talk: Study finds people enjoy deep conversations with strangers

people fail to anticipate how much learning happens in conversa-tions with strangers. In a series of studies, Atir and colleagues [9] brought strangers together for 10-min conversations. Compared with how much participants expected to learn from a conversation prior to having it, they consistently reported learning more inter-esting, useful, and ge... See more

Despite having more opportunities than ever to connect with strangers, and much to gain from doing so, people often refrain from talking with, and listening to, strangers. We propose a framework that classifies obstacles to connecting with strangers into three categories concerning intention (under-estimating the benefits of conversations), compete... See more