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

So why don’t people talk more? Epley continued his research and came up with an answer to the mystery: We don’t start conversations because we’re bad at predicting how much we’ll enjoy them. We underestimate how much others want to talk; we underestimate how much we will learn; we underestimate how quickly other people will want to go deep and get

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We too often think that deep conversations have to be painful or vulnerable conversations. I try to compensate for that by asking questions about the positive sides of life: “Tell me about a time you adapted to change.” “What’s working really well in your life?” “What are you most self-confident about?” “Which of your five senses is strongest?” “Ha

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TIP ONE: ASK DEEP QUESTIONS

A deep question asks someone about their values, beliefs or experiences. Rather than asking someone about the facts of their life (“Where do you live?”) it asks how they feel about their life. (“What’s the best part of where you live?”) Studies show that people love answering deep questions, because it gives us a chance ... See more

Some people get frustrated with small talk because the words themselves are not enlightening. But they’re focusing on the wrong thing. The spoken content of small talk is, it’s true, mostly vapid. However, the relevant information underneath the spoken content is fascinating if you learn to care about it. What you’re doing is mutually establishing

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A deep question asks about someone’s values, beliefs, judgments, or experiences—rather than just facts. Don’t ask “Where do you work?” Instead, draw out feelings or experiences: “What’s the best part of your job?” (One 2021 study found a simple approach to generating deep questions: Before speaking, imagine you’re talking to a close friend. What qu

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