if you If you’ve ever spoken to someone and then felt like you would have preferred to have spoken to a brick wall, you’ll likely agree with Rebecca West: “There is no such thing as conversation,” the novelist and literary critic writes in one of her short story collections. Harsh voice“That’s an illusion. There are just intersecting monologues.”
If you feel like your conversations leave no impression on the people around you, that’s the definition of existential isolation. Perhaps you’ve experienced this on a bad date, a terrible dinner party, or an endless family get-together.
Psychological research has revealed many habits and biases that put barriers between ourselves and others. If we want to better connect with the people around us, we must learn how to overcome them. Luckily, the fix is very easy to implement: a small change in your conversation style can have huge benefits.
Let’s start with the sin of inattention: “The art of conversation is the art of hearing and being heard,” wrote the early 19th-century essayist William Hazlitt. About the author’s conversationPublished in 1820, “Some of the best talkers are, for this reason, the worst people to deal with.”
Hezlitt noted that many of his literary acquaintances, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Stendhal, and William Wordsworth, were so intent on showing off their own wit and intellect that they lacked the basic courtesy of listening to others. Instead, he urged him to emulate the painter James Northcote, who was the best listener and, consequently, the best conversationalist he knew: “Though I never dined or drank with Mr. Northcote, I have lived with undiminished enjoyment in conversation with him for as long as I can remember,” Hezlitt wrote. Who wouldn’t want to part with an acquaintance on such a feeling?
The easiest way to achieve this is to ask more questions, but surprisingly many people don’t develop this habit effectively. Karen Phan, who earned her PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard University, said: Invite over 130 participants The researchers invited participants into the lab to spend 15 minutes pairing up and chatting over online instant messenger, and found that even during those 15 minutes, the frequency of questions asked varied widely, ranging from as little as four questions or less to as many as nine questions or more.
Asking more questions can make a big difference in how well you like the other person. Another experimentHuang’s team analyzed recordings of people’s conversations during speed-dating events and found that some people consistently asked more questions than others, and this significantly predicted the likelihood of getting a second date.
It’s easy to see why questions are so appealing: they demonstrate a desire to deepen mutual understanding and give you the opportunity to validate each other’s experiences. But even if you ask lots of questions, you might not be asking the right ones. In his analysis, Huang considered six different categories of questions. For example:
1. Introduction
Hello!
How are you?
2. Follow-up
I am planning a trip to Canada.
Cool, awesome. Have you been there before?
3. Full Switch
I work at a dry cleaning store.
What do you like to do as a hobby?
4. Partial Switching
I’m not a big outdoorsy person, but I wouldn’t be opposed to an occasional hike or something.
Did you go to the beach in Boston often?