Behavioral psychologist Nick Epley joins me to discuss small talk with strangers, and how certain misconceptions keep us from saying hello more often or getting deeper into more meaningful conversations.

I kept finding myself reading about talking to strangers and small talk ever since my episode last January with Dylan Reid, when we spoke about public space. And the more I read, the more often I found I was reading about Nick Epleys work and in his work what comes out is just how wrong we can be in our assumptions about others in conversation. If we can understand that we have “miscalibrated expectations” about others interest and our own enjoyment in conversation, perhaps we can get over this reluctance to engage with strangers. We confront this with other potential barriers including introversion, cultural norms and technolgy. This research has totally changed Nicks own life. Will it change yours? The stakes couldnt be bigger. Improved social lives increase happiness and longevity and improved sociality could rebuild our frazzled societies through more caring connections with those in our daily lives.

Nicholas Epley is the John Templeton Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science, and Director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. We dig into his paper, co-written with Michael Kardas and Amit Kumar, “Overly Shallow? Miscalibrated Expectations Create a Barrier to Deeper Conversations” (2022) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, and his book Mindwise (2014). Published in more than two dozen empirical journals, his work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Wired, and National Public Radio.

Nick recommends... practice inspiration from the hilarious and addictive vlog “100 Days of Rejection” with Jia Jiang (2012), https://www.rejectiontherapy.com/100-days-of-rejection-therapy

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