It is better to talk to strangers
We say goodbye, we exchange smiles, a few words. Sometimes news. A fast meeting of eyes and dialogues, the pace starts again comforted by the exchange, informed that today the stream is better avoided and that the goal is there, just beyond the path.
In the elevator, it is more complicated, “that other” occupy our living space. His body, his breath are in the area of our “bubble.” Generally, we choose silence accompanied by the urgent need to check if the corners of the walls are really perpendicular or curiosity about the buttons on the tops, shapes, and colors, and we find ourselves engaged in an obsessive interest in any maintenance nameplate. All while not meeting the gaze of the travel companion.
Let alone talk. Can a “good morning” be enough to change your mood? Sometimes yes. A chat, at the cafe, a speech, by bus or plane, an indication on the street improve the day. It will not become a friendship. Nor is it a question of attacking discourse in search of new loves. But of pure human relationship.
Toccatina for humanity. This has been demonstrated by research by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, conducted by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder. “Many people are convinced that loneliness is more pleasant than engaging in a conversation,” says Epley, who, in addition to being a professor of effective organizational management and leadership, teaches a course on how to plan a good life.
Toccatina for humanity. This has been demonstrated by research by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, conducted by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder. “Many people are convinced that loneliness is more pleasant than engaging in a conversation,” says Epley, who, in addition to being a professor of effective organizational management and leadership, teaches a course on how to plan a good life. Toccatina for humanity.
This has been demonstrated by research by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, conducted by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder. “Many people are convinced that loneliness is more pleasant than engaging in a conversation,” says Epley, who, in addition to being a professor of effective organizational management and leadership, teaches a course on how to plan a good life.
check out the talkwithstrangers
Their teams worked by capturing those moments that would seem empty of real relationships, in waiting rooms, on buses, trains, and planes.
Which are actually dense with relationships, as Paul Watzlawick and the Palo Alto school showed, forerunners and cornerstones of neuroscience: “Since behavior is communication it is not possible not to communicate,” he argued in the “Pragmatics of human communication” and “In every communication exchange a social relationship is created between the communicants that go beyond the simple transmission of the message.”
To demonstrate that not only does it exist but, if done explicitly, communication is good, Epley and colleagues have recruited commuters at Chicago stations asking to break the paradigm according to which it is not good to look at a stranger and let alone attack.
In the experimentation (paid with a $ 5 voucher for coffee), they asked groups of people to imagine starting a conversation on the train: Could it be pleasant? Could they feel happy later?
Then, divided into “speakers” and “loners,” commuters began their journey, some with the task of exchanging small talk with strangers, others with that of replicating their routine of silent commuters. Result?
Everyone who chatted said they had a pleasant time. Not only that, but even the strangers involved had also admitted that the journey had been shorter. “They all seemed happier, unlike the loners,” explained Epley. “There is a sort of reluctance towards the stranger in our societies, which is expressed in different ways,” says Oscar Brenifier, author of “The book of philosophical opposites” (Isbn), who teaches practical philosophy in his courses in practical philosophy. art of dialogue. Rooted above all in Anglo-Saxon countries, where Puritanism has educated at a certain distance, both physical and psychological.
While there are cultures, such as that of the Mediterranean, for which it is natural to speak with a stranger because the “foreigner” has represented trade opportunities in the past. And, utility aside, history has shown that often dialogue even with those who do not know each other is a liberating experience, from which pleasure and the feeling of personal success derive ».
By drawing up a list of benefits there are those who say that a chat on the plane is never empty, it opens up to other reflections, or that in the waiting room of the dentist he discovered he was able to speak or feel inserted in the world .. «Find out that you are in contact with the world,» says Eleonora, a commuter on the Milan-Pavia section. “I will not forget an elderly gentleman who was holding a card full of numbers.
It was not reassuring. I had common sense, and I smiled. He was a mathematician who had moved to teach at the Polytechnic. It was a conversation full of ideas ». Sometimes these are sensational encounters: “It was discovered that an old boy who had participated in the 1936 Winter Olympics was sitting next to me in the subway”, says Diego, a passionate skier. Even though everyone now has their ears connected to cell phones and talking becomes rude.” Drawing up a list of the benefits, there are those who say that a chat on the plane is never empty, it opens up to other reflections.
“When we speak, we reactivate the neuronal circuits that expose us to emotional experiences,” says Enrica Quaroni of Communication Models, a teacher of neurolinguistic programming to managers. “The opinion of oneself and of the other is strengthened, and emotions with which one needed to reckon are recirculated.”
Furthermore, Quaroni continues, a variation is created, and even if momentary, it is significant enough to put learning by difference into play. “Of course it is a matter of breaking the defense psycho-trap in advance,” says Giorgio Nardone, psychotherapist and founder of the Strategic Therapy Center of Arezzo. “For social rules, closeness is not dignified,” says Nardone, who has recently published Psicotrappole (Ponte alle Grazie). “We defend ourselves and thus create a vicious circle of rejection.”
To put it again with Paul Watzlawick: “Every event of communication is inserted in a circular circuit whereby every event is simultaneously stimulus-response – reinforcement.” It communicates globally. «Starting from the non-verbal,» Nardone points out: a look, a smile with whoever we meet triggers a welcoming process, as well as activating mirror neurons. It makes people feel accepted, important. Then we move on to dialogue, that is, to the exchange of intelligence and perspectives.
The well-being of meeting a stranger is worth as much as a therapeutic session, but like that, it must remain in the setting, with a beginning and an end ». In short, neither friends nor lovers. Hello, good morning, and who knows .. maybe again in this section. “Each communication event is inserted in a circular circuit whereby each event is simultaneously a stimulus-response – reinforcement.”
It communicates globally. «Starting from the non-verbal,» Nardone points out: a look, a smile with whoever we meet triggers a welcoming process, as well as activating mirror neurons. It makes people feel accepted, important. Then we move on to dialogue, that is, to the exchange of intelligence and perspectives.
The well-being of meeting a stranger is worth as much as a therapeutic session, but like that, it must remain in the setting, with a beginning and an end ». In short, neither friends nor lovers. Hello, good morning, and who knows .. maybe again in this section. “Each communication event is inserted in a circular circuit whereby each event is simultaneously a stimulus-response – reinforcement.”
It communicates globally. «Starting from the non-verbal,» Nardone points out: a look, a smile with whoever we meet triggers a welcoming process, as well as activating mirror neurons. It makes people feel accepted, important. Then we move on to dialogue, that is, to the exchange of intelligence and perspectives.
The well-being of meeting a stranger is worth as much as a therapeutic session, but like that, it must remain in the setting, with a beginning and an end ». In short, neither friends nor lovers. Hello, good morning, and who knows .. maybe again in this section. A smile with whoever we meet triggers a reception process, as well as activating mirror neurons. It makes people feel accepted, important. Then we move on to dialogue, that is, to the exchange of intelligence and perspectives.
The well-being of meeting a stranger is worth as much as a therapeutic session, but like that, it must remain in the setting, with a beginning and an end ». In short, neither friends nor lovers. Hello, good morning, and who knows .. maybe again in this section. A smile with whoever we meet triggers a reception process, as well as activating mirror neurons.
It makes people feel accepted, important. Then we move on to dialogue, that is, to the exchange of intelligence and perspectives. The well-being of meeting a stranger is worth as much as a therapeutic session, but like that, it must remain in the setting, with a beginning and an end ». In short, neither friends nor lovers. Hello, good morning, and who knows .. maybe again in this section.