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“Talk is silver, silence is gold” – apparently not after all. According to a recent scientific study published in the Personaliy and Social Psychology Bulletin, being considerate in conversation may not be the best way to make friends or get to know people in general.
The common assumption regarding talkativeness tends to be that less leads to more social success. Dale Carnegie, a U.S. communication and motivational coach in the field of positive thinking, writes in his guide to social self-improvement, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” about the importance of holding back in a conversation because the people you’re talking to will always be more interested in you than in what others are saying.
What science says
Researchers at Harvard University and the University of Virginia base their studies on the assumption that you are perceived as more likable when you talk less than the person you are talking to. They conducted a series of studies to determine whether talking less makes others like us more. To do this, participants had to imagine conversations before diving into a real conversation. What was surprising about the results was that the majority assumed they would be liked more if they talked less. However, the research also showed that the participants who spoke more were likelier when it was not an imaginary conversation but a real-life confrontation. Furthermore, the researchers found that people tend to believe that different conversational goals require different amounts of talking time.
The bottom line
The study results thus suggest that people tend to operate in conversations with two general misconceptions. One is reticence, believing they will be liked more as a result, and the other is the belief that they will appear likable if they speak less than half the time. So this misconception is widespread. The latest study makes it much more apparent whether the goal is to be liked, excited or have fun – talking more seems to be the formula for real conversational success.
- source: freizeit.at/picture:
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