If you’ve any doubt that a good conversation goes a long way with family, friends, or colleagues, a collection of new studies out of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University suggests that people think about their conversation partners long after the conversation has ended. They remember their stories, revisit their advice, and replay their criticisms – they may even like their conversation partners more than the partner realizes. These phenomena have been coined the Thought Gap and the Liking Gap.
The social psychologists conducted eight studies in which they explored the possibility that people would systematically underestimate how much their conversation partners think about them following interactions. They discovered evidence for this thought gap in a variety of situations, including field conversations in a dining hall, “getting acquainted” conversations in the lab, intimate conversations among friends, and arguments between romantic partners.
Throughout the eight different contexts in which the Thought Gap was studied, there remained an overarching theme: after walking away from a conversation, people continued to replay the interaction but assumed that their partner had moved on. “The Thought Gap may blind people to the basic truth that our friends think about us just as much as we think about them after conversations,” the study notes. Several further studies investigated a potential explanation for the thought gap: we know our own thoughts but can’t read the thoughts of others, despite clues sometimes offered by looks and body language. The thought gap enlarged when conversations became more pertinent and as people’s thoughts garnered more time to amass after a conversation.
It seems that collectively, these studies demonstrate that individuals ponder on their conversation partners’ minds more than they know – and like them, more than the partner thinks. The Thought Gap and the Liking Gap, taken together, suggest that people are commonly cynical about the “the content and frequency” of others’ thoughts about them. Fixating on our interactions and perceived “social shortcomings” may be anxiety-inducing sometimes, but maybe we can have positive impacts when we attempt to fix them. We obsess over the joke that didn’t land or the name we forgot. Perhaps we mull over the careless thing we shouldn’t have said, and all that rumination or pondering might just help us to become better conversationalists, better friends, or better family. For the holiday season, it turns out we don’t always have to second guess ourselves or assume the worst; we can take comfort in the power of good conversation.
Think positively & we’ll see you on the trail,
Lisa
