Not at all, according to a new study with the perfect title: “Overly shallow?: Miscalibrated expectations create a barrier to deeper conversation.” Its authors — Michael Kardas, Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley — conducted a series of experiments. In some, their subjects were financial executives at a conference; in others, employees at a financial services company or international MBA students.
The results were eye-opening. Most people expected all the conversations to be more awkward than they turned out to be, but that was especially true for the deep conversations. Apparently, and surprisingly, those weren’t very cringeworthy at all. Less surprisingly , participants reported feeling much more connected and happy after the deep conversations than after the shallow ones.
Being human, we all like to feel connected and happy. Why then do we usually default to small talk as opposed to meaningful conversations? As the study shows, it’s not because we lack interest in the people we meet and their deeper thoughts and feelings. It’s instead because we’re afraid they won’t be interested in ours — when in fact they are. Feeling vulnerable, we’d rather not risk exposing ourselves.
Fear of social isolation is arguably also the reason we so often talk in jargon, politically-correct mumbo jumbo or evasive gibberish rather than expressing clearly and simply what we mean. We’d rather say nothing meaningful at all than risk being rejected. But if Kardas and his co-authors are right, we have little to fear.
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