Ed note: We got an important recent reminder from Cornelius that “Post COVID Self Imposed Isolation” is a sad reality. How can we bring more joy into gathering together, introducing ourselves to a new move-in, do less take-outs, etc. We are social animals. So what are your ideas. Here’s one. How about Mariner’s fans gather in the Sky Lounge on Thursday to watch the playoff game together? BYO drinks and snacks!
by David Brooks in the NYT (thanks to Mary M.)
One day Nicholas Epley was commuting by train to his office at the University of Chicago. As a behavioral scientist he’s well aware that social connection makes us happier, healthier and more successful and generally contributes to the sweetness of life. Yet he looked around his train car and realized: Nobody is talking to anyone! It was just headphones and newspapers.
Questions popped into his head: What the hell are we all doing here? Why don’t people do the thing that makes them the most happy?
He discovered that one of the reasons people are reluctant to talk to strangers on a train or plane is they don’t think it will be enjoyable. They believe it will be awkward, dull and tiring. In an online survey only 7 percent of people said they would talk to a stranger in a waiting room. Only 24 percent said they would talk to a stranger on a train.
But are these expectations correct? Epley and his team have conducted years of research on this. They ask people to make predictions going into social encounters. Then, afterward, they ask them how it had gone.
They found that most of us are systematically mistaken about how much we will enjoy a social encounter. Commuters expected to have less pleasant rides if they tried to strike up a conversation with a stranger. But their actual experience was precisely the opposite. People randomly assigned to talk with a stranger enjoyed their trips consistently more than those instructed to keep to themselves. Introverts sometimes go into these situations with particularly low expectations, but both introverts and extroverts tended to enjoy conversations more than riding solo.
It turns out many of us wear ridiculously negative antisocial filters. Epley and his team found that people underestimate how positively others will respond when they reach out to express support. Research led by Stav Atir and Kristina Wald showed that most people underestimate how much they will learn from conversations with strangers.
- Did you know you can share 10 gift articles a month, even with nonsubscribers?
In other research, people underestimated how much they would enjoy longer conversations with new acquaintances. People underestimated how much they’re going to enjoy deeper conversations compared to shallower conversations. They underestimated how much they would like the person. They underestimated how much better their conversation would be if they moved to more intimate communications media, like talking on the phone rather than texting. In settings ranging from public parks to online, people underestimated how positively giving a compliment to another person would make the recipient feel.
We’re an extremely social species, but many of us suffer from what Epley calls undersociality. We see the world in anxiety-drenched ways that cause us to avoid social situations that would be fun, educational and rewarding.
It’s not just talking to strangers. Epley and his team asked people to compliment a friend or a family member. People consistently underestimated how positively their recipients would react.
In one experiment visitors to a skating rink in downtown Chicago were given a coupon for a cup of hot chocolate and were asked to give it away to a stranger. The givers anticipated that the gift would make the others feel good, but they underestimated how “big” this gesture would feel to the other person.
Many of these misperceptions are based on a deeper misperception. It’s about how people are seeing you. Entering into a conversation, especially with strangers, is hard. People go in with doubts about their own competence: Will they be able to start a conversation well, or communicate their thoughts effectively?
But research suggests that when people are looking at you during a conversation, they are not primarily thinking about your competence. They are thinking about your warmth. Do you seem friendly, kind and trustworthy? They just want to know you care.
Epley’s research illuminates a mystery I’ve been thinking about for a while. Many of us have been writing about the breakdown of social relationships. Books now appear with titles like “The Lonely Century,” “The Crisis of Connection,” and “Lost Connections.”
But mass loneliness is a perversity. If a bunch of people are lonely, why don’t they just hang out together? Maybe it’s because people approach potential social encounters with unrealistically anxious and negative expectations. Maybe if we understood this, we could alter our behavior.
My general view is that the fate of America will be importantly determined by how we treat each other in the smallest acts of daily life. That means being a genius at the close at hand: greeting a stranger, detecting the anxiety in somebody’s voice and asking what’s wrong, knowing how to talk across difference. More lives are diminished by the slow and frigid death of social closedness than by the short and glowing risk of social openness.
The question is, can we get better? I spoke to Epley about his work last week and found it extremely compelling. Then this week I was on a plane and found myself … putting on headphones. But Epley assures me that this research has transformed how he lives. Once you get used to filling your day with social exercise, it gets easier and easier, and more and more fun
Yesterday I phoned a friend I hadn’t spoken to in months. I had tuned in to some of a local CCRC’s meetings on YouTube. To my surprise, a former longtime neighbor of mine was representing a new committee formed to improve the residents’ mental health. My friend heartily agreed on the need, citing examples of great loneliness among residential acquaintances.
Sure, we are social beings, but we might also be realistic about casual conversations which have led nowhere or gone sour. Agreed, that would not stop a rational person from greeting their fellows in passing.
Way back in the ’70s, it was known that, if you want to improve your society, the best way to get to know others is to work together toward a common goal. You’d have a better chance of knowing who to trust and who to avoid. With the help of the Internet we can now even trace the political connections of some of those people we met with. (It was in a women’s group, wanting change in the early ’70s, much as demonstrating Iranian women seek today. No burkas, but, still, FBI informants.)
One suggestion made by that CCRC speaker was to visit residents in Assisted Living.
BINGO! Most CCRC Resident Councils represent Independent residents. Assisted Living, Memory Care and Nursing Home residents are OTHERED. Although the Others are every bit the residents that the Independents are…and more so. Those Other residents are tethered to the same facility For Their Medical Care.
Proposal: Create a group of residents savvy and bold enough to invite speakers – from outside the facility – to enlighten the group as to the practice of MEDICAL care within CCRCs.
Spoilers:
Do the assistants or nurses’ aides, on entry to an apartment, first check each box in the resident’s Medication Administration Record (MAR) before completing the tasks?
How are tasks such as recharging a resident’s electric chair listed?
Is the resident able to track who attended them, when, and in what order throughout the day? Can the resident’s visitors do likewise?
Who is responsible for changing the batteries in hearing aids? Without active batteries the hearing aids serve as ear plugs. How is this task listed?
Do nursing home residents have a box/receptacle for their mail delivery?
In Assisted Living, can a resident take off to ride their wheelchair down any outside hill they fancy?
Vitally important: Are residents and their family members or representatives introduced to the resident’s Medication Administration Record so they can read and comprehend it?
Can the facility administrators display their knowledge and understanding of the MAR?
For an informed, cognizant Residents’ Council, residents need to call it what it is – if it is – the COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT RESIDENTS.
Sylvia Peterson