173-The Social Connection Experiment Part-1

This episode is a minute longer, but you won’t even notice because this experiment is fascinating.  I’m breaking it down for you today. 

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and I was listening to Social Psychologist Nick Epley describe his social connection experiment and it’s so fascinating that I have to share it with you.  So Nick Epley is a professor and researcher out of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, his credentials are long and robust and if I started down that road we’d never get to the good stuff.

 

Epley’s experiment, that I am going to explain, started with really just an observation, he was thinking about literature demonstrating how important social connection was for our happiness and well-being. And yet, every day when he took the commuter train into the office in Chicago, he noticed people in very close proximity to other people, actively avoiding social connection. 

 

He knew, he wanted to do his own social experiment.  He asked for volunteers, and in exchange for a $5 Starbucks gift card he asked that they complete a survey.  With these volunteers, he created 3 groups. 

 

The first group that was told to just keep to themselves, just enjoy your solitude on the train ride in. That was their solitude condition. 

 

The second group was the control condition. They told them just to do whatever you normally do on the ride. And today it is normal to keep to yourself and sit alone or sit by yourself at least. 

 

In the third group, they were told to do something, perhaps somewhat radical. That is when somebody came and sat next to them, they were asked to try to form a connection with that person. Try to get to know something about him or her. 

 

And that's all he told the volunteers. 

 

After their commute, they were asked to fill out a survey.  The same survey for everyone.  The survey included a bunch of items, the first three were the ones that they really cared about.  The volunteers were asked how sad are you today after your commute? How happy are you? How pleasant was your commute compared to normal? 

 

Epley and his team averaged these first three together, and found something interesting. 

 

We talked in an earlier episode about how people might think that connecting with a stranger kind of stinks. It's unpleasant. It feels uncomfortable.  Actually, this experiment found that to be wrong. What they found was that people in the connection group were actually reporting the most positive experience, and people in the solitude group were reporting the least positive experience. 

 

So, just like we see over and over again in experiments, connecting with another person was pleasant, it improved your well-being and improved your mood. So, the question is, why don't people do it? Well that’s what we’ll dive into tomorrow. 

 

Connecting with strangers turns out to be surprisingly pleasant.

 

 

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