Discoveries

September 20, 2022

Chatterbox Joy

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Ever strike up a conversation with someone, only to unleash a stream of chatter from the other person that seemingly won’t end?

Turns out that these talkative folks are more likable, Psychology Today reported.

In a new paper, researchers at the University of Virginia asked college students to engage in a seven-minute conversation with a stranger, while being guided by a computer program that monitored each person’s turn to speak and the length of their chats.

The computer also randomly assigned participants to speak between 30 and 70 percent of the time. Participants then rated how much they liked their companion after the chat.

Surprisingly, participants were more liked when they talked more than half the time. The team suggested that this chatty attitude allows conversation partners to know more about each other and give them more to like.

Even so, they acknowledged that the study took place in a controlled setting: The conversation topics were assigned in advance and the amount of time volunteers spoke was controlled by the computer.

Real life is more chaotic and there is no time to prep for topics.

The authors hope that future studies can help determine if and when the average person, in a typical conversation, should speak up more often.

In the meantime, psychologists offered the following tips to be a scintillating conversationalist: Share personal details, listen attentively to the other person, and don’t be too hard on yourself if you talk too much.

This story originally appeared in the September 20, 2022 newsletter, Apple from the Tree.