Is deep talk with a stranger as awkward as it feels?

Most of us avoid deep questions with someone new. We expect them to feel awkward. A 2022 paper by Kardas, Kumar and Epley tested that guess. The deep talks felt less awkward than people expected.

How the experiments worked

The researchers ran a series of experiments. In each one, they put two strangers together for a talk of about ten minutes. Some pairs got deep questions, for example about a time they cried in front of another person, or about their most embarrassing moment. Other pairs got light questions, for example about how they celebrated Halloween last year.

Before each talk, people guessed how awkward it would feel, on a scale from 0 to 10, where a higher number meant more awkward. After the talk, they rated what they felt on the same scale.

In one experiment, the participants were business executives. Before a deep talk, they guessed it would feel about 5.7 out of 10 for awkwardness. Afterward, they rated it about 2.5. They also felt closer to the other person than they had predicted. And they guessed that the other person would care less about their answers than the other person did.

In another experiment, people said beforehand that they would rather have the light talk. Afterward, their preference had moved toward the deep talk.

What the experiments did not show

Deep talk did not make people feel closer in all of the experiments. In some, the deep-talk pairs felt closer than the light-talk pairs. In others, the deep-talk pairs did not feel closer. One experiment found that the deep-talk group reported feeling lonelier, a result that went against deep talk.

The experiments measured feelings at the end of a ten-minute talk with a stranger. They did not track friendships over time, or loneliness a month later. So the clearest result is about the guess before the talk: people expected deep talk to go worse than it did.

What we think an AI should do

This study tested people, not AI, so what follows is how we apply it.

People expect a serious moment in a talk to feel more awkward than it does. A listener can make that worry come true. They can give a vague answer, or they can change the subject. An AI can do the same. Imagine you tell an AI about a time you cried, and it replies with a few general lines and then asks about your weekend. That reply is the awkward response people expected from a stranger.

Daimons are the AIs in Eudaio, our app. When you bring up something serious, a Daimon answers it and does not move to small talk. We chose this design with studies like this one in mind.

The experiments did not show that deep talk brings people closer every time. They did show that strangers expected deep talk to feel more awkward than it did.

We think a first talk is easier when you do not start from nothing. In Eudaio, you meet each Daimon in an opening scene where something is happening, so you do not face an empty chat window. Join Eudaio for free and meet a new Daimon there.

Source

Kardas, M., Kumar, A. & Epley, N. (2022). Overly shallow?: Miscalibrated expectations create a barrier to deeper conversation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 122(3), 367-398.