Will they be glad I reached out after all this time?

You think of someone you liked and have not talked to in a while. You start a message, and then you stop. They have moved on, you tell yourself, and they will not care much. A set of thirteen experiments tested that last guess.

What did the study test?

Liu, Rim, Min and Min ran the experiments. Participants thought of someone they had pleasant interactions with but had not contacted for some time. Sometimes this was someone they were close to, and sometimes someone they knew less well. The samples were undergraduates and online adults. Each participant sent this person a short note, or a note plus a small gift.

Before sending, the senders guessed how the other person would feel. Afterward, the recipients rated how they felt. The researchers averaged four ratings: how much the person appreciated the contact, felt grateful, felt thankful and felt pleased. The senders guessed too low, and the pattern held across the experiments. The paper first came out as a preprint in 2022, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published it in 2023.

Why do senders get it wrong?

Part of the reason is surprise. People who receive an unexpected note focus on the surprise more than senders predict. The gap between guessed and actual appreciation also grew when the sender was less close to the other person.

Our read is that the people we hesitate over most tend to be the less close ones, like an old colleague or a friend from a city you left. Those are the contacts where the studies found the larger gap.

What are the limits?

Everyone the senders contacted had a positive history with them. Nobody tested reaching out after a fight. In most cases, lost contact comes from life changes, like a move or a new job, not from conflict. So here "reaching out" means getting back in touch after two people drift apart. The paper describes each contact as a "brief message," but not every study's design required a brief message. And another explanation is possible. People may have picked contacts they wanted to hear from but doubted would get in touch in return. That choice could affect the results.

Our view on reaching out

We think the finding is useful because it claims little. Suppose someone you liked comes to mind, and you keep deciding not to write. The evidence points toward sending the message, at least when the two of you share a good history.

We also think the finding matters for anything that talks to people, AI included. If surprise is part of what makes a check-in welcome, then a check-in on a fixed schedule loses some of that welcome. A Daimon is one of the AIs you can chat with in Eudaio, and Daimons reach out too. Sometimes a Daimon sends the first message, to check in on you. If you do not answer, it may try once more, later, with something new to say. Then it stays quiet.

Whether that is the right balance is a fair question.

We think that choice belongs to you. In Eudaio, the chat menu lets you choose whether each Daimon may start the conversation, and when you turn it off, that Daimon waits for you, apart from reminders you asked for. Register on Eudaio and choose who writes first.

Source

Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L. & Min, K. E. (2023). The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(4), 754-771.