Scientists tracked strangers, roommates, and workshop participants — they all made the same surprising misjudgement.
Most people are too pessimistic about how much strangers like them.
So, simply relaxing and just being yourself is a great way to make friends.
When meeting strangers, people tend to get very involved in their own worries and fail to spot positive signs from others.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons people feel that some special effort is required to get others to like them.
In reality, it is better to let go of these anxieties and enjoy the moment.
Dr Gus Cooney, study co-author, said:
“Our research suggests that accurately estimating how much a new conversation partner likes us–even though this a fundamental part of social life and something we have ample practice with–is a much more difficult task than we imagine.”
The ‘liking gap’
For the studies, people meeting for the first time asked each other standard ice-breaker questions, such as: where are you from and what hobbies do you like?
The results showed that they tended to like the other person more than they thought the other person liked them.
Judges watched the videotapes and noticed that there was a ‘liking gap’.
People were consistently underestimating how much other people like them.
Professor Margaret S. Clark, study co-author, said:
“They seem to be too wrapped up in their own worries about what they should say or did say to see signals of others’ liking for them, which observers of the conservations see right away.”
Too pessimistic
This ‘liking gap’ contrasts strongly with the fact that most people overestimate their abilities in other areas.
Dr Erica Boothby, the study’s first author, and Dr Cooney, explained:
“The liking gap works very differently.
When it comes to social interaction and conversation, people are often hesitant, uncertain about the impression they’re leaving on others, and overly critical of their own performance.
In light of people’s vast optimism in other domains, people’s pessimism about their conversations is surprising.”
They continued:
“We’re self-protectively pessimistic and do not want to assume the other likes us before we find out if that’s really true.
As we ease into new neighborhood, build new friendships, or try to impress new colleagues, we need to know what other people think of us.
Any systematic errors we make might have a big impact on our personal and professional lives.”
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Boothby et al., 2018).
