Professor tells Culver students small social choices affect happiness

Author Nicholas Epley, a University of Chicago professor, told Culver Academies students that even in a hyperconnected world, people routinely avoid interactions with others that would make them happier.

“If social connection is so darn good for us, why do we so often seem to be reluctant to do it?” asked Epley, a social psychologist and author of “A Little More Social, How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection,” during an All-School Meeting. “Why do we so often seem to be not social enough for our own good, or choose to be unsocial?”

Small, everyday choices to engage with others, from simple conversations to expressions of kindness, play a significant role in improving happiness, strengthening relationships and shaping character, yet people often avoid those opportunities because they misjudge how those interactions will unfold, said Epley, a professor at the university’s Booth School of Business.

He led a 20-year research project that found that people have numerous chances every day to connect with other people and choose not to engage. Epley said the study grew out of something he noticed on a ride to work on a Chicago commuter train, where passengers sat hip to hip without speaking.

“We found over and over and over again that there are lots of opportunities, big and small, to connect with other people and people choose not to take them. Even when we're surrounded by other people, we often choose not to connect with them, or we hold back when we could connect with them,” he said.

He said his study found that many people underestimate how positively those social interactions will go.

“We think we’ll be rejected in the conversation more often than we are because we think somebody doesn’t want to have a deep conversation when, in fact, they’d be happy to,” he said.

Epley said that miscalculation isn’t guided by people’s actual experiences, but rather by their beliefs about social interaction.

“What really guides our social behavior are our social beliefs, our expectations,” Epley said. “We tend to underestimate how positively social interaction will turn out.”

Epley said this pattern extends to introverts and extroverts alike.

“What differentiates us across people, at least in terms of our sociality, is not so much how we experience social interaction, but how we believe we'll experience social interaction,” he said. “Extroverts tend to think that they will enjoy interacting more, that they'll get energy from it, and so choose to do it more. Those of us who are more introverted tend to think that we will find it to be awkward and unpleasant, and so try it less, right? We differ on our expectations.”

He said people can change how they experience life by changing the choices they make when it comes to social interaction.

“If you’d like to make your choices differently, that’s something that you can do,” he said. “You calibrate your beliefs. What we find is that if you want to live a little bit better day, a little better week, a little better month, reach out and connect with other people a little bit more often.”

Another factor is a failure to recognize the power of reciprocity in conversations. When people engage face to face, responses such as eye contact, smiles and laughter create a dynamic that strengthens connection.

“You reach out to somebody in a positive way, they tend to reach back to you in a positive way,” he said.

Technology can obscure that effect, Epley said, while a voice is powerful.

“Voice is a magical device for connecting us with other people,” he said. “It communicates what’s on your mind clearly. It communicates what you have a mind. And it connects you with the mind of another person.”

Even so, many people choose texting over talking, despite finding conversations more meaningful when they happen.

“We found that people overwhelmingly felt more connected when they talked on the phone than when they typed,” Epley said. “But if we’d given them the choice, they would have chosen poorly.”

Epley also tied social habits to leadership and character, arguing that consistent, small actions shape both.

“Character was all habits,” he said. “What good leaders do is they develop really good habits so that they are doing these things that are good for their leadership without really thinking about it.”

He encouraged students to build those habits gradually, suggesting they start by doing simple actions, such as smiling at people and saying “hello.” He also suggested going on a compliment walk, offering kind remarks to others.

“I love the hat. I love the shirt. You've got a big smile, and then just walk on. You're just practicing. Pick the easy things,” he said.

Epley said people tend to respond to small acts about as positively as they do to big acts.

In a time marked by division, Epley said personal interactions can also bridge larger gaps.

“It is a tragedy to avoid conversations that will turn out well and pull us together,” he said. “And all too often, we're having repeated tragedies this country that are overly divided and that's problematic.”

Epley said he believes that people have a lot more power to connect with other people than they realize.

“You just never know when these small things are going to have really, really big impacts on people,” he said. “You've got a lot more power than you think.”

For more information about Culver Academies, click here.