No Stranger Danger: New Study Sheds Light on Barriers to Engaging with New People
Atir, S., Zhao, X., & Echelbarger, M. (2023). Talking to strangers: Intention, competence, and opportunity. Current Opinion in Psychology, 51, 101588.
Introduction
Atir and colleagues (2023) shed light on a critical yet often overlooked aspect of social interaction: conversations with strangers. They introduce a novel framework that categorizes the obstacles to engaging with strangers into three domains: intention, competence, and opportunity. Root causes of undersociality are uncovered and pathways for research and interventions are discussed.
Methods
Authors conducted a comprehensive literature review method, synthesizing findings from a wide range of studies related to social interactions with strangers. This method allowed them to develop a cohesive framework, categorizing the barriers to engagement with a stranger into three main areas.
Results
- Intention: People often underestimate the positive outcomes of conversing with strangers and overestimate the potential costs, such as discomfort or awkwardness. For example, studies cited in the paper show that individuals who engage in conversations with strangers on public transportation report higher levels of happiness than those who keep to themselves, yet most people expect the opposite outcome.
- Competence: People may feel incompetent or anxious about their ability to engage with strangers effectively. For example people worry that personal questions will be poorly received or that asking for advice will make one appear less competent, when these conversational strategies actually often enhance likability and the perceived competence of the speaker.
- Opportunity: The contextual and situational factors may limit or enhance the chances of engaging with strangers. Digital environments for example reduce the likelihood of social interactions, thereby impacting general connectedness to strangers.
Discussion
Authors highlight prominent barriers to engaging with strangers. They suggest useful interventions could be public campaigns to recalibrate people’s beliefs about the benefits of social interactions, training programs to improve conversational competence, and the design of environments that encourage spontaneous interactions.
They suggest future research could explore the long-term effects of interventions designed to increase conversations with strangers, and investigate the role of digital platforms in facilitating or hindering social connections.
Implications for Mentoring Programs
- Recalibrate Expectations: Program staff should work with mentors and mentee’s to discuss barriers and benefits to engaging with new individuals. This may be especially helpful in supporting initial engagement in new professional mentoring dyads.
- Develop Conversational Competence: Mentors may benefit from training in conversational strategies such as active listening, asking open-ended questions, and appropriately disclosing personal experiences.
- Create Opportunities for Interaction: Mentoring programs should consider methods to encourage spontaneous conversations. This may be a particularly important focus within virtual mentoring programs. Further programs could also consider increasing engagement amongst mentors, to support in vivo skill building in engaging with strangers.
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