Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
- Fran Lebowitz
We all talk - that's human nature. But do we talk about big topics or small topics? Do we engage in big talk, as it were, or simply small talk? And what does our style say about us?
I am a very good small talker. I can chatter away with almost anybody about anything: the weather, the local sports teams, or last night's television shows. Cocktail conversations are my forté, and I have always assumed that was an unalloyed good thing, an indicator of my glibness if not more profoundly my social skills.
So, I must be a happy camper, right?
Perhaps not, according to a study* by Matthias Mehl and colleagues (2010). These researchers asked 79 college students to wear an audio recorder for four days as they went about their daily lives. At random intervals during waking hours, a 30-second recording was made of whatever was being said, resulting in almost 24,000 snippets, about 300 per participant. These snippets were then coded by the researchers into small talk - defined as the banal and uninvolved exchange of trivial information (about 18% of all recorded conversations) - or substantive talk - defined as the involved exchange of meaningful information (about 36%). (The remaining conversations could not be unambiguous coded into either category.)
Also known about the research participants was their happiness, assessed in several ways.
The results were straight-forward. First, happier participants spent more time talking to others, unsurprising finding given the social basis of happiness. Second, the extent of small talk was negatively associated with happiness. And third, the extent of substantive talk was positively associated with happiness. So, happy people are socially engaged with others, and this engagement entails matters of substance.
The authors acknowledged that the causal direction of these results is not clear. Causality could run from big talk to happiness, or it could run from happiness to big talk. It could run from small talk to unhappiness, or from unhappiness to small talk. But regardless, the results are interesting, at least to me, because they are not what I would have expected. I would have predicted that chattering away - small talking - would be an indicator of greater happiness, and that big talking would mark someone's darker - or at least ponderous - side. Au contraire, which is why research is important to do.
Mind you, for a conversation to earn a score of "substance" from these researchers, it did not have to focus on the meaning of life or the disclosure of deep secrets. Rather, "substantive" conversations were involved - that is, the person with whom the researcher participant talked actually mattered vis-à-vis the conversation.
Assuming that causality runs from the topics of our conversations to our psychological well-being, the "so what?" of the research seems pretty clear. Talk about what matters, especially to those who care about what you say.
* A previous Psychology Today blog entry, by Sophia Dembling, also discussed this research.
Reference
Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Holleran, S. E., & Clark, C. S. (2010). Eavesdropping on happiness: Well-being is related to having less small talk and more substantive conversations. Psychological Science, 21, 539-541.
