Why You Should Reach Out to Old Friends Now

Source: VinzentWeinbeer/Pixabay

We probably all have people we occasionally think about reconnecting with—people we used to be close to but lost touch with over the years.

I think about one of my best friends in high school, whom I have not spoken to in nearly 20 years, and my roommates from college. There was a time when I spent every day with them. I wonder how they are and think about trying to reconnect. With all the time that has passed since we were close, it feels a bit like that ship has sailed.

But new research suggests that might not be the case—we often underestimate how much reaching out to someone will be appreciated.

Across 13 different experiments, Liu and colleagues (2022) consistently found that people who were assigned to reach out to someone they hadn’t been in touch with for a while expected that person to feel less appreciated compared to how appreciated people who were assigned to receive contact from someone they hadn’t seen in a while actually felt. In other words, when making the contact, we don’t think it will be that big of a deal, but when we receive it, we realize it is pretty nice to have someone reach out to us.

The researchers used several approaches. People recalled when they had reached out to someone, or someone had reached out to them. They had people think of someone they know but haven’t talked to in a while and then imagine sending or receiving contact from them.

They conducted field studies where they had college students write notes (and sometimes include gifts) to someone from their social circle with whom they typically had pleasant interactions but had not talked in a while. The researchers then actually sent those notes and gifts and compared the sender's appreciation predictions with the receiver's actual appreciation. Across all of the different types of methods they used, the results of underestimating appreciation were consistent.

So why don’t we realize how much people will appreciate an attempt to reconnect? It appears the answer is the element of surprise—the person on the receiving end is more focused on the pleasant surprise of the unexpected contact than the person making the contact realizes, and being pleasantly surprised promotes appreciation (similar to how we appreciate a partner’s sacrifices more when they are unexpected).

In one study, when the researchers had people imagine reaching out to someone (or having someone reach out to them) because it was expected as part of a program they were in, appreciation was lower, and there was no underestimation effect (driven mainly by the recipient not being as appreciative). So it seems that when people expect to hear from someone they haven’t had contact with in a while, they don’t feel as appreciative, and their level of appreciation is more in line with what the person making the contact would expect.

People are also more likely to underestimate how much a nice gesture will be appreciated when they reach out to a weak tie than a strong tie. In general, appreciation is higher when it is a strong tie (someone we are close to), but we are also more accurate at predicting how appreciative they feel. We still underestimate their appreciation, but not quite as much.

Consistent with other research I’ve written about, showing we make mistakes as gift-givers and underestimate how good people will feel after receiving a letter of gratitude, this research highlights another way we may miss out on social connections because we underestimate their value.

Perhaps it is time for me to look up some of my old friends and see how they are doing. And maybe we can all learn to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes when deciding whether to reach out to someone or do something nice for them—it seems that we are more accurate about how it will feel if we stop thinking about it from the perspective of the giver and instead imagine being the recipient of a kind gesture.

Facebook image: SeventyFour/Shutterstock

LinkedIn image: GaudiLab/Shutterstock