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TORONTO, Ontario — While small talk can sometimes seem trivial or mundane, a study shows it can help people improve their future interactions with each other, especially in a group setting. The UK study conducted by the University of Warwick recruited 338 participants to complete tests of personality and cognitive abilities before playing two strategy games with a partner. Half of the participants (168) had four minutes to chat with their partner before the matches while the other half (170) did not talk to each other beforehand. The results of this small study suggested that short conversations made a difference in how participants perceived each other and influenced how well they would do during a challenge with and against their partner. Before the games, the participants were asked to predict what their partners said during the personality test and whether they thought they would cooperate or act selfishly during the games. Those who had engaged in conversations before were more likely to accurately predict their partner’s personality, especially if they were extroverted or introverted. During a game called “public goods,” participants were given 20 pounds to contribute to a shared pot. The researchers said that a typical rational strategy for a single player would contribute nothing in the hope that he would take money from his partner without having to contribute his own. However, participants who had previously chatted contributed 30 percent more than those who had not. “We find that, for players who make small talk with their partner, cooperation in the public goods game increases when the partner is believed to be extroverted,” the study authors wrote in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One. The researchers theorized that participants who thought their partners were more extroverted could be due to their own bias to believe that their own extroverted personalities are reflected in people they meet. “Perceptions of extroversion can be colored by an additional self-projection bias that makes extroverts prone to project their extroversion or positive affect to those with whom they interact,” the study authors wrote. During the second game, which measured the competition between the participants, the players had to ask the researchers for an amount of money between £11 and £20. They were then asked to guess how much their partners asked for, and if they guessed a pound less than themselves, they would get extra money. The researchers found that those who rated themselves as similar to their partners or equally extroverted after a conversation had a harder time guessing how much money they were asking for. Ultimately, the researchers said that while the small interactions between them may seem insignificant, they can potentially help us understand different personalities and improve our interactions. “Through brief, seemingly insignificant interactions with others we become better able to predict the personalities of those we speak with, which in turn enhances our performance when we interact with them in the future,” the study authors said in a press release. x
