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Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

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Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#21
post #8
post #5

One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like to talk about themselves and they’ll like you more if you let them do that in a conversation. I’m paraphrasing. This research seems to counter that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...

I believe the conversational meta has shifted in the last 80 years. But more than that, people like to talk about themselves IFF they feel safe and unjudged.

any recs on resources on latest "conversational meta"?

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#23
post #5

One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like to talk about themselves and they’ll like you more if you let them do that in a conversation. I’m paraphrasing. This research seems to counter that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...

I find the conversations can be awkward if you go too far in that direction. And it can feel like an interview. The best conversations are give and take where both sides talk almost an equal amount of time

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32542260: Good conversations have lots of doorknobs

Related article you might find interesting

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#26

"Some people find some other people more likable when those people speak more in a conversation, but drawing any other conclusions than that would be fantastically stupid on its own merits, and doubly so given the recent crises in this field." There, I fixed it for you.

Is that how you do science? I can't make my predictions 100% accurate, therefore there's nothing I can say about the subject at all.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#27
post #7
post #3

An overview of the paper by the author: https://theconversation.com/people-think-they-should-talk-le...

Does it have the full text? It’s a good journal but there have been many methods problems in psychology research. It strikes me as a finding that would be very sensitive to sample issues and other potential confounds.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33844801.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#28
There are so many effects here that no advice this unguarded has any chance of being correct.

1) there is an economic consideration. 100% of the conversation time must be used. By the pigeonhole principle, someone is going to have to speak at least proportionately, or theres going to be silence. How appreciated overtalkers are is proportional to the average utilization of the conversation time for the people being conversed with.

2) Observational research of the form, "people who do X have better lives", is immediately invalidated as soon as it becomes popular. For a similar example, impostor syndrome became a huge buzzword, and all of a sudden everyone who had any reason at all to think they were underperforming was just a victim of impostor syndrome. This happened basically overnight. People who have been advised to shut up by their parents or researchers or therapists or the media vastly outnumber those who have been encouraged to talk more. Aside from creating an influx to the quiet part of the population, this interacts with point 1, and the next point which is...

3) Whether you are a good conversationalist depends on your audience, and how interesting you are, far far more than it depends on your ratio. People who are interesting to listen to are rewarded with interest when they talk. They are much less likely to be swayed by "research" that suggests that they should do something different. They already probably have what they want.

4) conversations are not independent. Whatever your ratio of talking to listening is, it should tend towards the central value the longer you spend with the conversational group. Of course this research is explicitly limited in scope, but the "false belief" people have, may actually be a long term heuristic. "This person will like me more in the long run if we figure out something to talk about that we both essentially contribute equally to.

5) that last arrow runs in reverse as well. The rule that people like you more when you talk more is exactly reversed. You talk more when you detect that people like you. But both rules are valid, because as a human, you only care about situations in which you like each other, and in that case it is strategic to share the conversation, so you talk less in order to show them your interest in what they have to say because of the golden rule.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#29
post #8
post #5

One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like to talk about themselves and they’ll like you more if you let them do that in a conversation. I’m paraphrasing. This research seems to counter that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...

I believe the conversational meta has shifted in the last 80 years. But more than that, people like to talk about themselves IFF they feel safe and unjudged.

Agree that this seems to be true. Especially in white-collar / middle-class society, I suspect (no idea how to quantify this) that styles of conversation have dramatically changed and everyone has gotten much more polite and... docile? and, basically, unappealing.

Re: Mistaken beliefs about how much to talk in conversations

#30
post #12
post #5

One of the often repeated pearls of wisdom from How to Win Friends and Influence People[0] by Dale Carnegie, is people like to talk about themselves and they’ll like you more if you let them do that in a conversation. I’m paraphrasing. This research seems to counter that. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...

Another pearl of his is to be "profuse in your praise". Even if it risks sounding empty or pure flattery, because it always leaves a good impression and works.

Profuse praise is so weird and off-putting to be a recipient of. I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe this was true however many years ago but it doesn't feel true all the time today.
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