A recent research was looking to find answers to the question whether ‘happy life characterized by shallow, happy-go-lucky moments and trivial small talk, or by reflection and profound social encounters’?
79 people were recruited for the purposes of the research over a 4 day period. (More on the mechanics here.)
The results were amazing. Just to mention a few:
- higher well-being was associated with spending less time alone, and more time talking to others
- further, higher well-being was associated with having less small talk, and having more substantive conversations
- for example, compared with the unhappiest participants, the happiest participants spent about 25% less time alone and about 70% more time talking
- they also had roughly one third as much small talk and twice as many substantive conversations
The research group also wanted to test whether personality differences accounted for these effects and found the following:
participants who were happier than one would have predicted on the basis of their personality, had more―and more substantive―conversations than their less happy counterparts with similar personalities.
Together, the present findings demonstrate that the happy life is social rather than solitary, and conversationally deep rather than superficial.
The results raise the interesting possibility that happiness can be increased by facilitating substantive conversations.
Author credits:
Matthias R. Mehl, University of Arizona
Simine Vazire2, Washington University in St. Louis
Shannon E. Holleran, University of Arizona
C. Shelby Clark University of Arizona
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