Author: Scotty Hendricks / Source: Big Think
- A new study finds that people consistently underestimate how much a new conversation partner liked them.
- The likability gap exists for almost everybody, but is more pronounced for the shy. It can also last for months despite regular meetings with the same person.
- The findings suggest we all try to play it safe with our appraisals of how much we’re liked, and point the way to better conversational habits for everybody.
Have you ever had a conversation with somebody and left not knowing if they liked you or not? Have you ever thought of the perfect thing to say long after the conversation ended? Has the ideal follow-up question that would have clinched the interview occurred to you long after it would have been useful? If you said yes to any of these, you’re in good company.
A study published in Psychological Science in September examined the difference between how well two people thought an initial conversation between them went. The scientists focused on the discrepancy between how much people thought their partner liked them and how much they were actually liked. The difference was often substantial.
The researchers found that this difference, which they dubbed the “liking gap,” was almost always present. People tended to underestimate how well a conversation went and supposed that their new acquaintance didn’t care for them. Test subjects who admitted to being shy, even slightly shy, had the worst go of it; with a liking gap larger than anybody else’s.
How did they do it?
The researchers carried out several experiments revolving around two people meeting for the first time and then answering questions on how it went.
In the first study, participants had a short conversation consisting of icebreakers and then filled out a questionnaire about it. They were asked questions about how much they liked the person they spoke to, how the conversation went, and how much they thought their partner liked them. It was found that most people liked the person they talked to while also thinking that person didn’t like them.
In a follow-up experiment, test subjects were placed in longer conversations and then asked questions similar to those of the previous test. It was found that…
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