Talking with strangers is surprisingly informative.

A meaningful amount of people's knowledge comes from their conversations with others. The amount people expect to learn predicts their interest in having a conversation (pretests 1 and 2), suggesting that the presumed information value of conversations guides decisions of whom to talk with. The results of seven experiments, however, suggest that people may systematically underestimate the informational benefit of conversation, creating a barrier to talking with-and hence learning from-others in daily life. Participants who were asked to talk with another person expected to learn significantly less from the conversation than they actually reported learning afterward, regardless of whether they had conversation prompts and whether they had the goal to learn (experiments 1 and 2). Undervaluing conversation does not stem from having systematically poor opinions of how much others know (experiment 3) but is instead related to the inherent uncertainty involved in conversation itself. Consequently, people underestimate learning to a lesser extent when uncertainty is reduced, as in a nonsocial context (surfing the web, experiment 4); when talking to an acquainted conversation partner (experiment 5); and after knowing the content of the conversation (experiment 6). Underestimating learning in conversation is distinct from underestimating other positive qualities in conversation, such as enjoyment (experiment 7). Misunderstanding how much can be learned in conversation could keep people from learning from others in daily life.

Misplaced Divides? Discussing Political Disagreement With Strangers Can Be Unexpectedly Positive.

Differences of opinion between people are common in everyday life, but discussing those differences openly in conversation may be unnecessarily rare. We report three experiments (N = 1,264 U.S.-based adults) demonstrating that people's interest in discussing important but potentially divisive topics is guided by their expectations about how positively the conversation will unfold, leaving them more interested in having a conversation with someone who agrees versus disagrees with them. People's expectations about their conversations, however, were systematically miscalibrated such that people underestimated how positive these conversations would be-especially in cases of disagreement. Miscalibrated expectations stemmed from underestimating the degree of common ground that would emerge in conversation and from failing to appreciate the power of social forces in conversation that create social connection. Misunderstanding the outcomes of conversation could lead people to avoid discussing disagreements more often, creating a misplaced barrier to learning, social connection, free inquiry, and free expression.

Surprisingly Happy to Have Helped: Underestimating Prosociality Creates a Misplaced Barrier to Asking for Help.

Performing acts of kindness increases well-being, yet people can be reluctant to ask for help that would enable others' kindness. We suggest that people may be overly reluctant because of miscalibrated expectations about others' prosocial motivation, underestimating how positively others will feel when asked for help. A pretest identified that interest in asking for help was correlated with expectations of how helpers would think and feel, but a series of scenarios, recalled experiences, and live interactions among adult participants in the United States (total N = 2,118) indicated that those needing help consistently underestimated others' willingness to help, underestimated how positively helpers would feel, and overestimated how inconvenienced helpers would feel. These miscalibrated expectations stemmed from underestimating helpers' prosocial motivation while overestimating compliance motivation. This research highlights a limitation of construing help-seeking through a lens of compliance by scholars and laypeople alike. Undervaluing prosociality could create a misplaced barrier to asking for help when needed.

Too Reluctant to Reach Out: Receiving Social Support Is More Positive Than Expressers Expect.

Receiving social support is critical for well-being, but concerns about a recipient's reaction could make people reluctant to express such support. Our studies indicate that people's expectations about how their support will be received predict their likelihood of expressing it (Study 1, N = 100 online adults), but these expectations are systematically miscalibrated. Participants who sent messages of support to others they knew (Study 2, N = 120 students) or who expressed support to a new acquaintance in person (Study 3, N = 50 adult pairs) consistently underestimated how positively their recipients would respond. A systematic perspective gap between expressers and recipients may explain miscalibrated expectations: Expressers may focus on how competent their support seems, whereas recipients may focus on the warmth it conveys (Study 4, N = 300 adults). Miscalibrated concerns about how to express support most competently may make people overly reluctant to reach out to someone in need.

Undervaluing Gratitude: Expressers Misunderstand the Consequences of Showing Appreciation.

Expressing gratitude improves well-being for both expressers and recipients, but we suggest that an egocentric bias may lead expressers to systematically undervalue its positive impact on recipients in a way that could keep people from expressing gratitude more often in everyday life. Participants in three experiments wrote gratitude letters and then predicted how surprised, happy, and awkward recipients would feel. Recipients then reported how receiving an expression of gratitude actually made them feel. Expressers significantly underestimated how surprised recipients would be about why expressers were grateful, overestimated how awkward recipients would feel, and underestimated how positive recipients would feel. Expected awkwardness and mood were both correlated with participants' willingness to express gratitude. Wise decisions are guided by an accurate assessment of the expected value of action. Underestimating the value of prosocial actions, such as expressing gratitude, may keep people from engaging in behavior that would maximize their own-and others'-well-being.

Group discussion improves lie detection.

Groups of individuals can sometimes make more accurate judgments than the average individual could make alone. We tested whether this group advantage extends to lie detection, an exceptionally challenging judgment with accuracy rates rarely exceeding chance. In four experiments, we find that groups are consistently more accurate than individuals in distinguishing truths from lies, an effect that comes primarily from an increased ability to correctly identify when a person is lying. These experiments demonstrate that the group advantage in lie detection comes through the process of group discussion, and is not a product of aggregating individual opinions (a "wisdom-of-crowds" effect) or of altering response biases (such as reducing the "truth bias"). Interventions to improve lie detection typically focus on improving individual judgment, a costly and generally ineffective endeavor. Our findings suggest a cheap and simple synergistic approach of enabling group discussion before rendering a judgment.

The Humanizing Voice: Speech Reveals, and Text Conceals, a More Thoughtful Mind in the Midst of Disagreement.

A person's speech communicates his or her thoughts and feelings. We predicted that beyond conveying the contents of a person's mind, a person's speech also conveys mental capacity, such that hearing a person explain his or her beliefs makes the person seem more mentally capable-and therefore seem to possess more uniquely human mental traits-than reading the same content. We expected this effect to emerge when people are perceived as relatively mindless, such as when they disagree with the evaluator's own beliefs. Three experiments involving polarizing attitudinal issues and political opinions supported these hypotheses. A fourth experiment identified paralinguistic cues in the human voice that convey basic mental capacities. These results suggest that the medium through which people communicate may systematically influence the impressions they form of each other. The tendency to denigrate the minds of the opposition may be tempered by giving them, quite literally, a voice.

Inferring Perspective Versus Getting Perspective: Underestimating the Value of Being in Another Person's Shoes.

People use at least two strategies to solve the challenge of understanding another person's mind: inferring that person's perspective by reading his or her behavior (theorization) and getting that person's perspective by experiencing his or her situation (simulation). The five experiments reported here demonstrate a strong tendency for people to underestimate the value of simulation. Predictors estimated a stranger's emotional reactions toward 50 pictures. They could either infer the stranger's perspective by reading his or her facial expressions or simulate the stranger's perspective by watching the pictures he or she viewed. Predictors were substantially more accurate when they got perspective through simulation, but overestimated the accuracy they had achieved by inferring perspective. Predictors' miscalibrated confidence stemmed from overestimating the information revealed through facial expressions and underestimating the similarity in people's reactions to a given situation. People seem to underappreciate a useful strategy for understanding the minds of others, even after they gain firsthand experience with both strategies.

The Sound of Intellect: Speech Reveals a Thoughtful Mind, Increasing a Job Candidate's Appeal.

A person's mental capacities, such as intellect, cannot be observed directly and so are instead inferred from indirect cues. We predicted that a person's intellect would be conveyed most strongly through a cue closely tied to actual thinking: his or her voice. Hypothetical employers (Experiments 1-3b) and professional recruiters (Experiment 4) watched, listened to, or read job candidates' pitches about why they should be hired. These evaluators rated a candidate as more competent, thoughtful, and intelligent when they heard a pitch rather than read it and, as a result, had a more favorable impression of the candidate and were more interested in hiring the candidate. Adding voice to written pitches, by having trained actors (Experiment 3a) or untrained adults (Experiment 3b) read them, produced the same results. Adding visual cues to audio pitches did not alter evaluations of the candidates. For conveying one's intellect, it is important that one's voice, quite literally, be heard.

Surprisingly good talk: Misunderstanding others creates a barrier to constructive confrontation.

Open communication is important for maintaining relationships when conflicts inevitably arise. Nevertheless, people may avoid constructive confrontation to the extent that they expect others to respond negatively. In experiments involving recalled (Experiment 1), imagined (Experiment 2), simulated (Experiment 3), and actual confrontations (Experiments 4a and 4b), we find that people's expectations are systematically miscalibrated such that they overestimate how negatively others respond to confrontation. These overly negative expectations stem, at least in part, from biased attention to potentially negative outcomes of a constructive confrontation (Experiment 5), and from failing to recognize the power of relationship-maintenance processes that are activated in direct conversations (Experiment 6). Underestimating how positively relationship partners will respond to an open, direct, and honest conversation about relationship concerns may create a misplaced barrier to confronting issues when they arise in relationships, thereby keeping people from confronting issues that would strengthen their relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A little good goes an unexpectedly long way: Underestimating the positive impact of kindness on recipients.

Performing random acts of kindness increases happiness in both givers and receivers, but we find that givers systematically undervalue their positive impact on recipients. In both field and laboratory settings (Experiments 1a through 2b), those performing an act of kindness reported how positive they expected recipients would feel and recipients reported how they actually felt. From giving away a cup of hot chocolate in a park to giving away a gift in the lab, those performing a random act of kindness consistently underestimated how positive their recipients would feel, thinking their act was of less value than recipients perceived it to be. Givers' miscalibrated expectations are driven partly by an egocentric bias in evaluations of the act itself (Experiment 3). Whereas recipients' positive reactions are enhanced by the warmth conveyed in a kind act, givers' expectations are relatively insensitive to the warmth conveyed in their action. Underestimating the positive impact of a random act of kindness also leads givers to underestimate the behavioral consequences their prosociality will produce in recipients through indirect reciprocity (Experiment 4). We suggest that givers' miscalibrated expectations matter because they can create a barrier to engaging in prosocial actions more often in everyday life (Experiments 5a and 5b), which may result in people missing out on opportunities to enhance both their own and others' well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Undervaluing the positive impact of kindness starts early.

Prosociality can create social connections that increase well-being among both givers and recipients, yet concerns about how another person might respond can make people reluctant to act prosocially. Existing research suggests these concerns may be miscalibrated such that people underestimate the positive impact their prosociality will have on recipients. Understanding when miscalibrated expectations emerge in development is critical for understanding when misplaced cognitive barriers might discourage social engagement and for understanding when interventions to build relationships could begin. Two experiments asking children (aged 8-17, Experiment 1; aged 4-7, Experiment 2) and adults to perform the same random act of kindness for another person document that both groups significantly underestimate how "big" the act of kindness will seem to recipients, and how positive their act will make recipients feel. Participants significantly undervalued the positive impact of prosociality across ages. Miscalibrated psychological barriers to social connection may emerge early in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Let it go: How exaggerating the reputational costs of revealing negative information encourages secrecy in relationships.

Keeping negative interpersonal secrets can diminish well-being, yet people nevertheless keep negative information secret from friends, family, and loved ones to protect their own reputations. Twelve experiments suggest these reputational concerns are systematically miscalibrated, creating a misplaced barrier to honesty in relationships. In hypothetical scenarios (Experiments 1, S1, and S2), laboratory experiments (Experiments 2 and 6), and field settings (Experiments 3 and 4), those who imagined revealing, or who actually revealed, negative information they were keeping secret expected to be judged significantly more harshly than recipients expected to judge, or actually judged, them. We theorized that revealers' pessimistic expectations stem not only from the cognitive accessibility of negative information (Experiment S3) but also from a perspective gap such that the negative outcomes of disclosing this information, compared to positive outcomes, are more accessible for prospective revealers than for recipients. Consistent with this mechanism, revealers' expectations were better calibrated when directed to focus on positive thoughts or when they considered revealing positive information (Experiments 5, 6, and S4). Revealers' miscalibrated expectations matter because they can guide decisions about whether to reveal information or conceal it as a secret (Experiment S5). As predicted, calibrating revealers' expectations increased their willingness to reveal negative information to others (Experiment 7), suggesting that miscalibrated fears of others' judgment create a misplaced barrier to honesty in relationships. Overestimating the reputational costs of disclosing negative information might leave people carrying a heavier burden of secrecy than would be optimal for their own well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Believers' estimates of God's beliefs are more egocentric than estimates of other people's beliefs.

People often reason egocentrically about others' beliefs, using their own beliefs as an inductive guide. Correlational, experimental, and neuroimaging evidence suggests that people may be even more egocentric when reasoning about a religious agent's beliefs (e.g., God). In both nationally representative and more local samples, people's own beliefs on important social and ethical issues were consistently correlated more strongly with estimates of God's beliefs than with estimates of other people's beliefs (Studies 1-4). Manipulating people's beliefs similarly influenced estimates of God's beliefs but did not as consistently influence estimates of other people's beliefs (Studies 5 and 6). A final neuroimaging study demonstrated a clear convergence in neural activity when reasoning about one's own beliefs and God's beliefs, but clear divergences when reasoning about another person's beliefs (Study 7). In particular, reasoning about God's beliefs activated areas associated with self-referential thinking more so than did reasoning about another person's beliefs. Believers commonly use inferences about God's beliefs as a moral compass, but that compass appears especially dependent on one's own existing beliefs.

Hello, stranger? Pleasant conversations are preceded by concerns about starting one.

Connecting with others makes people happier, but strangers in close proximity often ignore each other. Prior research (Epley & Schroeder, 2014) suggested this social disconnection stems from people misunderstanding how pleasant it would be to talk with strangers. Extending these prior results, in a field experiment with London-area train commuters, those assigned to talk with a stranger reported having a significantly more positive experience, and learning significantly more, than those assigned to a solitude or control condition. Commuters also expected a more positive experience if they talked to a stranger than in the solitude or control conditions. A second experiment explored why commuters nevertheless avoid conversation even when it is generally pleasant. Commuters predicted that trying to have a conversation would be less pleasant than actually having one because they anticipated that others would be uninterested in talking. These experiments clarify the precise aspects of social interaction that may be misunderstood. People may avoid pleasant conversations with strangers because of miscalibrated concerns about starting them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Overly shallow?: Miscalibrated expectations create a barrier to deeper conversation.

People may want deep and meaningful relationships with others, but may also be reluctant to engage in the deep and meaningful conversations with strangers that could create those relationships. We hypothesized that people systematically underestimate how caring and interested distant strangers are in one's own intimate revelations and that these miscalibrated expectations create a psychological barrier to deeper conversations. As predicted, conversations between strangers felt less awkward, and created more connectedness and happiness, than the participants themselves expected (Experiments 1a-5). Participants were especially prone to overestimate how awkward deep conversations would be compared with shallow conversations (Experiments 2-5). Notably, they also felt more connected to deep conversation partners than shallow conversation partners after having both types of conversations (Experiments 6a-b). Systematic differences between expectations and experiences arose because participants expected others to care less about their disclosures in conversation than others actually did (Experiments 1a, 1b, 4a, 4b, 5, and 6a). As a result, participants more accurately predicted the outcomes of their conversations when speaking with close friends, family, or partners whose care and interest is more clearly known (Experiment 5). Miscalibrated expectations about others matter because they guide decisions about which topics to discuss in conversation, such that more calibrated expectations encourage deeper conversation (Experiments 7a-7b). Misunderstanding others can encourage overly shallow interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Undersociality: miscalibrated social cognition can inhibit social connection.

A person's well-being depends heavily on forming and maintaining positive relationships, but people can be reluctant to connect in ways that would create or strengthen relationships. Emerging research suggests that miscalibrated social cognition may create psychological barriers to connecting with others more often. Specifically, people may underestimate how positively others will respond to their own sociality across a variety of social actions, including engaging in conversation, expressing appreciation, and performing acts of kindness. We suggest that these miscalibrated expectations are created and maintained by at least three mechanisms: differential construal, uncertain responsiveness, and asymmetric learning. Underestimating the positive consequences of social engagement could make people less social than would be optimal for both their own and others' well-being.

Insufficiently complimentary?: Underestimating the positive impact of compliments creates a barrier to expressing them.

Compliments increase the well-being of both expressers and recipients, yet in a series of surveys people report giving fewer compliments than they should give, or would like to give. Nine experiments suggest that a reluctance to express genuine compliments partly stems from underestimating the positive impact that compliments will have on recipients. Participants wrote genuine compliments and then predicted how happy and awkward those compliments would make recipients feel. Expressers consistently underestimated how positive recipients would feel but overestimated how awkward recipients would feel (Experiments 1-3, S4). These miscalibrated expectations are driven partly by perspective gaps in which expressers underestimate how competent-and to a lesser extent how warm-their compliments will be perceived by recipients (Experiments 1-3). Because people's interest in expressing compliments is partly driven by their expectations of the recipient's reaction, undervaluing compliments creates a barrier to expressing them (Supplemental Experiments S2, S3, S4). As a result, directing people to focus on the warmth conveyed by their compliments (Experiment 4) increased interest in expressing them. We believe these findings may reflect a more general tendency for people to underestimate the positive impact of prosocial actions on others, leading people to be less prosocial than would be optimal for both their own and others' well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

It's surprisingly nice to hear you: Misunderstanding the impact of communication media can lead to suboptimal choices of how to connect with others.

Positive social connections improve wellbeing. Technology increasingly affords a wide variety of media that people can use to connect with others, but not all media strengthen social connection equally. Optimizing wellbeing, therefore, requires choosing how to connect with others wisely. We predicted that people's preferences for communication media would be at least partly guided by the expected costs and benefits of the interaction-specifically, how awkward or uncomfortable the interaction would be and how connected they would feel to their partner-but that people's expectations would consistently undervalue the overall benefit of more intimate voice-based interactions. We tested this hypothesis by asking participants in a field experiment to reconnect with an old friend either over the phone or e-mail, and by asking laboratory participants to "chat" with a stranger over video, voice, or text-based media. Results indicated that interactions including voice (phone, video chat, and voice chat) created stronger social bonds and no increase in awkwardness, compared with interactions including text (e-mail, text chat), but miscalibrated expectations about awkwardness or connection could lead to suboptimal preferences for text-based media. Misunderstanding the consequences of using different communication media could create preferences for media that do not maximize either one's own or others' wellbeing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

How to seem telepathic: enabling mind reading by matching construal.

People can have difficulty intuiting what others think about them at least partly because people evaluate themselves in more fine-grained detail than observers do. This mismatch in the level of detail at which people construe themselves versus others diminishes accuracy in social judgment. Being a more accurate mind reader requires thinking of oneself at a higher level of construal that matches the observer's construal (Experiments 1 and 2), and this strategy is more effective in this context than perspective taking (Experiments 3a and 3b). Accurately intuiting how others evaluate themselves requires the opposite strategy-thinking about others in a lower level of construal that matches the way people evaluate themselves (Experiment 4). Accurately reading other minds to know how one is evaluated by others-or how others evaluate themselves-requires focusing one's evaluative lens at the right level of detail.