Don’t Dread Boring Small Talk. You’ll Like It More Than You Think

—Malte Mueller—Getty Images

If you stop by your neighbor’s front stoop or go to that networking event or say hi to a colleague in the breakroom, you’ll almost definitely end up making boring small talk—right? The kind that makes you wish a bed would emerge from the ground because you’re surely going to drift off. The kind that you’re better off avoiding at all costs.

Not so fast: New research suggests the topics people tend to dismiss as small talk—the weather, their neighbor’s cats, the stock market—may actually be the key to feeling more connected. According to a study published April 13 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people consistently underestimate how enjoyable conversations about “boring” topics actually are. Across nine experiments with 1,800 total participants, the gap between expectation and experience was robust and consistent. And the effect held across three countries—the U.S., France, and Singapore—suggesting it’s not a cultural fluke.

“So many people—myself included—avoid small talk, dread networking events, and assume that certain topics just won’t be interesting,” says lead study author Elizabeth Trinh, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “But we misjudge how conversations feel.”

That miscalculation matters. These expectations shape whether we start conversations at all, and how often we miss out on connection as a result.

The interaction matters—not the topic

In the experiments, participants were told to talk about topics they had rated as boring, like World Wars I and II, vegan diets, Pokemon, math, hobbies, or routines. Then they were asked to predict how much they’d enjoy a conversation about them. After making those predictions, they actually had the conversations—typically lasting a few minutes—and then rated how interesting and enjoyable they really were. Some talked to strangers, others to friends. Some met in person; others connected over Zoom.

In one experiment, participants didn’t actually talk—they read or watched conversations instead. In those cases, people’s predictions were accurate: what seemed boring was, in fact, boring. The gap between expectation and experience only showed up when people were actively participating. In other words, it wasn’t the topic that made conversations enjoyable—it was being part of them.

“We were most surprised by how robust the effect was,” Trinh says. “It happened when people were talking to someone who found the topic boring, it happened between friends, it happened with strangers, it happened online and in person. Over and over again, we thought maybe this might diminish the effect, and we just kept seeing such strong findings.”

Why our assumptions about chitchat are wrong

So what’s behind the disconnect? It comes down to what researchers call the “static” and “dynamic” parts of a conversation. Before you start talking, you can easily judge the static part—the topic. But what actually makes a conversation enjoyable is the dynamic part: the back-and-forth, the responsiveness, the feeling of being engaged. The catch is that you can’t really anticipate that until the conversation is already underway.

Trinh says what makes someone a good conversationalist isn’t the topic they choose—it’s how actively they listen and respond. “It’s more difficult to appreciate the dynamic elements that unfold in real time,” she says. “But that’s probably where the enjoyment is mostly coming from.”

Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the University of Sussex in the U.K. who studies social connection and was not involved in the study, says the findings fit a broader pattern in this area of research. We tend to get stuck in our heads before social interactions, fixating on whether we’re saying the right thing or picking the right topic—when the connection itself is what matters.

“There’s all this research showing that although we think we’re above average on almost everything, when it comes to having a casual conversation with someone, it’s like the only thing where we think we’re below average,” says Sandstrom, author of Once Upon a Stranger: The Science of How “Small” Talk Can Add Up to a Big Life. “And I think it’s because belonging is so important to us. It feels high stakes. So the fear that we might not connect just takes over.”

Sandstrom says one reason people struggle with small talk is that they put too much pressure on themselves to come up with something interesting to say. In reality, conversations don’t hinge on having a great topic—the connection itself is what matters. “There’s so much hate for small talk,” she says. “We just think small talk equals boring. But this study basically refutes that.”

What this means for your everyday life

The practical implication is straightforward, if a little uncomfortable: We’re probably avoiding conversations we’d actually enjoy. Every time we skip out on an interaction because we fear it will be awkward or boring, we’re passing up an important opportunity. “We may be unnecessarily depriving ourselves of small moments of connection that would improve our mood and sense of belonging, and reduce loneliness,” Trinh says.

For people who want to put the findings into practice, Trinh suggests starting with something simple: showing up and paying attention. It’s easy to treat conversations as something to get through or, in the case of video calls, multitask your way around. But that’s exactly what strips away the part people actually enjoy. “The engagement is the point,” she says.

Another shift is more subtle: Instead of asking yourself if you’ll enjoy a conversation, consider what you might learn. That small reframing, Trinh says, can make people more open to interactions they might otherwise avoid.

Part of the challenge is that people don’t naturally update their expectations even after a good experience proves them wrong. In the study, they still underestimated how much they would enjoy the next chat. That means the takeaway isn’t just that conversations tend to go better than you expect, Trinh says—it’s that you may have to remind yourself of that, again and again.