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18/01/2022

Rebel teens can quickly make friends, but in the end, it’s the nice ones who have the most
Simply being nice wins more friends in high school than being a rebel, our study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology has found.

We looked at what sorts of social strategies help teens win close friends of the same and opposite s*x. We asked whether aggressiveness and breaking rules – what we will call being a rebel – sometimes make teens well liked by their peers.

We found that empathetic children who also show some rebellious and antisocial behaviours have more opposite-s*x friends in the early years of high school than those who were merely empathetic and followed the rules. But in the latter years empathetic children who keep to the rules beat their more aggressive peers and had more opposite-s*x friends.

Past research shows being empathetic helps young people communicate, resolve conflict and engage in social behaviours, all of which helps build close friendships. Others have argued being a giver rather than a taker helps a person succeed socially.

But we wanted to find out why some people who display antisocial behaviour are socially successful. We also wanted to know if this behaviour was equally effective in opposite and same-s*x relationships. Perhaps aggression and rule-breaking is attractive to the opposite s*x but repellent to the same s*x?

Measuring empathy and aggression
We addressed this question in a large, longitudinal study of friendship development in high school. The study assessed 2,803 students in 16 different schools across two different Australian states and five different time points between Years 8 and 12. We used both self-reports and peer-rated measures.

We measured empathy and antisocial behaviour (aggression and rule breaking) using self-reports. Empathy is the capacity to understand others’ emotions. Students were asked to rate statements such as: “When someone is feeling down I can usually understand how they feel,” and “I can often understand how people are feeling even before they tell me.”

Read more: Understanding others' feelings: what is empathy and why do we need it?

Aggression and rule breaking also involved scoring statements of students engaging in arguing, fighting with other children, destroying things and bullying others. The scales in our study have been widely used and validated in former research.

We measured friendships using peer nominations of who youth felt where their close friends.

Our research identified four types of young people:

nice youth (around 36% of all participants, with 70% being female and 30% male) – these young people are high in empathy and avoid hurting others
rebels (around 11% of participants, 31% female and 69% male) – these young people hurt others, break the rules and have little empathy
nice rebels (around 18% of participants, 67% female and 33% male) – they have the ability to be both empathetic and hurt others
nonplayers (around 36% participants, with 28% being female and 72% male) – they use neither empathy nor aggressive strategies.
The nice rebels were the most interesting group. Theory suggests people who exhibit these qualities have an advantage over others because they can use empathy to build social alliances and aggression to become dominant in those alliances.

Being a bully will lose you friends. from shutterstock.com
Nice people win
In Years 8-10 (around 13-15 years old) the nice rebels had more opposite-s*x friends than the nice youth. The plain rebels tended to attract fewer opposite-s*x friends than both the nice youth and the nice rebels, but these rebels still did better than the nonplayers, who were relatively invisible to the opposite s*x.

However, the nonplayers did about as well as both types of rebels in same-s*x relationships.

But in Years 11-12 (around 16-17 years old), the nice rebels lost opposite-s*x friends and became less popular with the opposite s*x than nice youth. The plain rebels also lost friends and became similar to the nonplayers in opposite-s*x friendships.

Read more: Nice guys finish first: empathetic boys attract more close female friends

The story gets even better (if you like nice youth). Throughout all of high school, the nice youth had more same-s*x friendships than all other groups and higher well-being than both the nice rebels and the rebels.

At first, young people might have seen the nice rebels as charming, fun and powerful. However, over time, they experienced the rebel acting aggressively and, eventually, this disrupted the friendship.

What about mental health?
We also used self-reports to assess children’s well-being. We found the nice rebels and rebels consistently reported lower levels of self-esteem and worse mental health then the nice youth and nonplayers.

We also found important differences between males and females. Females paid a higher price for being in one of the rebellious groups, experiencing worse mental health and self-esteem than their male counterparts. We speculate society may be more rejecting of rebellious females who are aggressive and break the rules.

The study had its limitations. Research is needed to determine what motivates young people to rebel. We also need to better understand why rebels experience lower self-esteem and worse mental health than the nice youth and nonplayers.

But what our research does show is that being nice is not only the ethically right strategy, it is also the most effective. Nice strategies such as taking perspective and giving can help young people build strong social alliances.

18/01/2022

Friends: making audiences laugh by embracing the unexpected in conversation
The Friends reunion has undoubtedly been one of the biggest TV events of the year so far.

Over its ten series, the sitcom about a group of 20- and 30-somethings in New York had a massive cultural impact. It attracted plenty of scholarly analysis, including critiques of its gender and race politics. Its scripts inspired my own research as a professor of social interaction.

Love it or loathe it (and I loved it), one of the striking things about Friends was that much of the humour depended on clever conversational devices, not just set-piece jokes or one-liners. Instead, the scriptwriters seemed to embrace the unexpected in conversation.

Think about the conversational rules for a successful invitation.

A: What are you up to this evening?

B: Nothing much.

A: Want to go to the cinema?

B: Okay, great.

The design of an invitation – and any other action in conversation – depends on who we’re asking, what kind of relationship we have, what’s at stake and how important an acceptance (or rejection) is. These sorts of contingencies shape everything we say.

In the example above, B responds positively to A – doing what conversation analysts call a “preferred turn”. Although it might seem obvious that the “preferred” response to an invitation is acceptance, it’s not so obvious what the preferred response to a compliment is.

If an invitation’s “preferred” response is acceptance, the best ways to ensure a positive outcome is to lead up to it, using a “pre” question like, “What are you up to this evening?” This lays the groundwork for a possible invitation, depending on B’s answer. We design what we say to help those we’re talking to avoid having to give negative responses.

Breaching these rules is one way that the Friends’ scriptwriters got audiences laughing from the very beginning.

Generating the big laughs
In one scene, Joey asks Phoebe if she’d like to help build furniture.

Joey: Hey Pheebs, you wanna help?

Phoebe: Ohhh!! I wish I could, but I don’t want to.

And the audience erupts in laughter.

Saying “yes” would mean giving the “preferred” response. It would most likely be done immediately, without elaboration, and it probably would not be funny. We can tell that Phoebe is going to say “no” when she says “Ohhh!! I wish I could”. This looks like it will be the start of a regular kind of rejection, showing an appreciation of the invitation and giving an excuse before turning it down.

But she follows this with: “I don’t want to.” Although this does provide an explanation for saying “no”, it’s not the sort of reason generally found in rejections. The usual way to say “no” is to say that you cannot accept the invitation, not that you don’t want to accept it. In ordinary conversation, such a turn might start an argument.

The one with the invitation
Earlier in the same scene, Ross asks Rachel if she wants to come to help him assemble the furniture.

But just before his invitation, Ross asks, “So Rachel what’re you, uh, what’re you up to tonight?” We can recognise this as leading up to something – it’s a “pre-invitation”. If Rachel is busy, Ross can avoid rejection by not issuing the invitation in the first place.

She replies: “Well, I was kinda supposed to be headed for Aruba on my honeymoon. So nothing!” Rachel could block any forthcoming invitation. But she gives Ross the conversational “go-ahead”.

Ross: If you don’t feel like being alone tonight, uh Joey an’ Chandler are comin’ over to help me put together my, my new furniture.

Rachel: Well actually thanks, but I think I’m just gonna hang out here tonight. It’s been a long day.

Ross: Oh sure, okay. Sure.

Invitations can, of course, be accepted or declined. But these aren’t equally valued alternatives. Rachel turns down the invitation — it’s a “dispreferred” response. Such responses are more intricate than saying “yes”. Just look at how many words it takes Rachel to say “no”.

Six friends.
Following the lives of six twenty and thirty-somethings, the sitcom Friends had a huge impact on culture. Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy
Dispreferred responses often occur after a delay. They may start with words like “well”, as Rachel’s does. They may contain an appreciation – as Rachel’s does (“actually thanks”). They may also contain explanations or excuses for why the speaker cannot produce the preferred response – as Rachel’s does (“it’s been a long day”).

But because it contains all these features, Rachel has said “no” in the regular way. There’s no breach. It’s not funny. The audience doesn’t laugh.

Pre-questions and “preference” were a regular device for the scriptwriters. For example, in another episode, a new scene starts with Monica asking Phoebe a question.

Monica: Hey Pheebs. You know what I’m thinking?

Phoebe: Oh!! Okay. It’s been so long since you’ve had s*x you’re wondering if they’ve changed it?

And the audience laughs.

Rather than treat Monica’s question as a pre-question leading to some kind of announcement — and requiring a go-ahead (like,“what?”) — Phoebe responds to the form not the function of Monica’s question, treating it literally as an invitation to guess what she is thinking.

The Friends scriptwriters’ methods for generating laughter make the usually hidden conventions of language-use visible. Creating humour this way, as well as through misunderstandings and non-sequiturs, was even used by Shakespeare. Whether the humour of Friends will appeal to audiences in another decade or century we cannot say, but leveraging the rules of social interaction is likely to keep us laughing for some time to come.

18/01/2022

When meeting someone new, try skirting the small talk and digging a little deeper
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic persists, there’s hope that life will return to some level of normalcy in 2022.

This includes more opportunities to meet new people and build friendships, a process that’s critical for mental and physical well-being.

This does not, however, mean that everyone will take advantage of these new chances to connect.

Even before fears of a virus compelled most people to stay physically distant, our research suggests that people were already keeping too much social distance from one another.

In particular, our forthcoming behavioral science research suggests that people tend to be overly pessimistic about how conversations with new acquaintances will play out.

Across a dozen experiments, participants consistently underestimated how much they would enjoy talking with strangers. This was especially true when we asked them to have the kinds of substantive conversations that actually foster friendships.

Because of these mistaken beliefs, it seems as though people reach out and connect with others less often and in less meaningful ways than they probably should.

Moving beyond water cooler talk
People usually only disclose their deepest disappointments, proudest accomplishments and simmering anxieties to close friends and family.

But our experiments tested the seemingly radical idea that deep conversations between strangers can end up being surprisingly satisfying.

In several experiments, the participants first reported how they expected to feel after discussing relatively weighty questions like, “what are you most grateful for in your life?” and “when is the last time you cried in front of another person?”

These participants believed they would feel somewhat awkward and only moderately happy discussing these topics with a stranger. But after we prompted them to actually do so, they reported that their conversations were less awkward than they had anticipated. Furthermore, they felt happier and more connected to the other person than they had assumed.

In other experiments, we asked people to write down questions they would normally discuss when first getting to know someone – “weird weather we’re having these days, isn’t it?” – and then to write down deeper and more intimate questions than they would normally discuss, like asking whether the other person was happy with their life.

Again, we found that the participants were especially likely to overestimate how awkward the ensuing conversations about the more meaningful topics would be, while underestimating how happy those conversations would make them.

These mistaken beliefs matter because they can create a barrier to human connection. If you mistakenly think a substantive conversation will feel uncomfortable, you’re going to probably avoid it. And then you might never realize that your expectations are off the mark.

Yes, others do care
Misconceptions over the outcomes of deeper conversations may happen, in part, because we also underestimate how interested other people are in what we have to share. This makes us more reluctant to open up.

It turns out that, more often than not, strangers do want to hear you talk about more than the weather; they really do care about your fears, feelings, opinions and experiences.

Woman and man seated at table talk to one another.
‘In the Cafe’ (1891) by Belgian artist Jan Moerman. Pierre Bourgogne/Fine Art Photographic/Getty Images
The results were strikingly consistent. For the experiments, we recruited college students, online samples, strangers in a public park and even executives at financial services firms, and similar patterns played out within each group. Whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert, a man or a woman, you’re likely to underestimate how good you’ll feel after having a deep conversation with a stranger. The same results even occurred in conversations over Zoom.

Aligning beliefs with reality
In one telling demonstration, we had some people engage in both a relatively shallow and comparatively deeper conversation. People expected that they would prefer a shallow conversation to the deeper one before they took place. After the interactions occurred, they reported the opposite.

Moreover, the participants consistently told us that they wished they could have deeper conversations more often in their everyday lives.

The problem, then, is not a lack of interest in having more meaningful conversations. It’s the misguided pessimism about how these interactions will play out.

It’s possible, though, to learn from these positive experiences.

Think of the trepidation kids have of diving into the deep end of a swimming pool. The uneasiness is often unwarranted: Once they take the plunge, they end up having a lot more fun than they did in shallower waters.

Our data suggests that something similar can happen when it comes to topics of conversation. You might feel nervous before starting a deeper conversation with someone you barely know; yet once you do, you might actually enjoy digging a little deeper than you typically do.

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The broader takeaway of our work is that these miscalibrated expectations can lead many people to be not quite social enough for their own good and the well-being of others.

Having deeper conversations joins a growing list of opportunities for social engagement – including expressing gratitude, sharing compliments and reaching out and talking to an old friend – that end up feeling a lot better than we might think.

18/01/2022