Want Your Partner to Listen More? Talk About the Familiar

Why novel conversation may not be as captivating as we think

There’s nothing better than hearing a good story. And when someone tells us a story that involves something we’ve never heard before, of course we’re more likely to listen. Right?

Wrong.

According to research in Psychological Science, although storytellers believe that listeners will be more engaged when they hear novel stories, which are defined as stories about experiences people are unfamiliar with, listeners are actually not engaged and not impressed. Instead, listeners are more interested in hearing familiar stories about topics they already have experience with.

“Our friends are actually a whole lot happier when we tell them what they already know….”

But how could that be? Doesn’t your partner love hearing about all of the strange adventures you’ve had? Aren’t those stories way more interesting than the same old, same old?

Actually, they’re not. Researchers Gus Cooney, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Timothy D. Wilson conducted a series of studies that found when listeners heard stories about experiences they were familiar with, they awarded the speaker with a bonus, while levying a penalty to speakers when they told stories that were novel.

Study authors explained that there were three reasons listeners reacted this way:

• Speakers were not as good at conveying information as they believed they were, and their confidence tended to exceed their grasp of a topic, as well as their communication skills.
• Speakers did not realize that a lack of background knowledge of the topic being discussed made it difficult for listeners to engage with the stories they heard.
• Speakers aren’t used to being criticized for their verbal communication skills, so they overestimate how adept they are at telling novel stories.

In addition, researchers found that familiarity helps to elicit memories and emotions in listeners that bond them to speakers, thus making familiar stories much more engaging and enjoyable.

“We worry too much about thrilling our listeners and not enough about confusing them.”

Based on these findings, you are much more likely to get your partner to actively listen by telling stories that will connect them to you based on familiarity — not how entertaining your stories are.

“Conversation is the most common of all human social activities, and doing it well requires that we know what our conversation partners most want to hear,” said researcher Daniel T. Gilbert. “Our friends are actually a whole lot happier when we tell them what they already know because at least they understand what we’re talking about. We worry too much about thrilling our listeners and not enough about confusing them.”

More from Kiki Wellington:

Sources:

Cooney, G., Gilbert, D., and Wilson, T. (2017, January 31). The Novelty Penalty: Why Do People Like Talking About New Experiences but Hearing About Old Ones? Psychological Science. https://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~dtg/COONEY%20GILBERT%20WILSON%202017%20%28THE%20NOVELTY%20PENALTY%29.pdf

Steingold, D. (2020, November 29). Study: Doing this is key to keeping people engaged in conversation. Study Finds. https://www.studyfinds.org/study-finds-talking-conversation-listening/