Talking to strangers: A week-long intervention reduces psychological barriers to social connection ☆

Abstract

Although people derive substantial benefit from social connection, they often refrain from talking to strangers because they have pessimistic expectations about how such conversations will go (e.g., they believe they will be rejected or not know what to say). Previous research has attempted but failed to get people to realize that their concerns about talking to strangers are overblown. To reduce people's fears, we developed an intervention in which participants played a week-long scavenger hunt game that involved repeatedly finding, approaching, and talking to strangers. Compared to controls, this minimal, easily replicable treatment made people less pessimistic about the possibility of rejection and more optimistic about their conversational ability—and these benefits persisted for at least a week after the study ended. Daily reports revealed that people's expectations grew more positive and accurate by the day, emphasizing the importance of repeated experience in improving people's attitudes towards talking with strangers.

Full text

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
0022-1031/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Talking to strangers: A week-long intervention reduces psychological
barriers to social connection
☆
Gillian M. Sandstrom
a
,
*
,
1
, Erica J. Boothby
b
,
1
, Gus Cooney
b
,
1
a
University of Sussex, United Kingdom
b
University of Pennsylvania, United States of America
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Social interaction
Conversation
Intervention
Social connection
ABSTRACT
Although people derive substantial benet from social connection, they often refrain from talking to strangers
because they have pessimistic expectations about how such conversations will go (e.g., they believe they will be
rejected or not know what to say). Previous research has attempted but failed to get people to realize that their
concerns about talking to strangers are overblown. To reduce people’s fears, we developed an intervention in
which participants played a week-long scavenger hunt game that involved repeatedly nding, approaching, and
talking to strangers. Compared to controls, this minimal, easily replicable treatment made people less pessimistic
about the possibility of rejection and more optimistic about their conversational ability—and these benets
persisted for at least a week after the study ended. Daily reports revealed that people’s expectations grew more
positive and accurate by the day, emphasizing the importance of repeated experience in improving people’s
attitudes towards talking with strangers.
Research on well-being, conversation, and belonging has under-
scored the importance of social interaction for people’s health and
happiness (Clark & Watson, 1988; Diener & Seligman, 2002; Hawkley &
Cacioppo, 2010; Helliwell & Putnam, 2004; Holt-Lunstad, Robles, &
Sbarra, 2017; House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988; Kahneman, Krueger,
Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004; Mehl, Vazire, Holleran, & Clark,
2010; Myers, 2000; Pavot, Diener, & Fujita, 1990; Sun, Harris, & Vazire,
2020; Vittengl & Holt, 1998; Watson, Clark, McIntyre, & Hamaker,
1992). Despite the benets of social interaction, people seldom strike up
conversations with people they do not know. Instead, people wear
headphones to avoid talking, stay glued to their smartphones in public
places, or pretend not to notice a new coworker they still have not
introduced themselves to (Goffman, 1963; Kushlev, Hunter, Proulx,
Pressman, & Dunn, 2019). These impressive displays of “civil inatten-
tion,” seemingly innocuous dodges in the moment, can collectively add
up to a behavioral pattern that stymies social interaction before it begins
(Kim, 2012; Zuckerman, Miserandino, & Bernieri, 1983).
Recent research suggests one reason for this behavior: people are
remarkably pessimistic about almost every aspect of talking to strangers.
For example, people expect that others will not be interested in talking
to them (Atir, Wald, & Epley, 2021; Cooney, Boothby, & Schweitzer,
2021; Epley & Schroeder, 2014; Schroeder, Lyons, & Epley, 2021),
people underestimate how much others like them after meeting for the
rst time (Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom, & Clark, 2018; Mastroianni,
Cooney, Boothby, & Reece, 2021), and people are skeptical of their
ability to start and maintain such conversations (Atir et al., 2021;
Sandstrom & Boothby, 2021). In a striking demonstration of this basic
idea, Epley and Schroeder (2014) approached people waiting for a train
in Chicago and showed that they systematically underestimated how
rewarding it would be to strike up a conversation with a stranger during
their commute. Our aim in this paper is twofold. First, to replicate past
research showing that people underestimate how positively strangers
will react to attempts at social connection. And second, to intervene on
people’s pessimistic beliefs, thereby allowing people to see the possi-
bility of talking to a stranger as a positive opportunity rather than
something to dread.
Fortunately, the same research that demonstrates people’s pessi-
mism about talking to strangers also shows that this pessimism is often
misplaced—strangers are more willing to talk than people anticipate
(Cooney et al., 2021; Epley & Schroeder, 2014; Sandstrom & Boothby,
☆
This paper has been recommended for acceptance by Dr Karina Schumann
* Corresponding author at: School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom.
E-mail address: g.sandstrom@sussex.ac.uk (G.M. Sandstrom).
1
All authors contributed equally to this paper.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104356
Received 4 January 2022; Received in revised form 11 May 2022; Accepted 12 May 2022

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
2
2021; Schroeder et al., 2021), conversations tend to go overwhelmingly
better than people predict (Epley & Schroeder, 2014; Sandstrom &
Boothby, 2021; Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014), and people are more
conversationally competent than they expect (Sandstrom & Boothby,
2021; Welker, Walker, Boothby, & Gilovich, 2021). This suggests a
promising intervention strategy: give people concentrated and repeated
practice talking to strangers, so that they may realize their fears are
exaggerated.
There have been surprisingly few attempts to improve people’s at-
titudes towards talking to strangers, and those attempts have proved
only partially successful (e.g., Sandstrom & Boothby, 2021). Here, we
added to this new body of research, and aimed to improve on prior
intervention efforts by creating a more lasting shift in people’s attitudes.
We did so by having people play a scavenger hunt game that prompted
them to engage in repeated conversations with strangers over the course
of a week. Why a whole week?
It would seem that sporadic positive interactions with strangers, like
the ones that people have in their day-to-day lives, do not fully allay
people’s fears, and that the lessons from such positive interactions do
not stick. Perhaps it is too easy for people to discount any single con-
versation that goes well as a pleasant exception to the unpleasant rule.
Or perhaps because people talk to strangers relatively infrequently, it is
difcult to detect a consistent pattern. For these reasons, we aimed to
alter people’s entrenched pessimism by having people repeatedly
practice talking over the course of many consecutive days. Overall, our
aim was to condition people to the (surprisingly positive) reality of
talking to strangers, thereby reducing people’s fears, and increasing
people’s recognition that these conversations typically go quite well.
1. Current research
We ran a week-long, multi-site intervention, in which participants
were prompted by a scavenger hunt app to either start conversations
with, or simply observe, at least one stranger every day for a week. As
the intervention unfolded, we measured people’s fears about rejection,
their beliefs about their conversational ability, their expected
awkwardness and enjoyment, and their beliefs about the impression
they make on strangers. We aimed to nd out whether repeatedly
talking to strangers over the course of a week could make people less
pessimistic about the prospect of talking to strangers.
2. Method
This manuscript reports the results of a time-consuming and
resource-intensive intervention. Two consequences are that: (a) we pre-
registered several research questions that could be answered with the
resulting data; and (b) there were some slight deviations from our pre-
registered plan.
(a) This paper reports the results of one of our pre-registered research
questions (Q1): “Do repeated interactions with strangers improve
attitudes towards talking to strangers?” (see https://osf.
io/dvqez/). Correspondingly, we analyze only the measures
that are associated with this research question. For example, the
pre-registration contains measures related to whether repeated
interactions with strangers increase social connection, but we do
not address this question in the current manuscript, as it is related
to a different stream of work. See OSF for complete materials.
(b) Analyses. Although we did not conduct the exact analyses that we
had planned, they were conceptually very similar: we used con-
dition, time, and condition x time as predictors of our outcomes,
and focused on the specied comparisons that we pre-registered
(baseline vs. end-of-study, and baseline vs. follow-up). For ana-
lyses of rejection, our count data were over-dispersed, so we used
a negative binomial regression to analyze these data. Upon
further reection we also chose a regression framework to
analyze the other outcomes as well, instead of using the ANOVA
framework that we had pre-registered.
Sample size was determined before any data analysis, and we report
all manipulations and exclusions. Finally, please note that a subset of the
data reported here were included as unpublished data in a meta-analysis
(Sandstrom & Boothby, 2021; see p. 2 of the SOM for more details).
2.1. Participants
A total of 454 people started the study (see Fig. 1). Twenty-one were
removed from analyses due to experimenter error. Of the remaining 433,
136 were removed due to pre-registered exclusion criteria: 68 completed
fewer than four days (12% of participants in the control condition; 17%
of participants in the treatment condition), a rate that is similar to past
intervention studies (e.g., 15% of participants in Fredrickson, Cohn,
Coffey, Pek, & Finkel, 2008 were excluded for not attending enough
sessions or not completing enough weekly reports). See SOM for ana-
lyses of participants who dropped out versus those who nished, and see
Discussion for implications of these ndings. A further 68 participants
failed our honesty check (11% of participants in the control condition,
18% of participants in the treatment condition), a rate that is similar to
an unpublished study in our lab (15%). In the main manuscript, we
analyze the responses of the remaining 286 people (75 male, 209 female,
2 identied otherwise or preferred not to say; M
age
=20.1 years, SD =
2.1 years), but analyses including the participants who failed the
honesty check leave the results unchanged (see the SOM for details).
This sample was recruited from two university campuses—one in the
U.S. (N =135) and one in the U.K. (N =151). The majority of partici-
pants received course credit, but some were paid. A sensitivity analysis
using G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) suggests that
our sample can detect effects where f ≥0.08 (i.e., small effects). See
SOM for payment details, full details of analyses testing the effects of
attrition and exclusion criteria, additional details about the sensitivity
analysis, and a discussion of self-selection.
2.2. Procedure
We created a scavenger hunt game using a mobile app called
GooseChase (GooseChase Adventures, 2019). Participants used the app
to complete the study. We designed 29 scavenger hunt “missions” that
people could choose from. The goal of each mission was to nd a
stranger with certain characteristics (e.g., “nd someone wearing
interesting shoes” or “nd someone who’s drinking a coffee”; see Ap-
pendix for full list of missions). Participants received points on the app
and an entry into a draw prize for every mission that they completed.
The app allowed participants to see their performance (i.e., the number
of missions they had completed) compared to other participants.
For logistical reasons, participants were recruited in weekly groups.
On Monday, participants were brought to the lab to complete surveys
(start of study and the rst pre-conversation surveys; see Measures), to
receive instructions, and to download and try out the scavenger hunt
app (see Fig. 2; see SOM for more details on the procedure). After the lab
visit, all communication (e.g., daily game codes and reminders to
complete surveys) occurred by text message and email. All members of
that week’s group were assigned to the same condition: either a treat-
ment condition (i.e., nd, approach, and talk to a stranger; N =198), or a
control condition (i.e., nd, approach, but simply observe a stranger; N
=88). Participants in the treatment condition either saw tips in their
mission descriptions (N =98) or not (N =100), which is why the
treatment condition was double the size of the control. As pre-registered,
we collapsed across this factor for the current project, creating a single
treatment condition (see SOM for details). In total, participants in the
treatment condition had 1336 conversations with strangers.
G.M. Sandstrom et al.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
3
2.3. Measures
For one week—daily from Monday to Friday—participants played a
scavenger hunt game that involved nding a stranger, and then either
talking to (treatment) or observing that person (control). Participants
completed both “General” and “Daily” surveys.
The General surveys were designed to capture the broader attitudinal
and behavioral changes elicited by the intervention. Participants in both
the treatment and control conditions completed general surveys at the
start of study on Monday (see Fig. 1; Phase 1), at the end of study on
Friday (see Fig. 1; Phase 3), and at follow-up, one week after the inter-
vention had ended (see Fig. 1; Phase 4).
Participants also completed two types of Daily surveys: one at the
beginning of each day, and one after completing each mission (see Fig. 1;
Phases 1–3). Our primary interest in the daily surveys was to examine
the time course of the intervention, and the underlying psychological
processes of those in the treatment group. Participants in the treatment
group made predictions about how their conversations would go on each
day, in what we refer to as the pre-conversation survey, and reported on
their experiences after completing their daily mission(s) in the post-
conversation survey. To ensure that all participants had a similar expe-
rience, we asked control group participants to also complete the daily
surveys, even though we did not analyze their responses; control par-
ticipants reported on their current mood in the rst survey, and
described the person that they observed in the second survey.
2.3.1. Rejection
We asked participants whether they thought the people they
approached would be willing to talk to them. In the General surveys, we
asked “How many people do you think you will need to approach in
order to complete a mission (i.e., get someone to talk to you)?”, and
instructed them, for example, to enter “1” if they thought the rst person
they approached would talk to them. In the Daily surveys, the pre-
conversation survey asked “How many people do you think you will
need to approach in order to complete your mission today (i.e., get
someone to talk to you)?”, and instructed people to enter “1” if they
thought the rst person they approached would talk to them. In the post-
conversation survey, we asked people to enter “1” if the rst person they
approached talked to them, otherwise “If the rst person did not want to
talk, please enter the number of people you approached, including the
Fig. 1. Flowchart depicting participant drop-outs and exclusions.
Note. See SOM for analyses of participants who dropped out versus those who nished, and see Discussion for implications of these ndings.
G.M. Sandstrom et al.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
4
person who did talk to you.” For interpretability, we created a measure
of rejection by subtracting one from the number of expected/actual ap-
proaches (e.g., expecting to need to approach two people means
expecting to be rejected by one person).
2.3.2. Conversational ability
We asked participants how skilled they were in talking to strangers
(General survey: “It is hard [to start a conversation / to keep a conver-
sation going / to end a conversation] with a stranger”; Daily survey: “It
[will be / was] hard [to start a conversation / to keep a conversation
going / to end a conversation]”). We created two composite measures of
conversational ability, both assessed on a 7-point scale. The rst was
based on the General survey items, which were each measured at three
time points (
α
start_of_study
=0.60,
α
end_of_study
=0.63,
α
follow-up
=0.70),
and the second was based on the Daily surveys (
α
daily
=0.62). Since
these items concern people’s perceptions of “difculty,” they were
reverse-coded before averaging to yield a measure of conversational
“ability.”
2.3.3. Awkwardness and enjoyment
We asked people how they felt about talking to strangers. We
assessed both negative and positive feelings, in both the General surveys
and Daily surveys, creating a composite for each: General awkwardness:
“I feel [comfortable (reverse-scored) / awkward / nervous] talking to
strangers,” (
α
start_of_study
=0.85,
α
end_of_study
=0.83,
α
follow-up
=0.81);
Daily awkwardness: “I [will feel/felt] [comfortable (reverse-scored) /
awkward / nervous]” (
α
daily
=0.82); General enjoyment: “I enjoy talk-
ing to strangers,” “When I talk to strangers, I [nd them interesting / like
them],” “Talking to strangers feels like [work (reverse-scored) / fun]”
(
α
start_of_study
=0.84,
α
end_of_study
=0.84,
α
follow-up
=0.84); Daily enjoy-
ment: “I [will enjoy talking to / will like / enjoyed talking to / liked] my
conversation partners,” “I [will nd/found] my conversation partners
interesting,” “The conversations [will feel / felt] like [work (reverse-
scored) / fun]” (
α
daily
=0.84). The General measures were assessed on a
7-point scale, and the Daily measures were assessed on a 5-point scale.
2.3.4. Positive impression
Participants reported what kind of impression they would make
when talking to strangers (General: “The strangers I talk to [like me /
nd me interesting / enjoy talking to me”; Daily: “My conversation
partners [will like me / will nd me interesting / will enjoy talking to me
/ liked me / found me interesting / enjoyed talking to me.”) We then
averaged these measures to create a composite for both the General
surveys (
α
start_of_study
=0.92,
α
end_of_study
=0.90,
α
follow-up
=0.92) and the
Daily surveys (
α
daily
=0.86). The General measure was assessed on a 7-
point scale, and the Daily measure was assessed on a 5-point scale.
2.3.5. Initiating conversations with strangers
Although our study was designed to test for changes in attitudes to-
wards talking to strangers, we included an exploratory measure to test
for changes in behavior: “How many strangers have YOU started a con-
versation with in the past 7 days?” We included some examples of
conversations with strangers: “chatting with the barista, talking to
someone while waiting in a queue/line, talking to a new classmate...”
This item was included in the General surveys at the start of study and at
the follow-up; we didn’t include it in the end of study survey because we
wanted a measure of spontaneous conversations with strangers, not the
conversations that were required by participation in our study.
2.3.6. Noticing opportunities to talk to strangers
To test whether our intervention affected people’s awareness of op-
portunities to talk to strangers, we also included an exploratory measure
in the General surveys, on a 7-point scale: “I notice opportunities to talk
to strangers.”
2.3.7. Demographic items
At the beginning of the intervention, people reported their de-
mographic information.
Please see the SOM for information about additional measures that
were assessed but not included in this paper (a couple of items in the
Daily surveys that were not relevant to the research question addressed
in this paper; items in the General surveys that do not match the items in
the Daily surveys), and see OSF for complete materials.
3. Results
3.1. General results: Change in perceived likelihood of rejection
At the start of the study, at the end of the study, and at a follow-up
one week later, participants in the treatment condition predicted how
likely they were to be rejected in their attempts to start a conversation
with a stranger. Due to over-dispersed count data, we used a negative
binomial regression to analyze these data. Because of the nested struc-
ture of the data, we used a mixed-effects model with a random intercept
for participant. We estimated the model using restricted maximum
likelihood. Time (start of study, end of study, or follow-up) and
Fig. 2. Phases of the “talking to strangers” intervention study.
G.M. Sandstrom et al.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
5
condition (treatment or control) were included as xed categorical in-
dependent variables (i.e., DV ~ Condition*Time +(1 | ParticipantId).
We report the most relevant post-hoc contrasts with the estimated means
for predicted rejections on the original scale, while using a multivariate t
distribution to correct p-values and condence intervals for multiple
comparisons.
At the end of the week-long intervention, participants in the treat-
ment group expected to be rejected by signicantly fewer people than
they had at the start of the study (p <.001; see Table 1 and Fig. 3).
Additionally, one week after the intervention had ended, participants in
the treatment group still expected to be rejected by fewer people,
showing a lasting effect of our intervention (p <.001).
What about participants in the control group, who simply observed
strangers for a week, but did not actually strike up conversations? They
did not make predictions about rejection at the start of the study, in
order to preserve the integrity of the control condition. However, at the
end of the study, they were asked to imagine continuing the scavenger
hunt for another week, but this time talking to people rather than simply
observing them.
Participants in the control condition predicted that they would be
rejected by as many people as participants in the treatment group had
predicted at the start of the study, ratio of control to treatment =1.11,
95% CI =[0.70, 1.74], p =.97. As expected, the beliefs of participants in
the control group did not change from the end of the study to the follow-
up, ratio of end of study to follow-up =0.89, 95% CI =[0.57, 1.38], p =
.95. At the end of the week-long study and a full week later, participants
in the control condition resembled participants in the treatment condi-
tion at the start of the study, who had overly pessimistic expectations
about the amount of rejection they would experience.
Directly comparing treatment and control conditions revealed that
participants in the treatment group expected signicantly less rejection
compared to those in the control group—both at the end of the study (p
<.001) and at the follow-up (p <.001).
As shown in the left panel of Fig. 3, it seems that a week-long
intervention involving repeated conversations with strangers substan-
tially reduced people’s fears about rejection compared to controls, and
these reductions persisted for at least one week following the end of the
intervention.
3.2. General results: Change in conversational ability
To examine changes in perceived conversational ability over the
course of the intervention, we used the same model as previously
specied, except here we used a mixed-effects regression instead of a
negative binomial.
As shown in Table 1 and the right panel of Fig. 3, participants in the
treatment group felt more positive about their general ability to talk to
strangers at the end of the study (p <.001), as well as at the follow-up
one week later (p <.001), compared to how they felt at the start of
the study. Meanwhile, participants in the control group did not experi-
ence the same improvement in their perceived ability to carry out a
conversation. At the start of the study, participants in the treatment and
control groups did not differ in their feelings about their ability to talk to
strangers (p =.88), but at the end of the study and a week later, par-
ticipants in the treatment group felt more positive than participants in
the control group about their ability to talk to strangers (p =.01, p =
.004).
3.3. General results: Change in awkwardness
Participants in the treatment group felt less awkward about talking
to strangers at the end of the study (p <.001), and a week later (p <
.001), compared to how they felt at the beginning of the study (see
Table 1 and the left panel of Fig. 4). Participants in the control group
reported no change in awkwardness between the beginning of the study
and either the end of the study (p =.54) or a week later (p =.99).
Directly comparing treatment and control conditions revealed no
difference in predicted awkwardness at the start of the study (p =.87),
but participants in the treatment group expected to feel less awkward
than those in the control group, both at the end of the study (p =.05) and
at the follow-up (p =.03).
3.4. General results: Change in enjoyment
Participants in the treatment group expected to enjoy their conver-
sations with strangers more at the end of the intervention (p <.001) and
a week later (p =.002), compared to how they had felt at the start of the
study. Meanwhile, participants in the control group did not report a
change in how much they expected to enjoy conversations with
strangers from the start of the study to the end of the study (p =.18) or to
the one-week follow-up (p =.51).
Directly comparing treatment and control conditions revealed no
difference in how much people expected to enjoy conversations with
strangers at the start of the study (p =.99), but also, unexpectedly, no
difference at the end of the study (p =.83), or at the follow-up (p =.99).
In short, as shown in Table 1 and the middle panel of Fig. 4, par-
ticipants in the treatment condition showed an improvement in their
expectations of how positively they would feel about their conversa-
tions, which lasted a week after the intervention ended, and although
participants in the control condition did not experience this improve-
ment, the difference between treatment and control was not signicant.
3.5. General results: Change in making a positive impression
Participants in the treatment group expected to make a more positive
impression after talking to strangers for a week (p <.001), and a week
after the study had ended (p <.001), compared to the start of the study.
Participants in the control condition exhibited similar, though smaller,
effects; they expected to make a more positive impression when talking
to strangers at the end of the study (p =.01) and a week later (p =.004),
compared to their predictions at the start of the study.
Directly comparing treatment and control conditions revealed no
difference in expectations about making a positive impression when
talking to strangers at the start of the study (p =.94), but also, unex-
pectedly, no difference at the end of the study (p =.63), or at the follow-
up (p =.79).
In sum, as shown in Table 1 and the right panel of Fig. 4, participants
in the treatment condition showed an improvement in their beliefs about
how positive of an impression they made, which lasted a week after the
intervention ended. However, note that participants in the control
condition also showed some improvement. It appears that simply
approaching and observing strangers also made people less pessimistic
about the impressions they would make, perhaps because it lowered
people’s anxiety, although we urge caution in interpreting this unpre-
dicted result.
3.6. Exploratory analyses: Changes in initiating conversations and
noticing opportunities
3.6.1. Initiating conversations
Participants in the treatment condition reported more positive atti-
tudes towards talking to strangers after completing the intervention. Did
these more positive attitudes lead people to have more conversations
with strangers? After removing responses more than three standard
deviations from the mean (e.g., some participants reported talking to
fty or more strangers as part of their job), we found that, at the one-
week follow-up, participants in the treatment group reported having
had more conversations with strangers in the previous week than they
had had in the week prior to the start of the study, p =.01, whereas
participants in the control group reported no change, p =.88 (see
Table 1). However, directly comparing treatment and control conditions
revealed no difference in how many conversations with strangers
G.M. Sandstrom et al.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
6
Table 1
Descriptive and inferential statistics for the general survey results.
Measure Time/
Comparison
Treatment Control Treatment vs. Control
Rejection Start of study M =0.89, SE =0.09 n/a n/a
End of Study M =0.23, SE =0.04 M =0.99, SE =0.14 Ratio ¼4.22, 95% CI ¼[2.47, 7.20],
p < .001
Follow-up M =0.32, SE =0.05 M =1.11, SE =0.17 Ratio ¼3.49, 95% CI ¼[2.00, 6.09],
p < .001
Start vs. End Ratio ¼3.82, 95% CI ¼[2.56, 5.69],
p < .001
n/a
Start vs. Follow-
up
Ratio ¼2.81, 95% CI ¼[1.87, 4.22],
p < .001
n/a
Convo ability Start of study M =4.34, SE =0.08 M =4.20, SE =0.12 ΔM = − 0.14, 95% CI =[−0.54, 0.25],
t(499) = − 0.97, p =.88, d =0.12
End of Study M =4.77, SE =0.08 M =4.28, SE =0.12 ΔM ¼ ¡0.50, 95% CI ¼[¡0.89,¡0.11],
t(498) ¼ ¡3.38, p ¼.01, d ¼0.43
Follow-up M =4.81, SE =0.09 M =4.27, SE =0.13 ΔM ¼ ¡0.54, 95% CI ¼[¡0.96, ¡0.12],
t(582) ¼ ¡3.44, p ¼.004, d ¼0.46
Start vs. End ΔM ¼ ¡0.43, 95% CI ¼[¡0.64, ¡0.23],
t(506) ¼ ¡5.70,p < .001, d ¼0.37
ΔM = − 0.08, 95% CI =[−0.38, 0.22],
t(505) = − 0.70, p =.97, d =0.07
Start vs. Follow-
up
ΔM ¼ ¡0.47, 95% CI ¼[¡0.69, ¡0.25],
t(522) ¼ ¡5.64, p < .001, d ¼0.41
ΔM = − 0.07, 95% CI =[−0.40, 0.26],
t(518) = − 0.58, p =.99, d =0.06
Awkwardness Start of study M =3.78, SE =0.09 M =3.94, SE =0.14 ΔM =0.16, 95% CI =[−0.28, 0.61],
t(420) =0.97, p =.87, d =0.12
End of Study M =3.34, SE =0.09 M =3.78, SE =0.14 ΔM ¼0.45, 95% CI ¼[0.001, 0.89],
t(420) ¼2.66. p ¼.05, d ¼0.35
Follow-up M =3.45, SE =0.10 M =3.95, SE =0.15 ΔM ¼0.51, 95% CI ¼[0.04, 0.97],
t(490) ¼2.87. p ¼.03, d ¼0.40
Start vs. End ΔM ¼0.45, 95% CI ¼[0.25, 0.64],
t(505) ¼6.18, p < .001, d ¼0.33
ΔM =0.16, 95% CI =[−0.12, 0.45],
t(505) =1.51, p =.54, d =0.12
Start vs. Follow-
up
ΔM ¼0.33, 95% CI ¼[0.12, 0.54],
t(516) ¼4.19, p < .001, d ¼0.26
ΔM = − 0.01, 95% CI =[−0.32, 0.30],
t(514) = − 0.08, p =.99, d =0.05
Enjoyment Start of study M =4.34, SE =0.08 M =4.37, SE =0.11 ΔM =0.03, 95% CI =[−0.33, 0.39],
t(422) =0.20, p =.99, d =0.03
End of Study M =4.70, SE =0.08 M =4.55, SE =0.11 ΔM = − 0.14, 95% CI =[−0.50, 0.22],
t(422) = − 1.06. p =.83, d =0.14
Follow-up M =4.58, SE =0.08 M =4.51, SE =0.12 ΔM = − 0.07, 95% CI =[−0.44, 0.31],
t(493) = − 0.46. p =.99, d =0.07
Start vs. End ΔM ¼ ¡0.36, 95% CI ¼[¡0.52, ¡0.20],
t(505) ¼ ¡6.13, p < .001, d ¼0.34
ΔM = − 0.19, 95% CI =[−0.42, 0.04],
t(505) = − 2.14, p =.18, d =0.17
Start vs. Follow-
up
ΔM ¼ ¡0.24, 95% CI ¼[¡0.41, ¡0.07],
t(516) ¼ ¡3.71, p ¼.002, d ¼0.19
ΔM = − 0.15, 95% CI =[−0.40, 0.11],
t(514) = − 1.55, p =.51, d =0.07
Positive
impression
Start of study M =4.25, SE =0.07 M =4.14, SE =0.11 ΔM = − 0.10, 95% CI =[−0.45, 0.25],
t(476) = − 0.79, p =.94, d =0.11
End of Study M =4.62, SE =0.07 M =4.44, SE =0.11 ΔM = − 0.18, 95% CI =[−0.53, 0.17],
t(476) = − 1.37. p =.63, d =0.18
Follow-up M =4.66, SE =0.08 M =4.50, SE =0.12 ΔM = − 0.16, 95% CI =[−0.53, 0.21],
t(557) = − 1.14. p =.79, d =0.14
Start vs. End ΔM ¼ ¡0.38, 95% CI ¼[¡0.55, ¡0.20],
t(506) ¼ ¡5.80, p < .001, d ¼0.38
ΔM ¼ ¡0.30, 95% CI ¼[¡0.56,
¡0.04],
t(506) ¼ ¡3.08, p ¼.01, d ¼0.28
Start vs. Follow-
up
ΔM ¼ ¡0.41, 95% CI ¼[¡0.60, ¡0.22],
t(521) ¼ ¡5.79, p < .001, d ¼0.36
ΔM ¼ ¡0.36, 95% CI ¼[¡0.64,
¡0.08],
t(518) ¼ ¡3.42, p ¼.004, d ¼0.27
Talking to
strangers
Start of study M =4.68, SE =0.33 M =5.70, SE =0.48 ΔM =1.01, 95% CI =[−0.43, 2.45],
t(421) =1.73, p =.26, d =0.24
Follow-up M =5.81, SE =0.36 M =5.32, SE =0.53 ΔM = − 0.49, 95% CI =[−2.07, 1.10],
t(464) = − 0.76, p =.85, d =0.10
Start vs. Follow-
up
ΔM ¼ ¡1.12, 95% CI ¼[¡2.06, ¡0.18],
t(245) ¼ ¡2.97, p =.01, d ¼0.25
ΔM =0.37, 95% CI =[−0.99, 1.73],
t(235) =0.68, p =.88, d =0.08
Noticing
opportunities
Start of study M =3.99, SE =0.11 M =4.03, SE =0.16 ΔM =0.04, 95% CI =[−0.48, 0.56],
t(490) =0.20, p =.99, d =0.03
End of Study M =4.45, SE =0.11 M =4.06, SE =0.16 ΔM = − 0.39, 95% CI =[−0.91, 0.12],
t(489) = − 2.03, p =.23, d =0.26
Follow-up M =4.42, SE =0.12 M =4.00, SE =0.17 ΔM = − 0.42, 95% CI =[−0.97, 0.12],
t(571) = − 2.01, p =.24, d =0.28
Start vs. End ΔM ¼ ¡0.46, 95% CI ¼[¡0.72, ¡0.19],
t(506) ¼ ¡4.62, p < .001, d ¼0.30
ΔM = − 0.02, 95% CI =[−0.42, 0.37],
t(505) = − 0.15, p =.99, d =0.02
Start vs. Follow-
up
ΔM ¼ ¡0.43, 95% CI ¼[¡0.71, ¡0.14],
t(521) ¼ ¡3.95, p < .001, d ¼0.29
ΔM =0.03, 95% CI =[−0.39, 0.45],
t(517) =0.18, p =.99, d =0.02
Note. Analysis of rejection used a negative binomial regression: descriptives are estimated means for predicted rejections, and comparisons between groups and
between time points are ratios. For all other measures, a mixed-effects regression was used: comparisons between groups and between time points are mean differ-
ences. Signicant effects indicated in bold. We recognize that the best practice for calculating effect sizes for multilevel models is unclear. Nevertheless, in the interest
of supporting meta-analytic work, we report effect sizes (Cohen’s d) which we calculate based on pairwise comparisons.
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participants had had in the week prior to the start of the study, p =.26,or
in the week prior to the follow-up, p =.85.
3.6.2. Noticing opportunities
At the end of the intervention, and after the week-long follow-up,
participants in the treatment group (but not participants in the control
group, ps >.99) noticed more opportunities for conversations with
strangers than they had at the start of the study, p <.001 (see Table 1).
However, directly comparing treatment and control conditions revealed
no difference in how many opportunities were noticed overall, ps >.22.
Although our studies were not designed to examine behavior change,
these measures provide suggestive evidence that changes in attitudes
may ultimately lead people to strike up more conversations with
strangers in their everyday life.
3.7. Daily results: Predictions vs. experiences
After undergoing our intervention, participants in our treatment
condition displayed less pessimistic attitudes towards talking to
strangers. This pattern of results was true across a number of different
measures. Here, we focus on the daily changes in our measures, in order
to answer two critical questions:
(1) What is the time course of our intervention on people’s beliefs?
(2) How do people’s beliefs compare to reality?
The answers to these questions provide some evidence for the psy-
chological processes responsible for the changes we saw as a result of our
intervention.
Regarding the rst question, if people’s beliefs changed gradually
over the course of the week, this would suggest that repeated experience
is a necessary component of the intervention, as we hypothesized.
Alternatively, it is possible that just one or two conversations with a
stranger were sufcient to bring about the observed changes.
Regarding the second question, we know that people’s predictions
grew less pessimistic over the course of the week, but it is important to
Fig. 3. General results for perceived likelihood of rejection and perceived conversational ability.
Note. The effect of a “talking to strangers” intervention on people’s perceived likelihood of rejection (i.e., people’s beliefs about how many strangers would reject
them before they could nd someone to talk to) and people’s perceived conversational ability (7-point scale). Error bars represent 95% condence intervals.
Fig. 4. General results for awkwardness, enjoyment, and making a positive impression.
Note. The effect of a “talking to strangers” intervention on people’s feelings of awkwardness and enjoyment when talking to strangers, and people’s perceptions of
how positive of an impression they made on their partners (all 7-point scales). Error bars represent 95% condence intervals.
G.M. Sandstrom et al.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
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consider these predictions in relation to people’s actual experiences.
Using people’s beliefs about the possibility of rejection as an example, if
the actual number of rejections people experienced was low, this would
suggest that our intervention worked by bringing people’s beliefs more
in line with reality over the course of the week. On the other hand, if the
actual number of rejections was high, this would suggest that instead our
intervention worked by making people feel more condent in their
ability to approach people, regardless of reality. Finally, the number of
actual rejections people experienced may, in fact, have decreased over
the course of the week; this would suggest that our intervention worked
by making people better at approaching strangers and avoiding
rejection.
3.8. Daily results: Change in perceived likelihood of rejection
Daily surveys consisted of people’s pre-conversation predictions
about the number of rejections they would experience on a particular
day, and their post-conversation reports of the actual number of re-
jections they experienced that day. Again, we used a mixed-effects
binomial regression estimated using restricted maximum likelihood,
with a random intercept for participant, rating type (predicted vs.
actual) as a xed categorical independent variable, and time (day of the
week) as a xed continuous independent variable (i.e., DV ~ Rat-
ingType*Day +(1 | ParticipantId).
Directly comparing daily predicted and actual rejections revealed
that participants expected signicantly more rejection than they expe-
rienced (p <.001; see Table 2). Indeed, on the rst day of the study, only
40% of participants in the treatment condition thought the rst person
they approached would talk to them, when in fact participants managed
to have a conversation with the rst person they approached 92% of the
time. Over the course of the study, of the 1336 conversations that par-
ticipants had with strangers, 1164 (87%) occurred with the rst person
that participants approached.
Critically, there was also a signicant rating type x time interaction,
p <.001. Follow-up tests revealed that people’s predicted rejections
decreased over time (p <.001), whereas the number of rejections people
actually experienced did not change over time (p =.37). In other words,
as shown in the left panel of Fig. 5, the number of rejections people
actually experienced while trying to talk to strangers was consistently
low, and people’s predictions about the number of rejections they would
face decreased over the course of the week to more accurately reect
reality.
3.9. Daily results: Change in conversational ability
Overall, participants expected lower conversational ability than they
actually reported having after talking to strangers. Critically, there was
also a signicant rating type x time interaction (p <.001), suggesting
that the gap between people’s predictions about their own conversa-
tional ability and their actual conversational ability varied over the
course of the week. Follow-up tests revealed that people’s predicted
ability increased over time (p <.001), while their actual ability also
increased but at a lower rate (p <.001; see the right panel of Fig. 5). In
short, people’s predictions about their own conversation ability, which
had been overly pessimistic, grew more optimistic as the intervention
wore on.
3.10. Daily results: Change in awkwardness
Overall, participants expected to feel more awkward than they
actually did. This was qualied by a signicant rating type x time
interaction (p =.003). Follow-up tests revealed that people’s predicted
awkwardness decreased over time (p <.001), while their actual
awkwardness also decreased but at a lower rate (p <.001; see left panel
of Fig. 6). Once again, our week-long intervention appeared to narrow
the gap between people’s overly pessimistic predictions and their actual
experiences.
3.11. Daily results: Change in enjoyment
Participants expected to feel less enjoyment than they actually
experienced. However, the rating type x time interaction was not sig-
nicant (p =.37). Unlike the previous measures, our intervention did
not have a discernible effect on the gap between people’s predicted
enjoyment and their actual enjoyment (see middle panel of Fig. 6). This
effect is surprising given the strong effects that our intervention had on
awkwardness, and future research might fruitfully explore why negative
affect was more strongly inuenced by repeatedly talking to strangers.
3.12. Daily results: Change in making a positive impression
Finally, participants expected to make a less positive impression than
they actually thought they made, on reection. The rating type x time
interaction was again not signicant (p =.15). Follow-up tests revealed
that people’s predicted positive impression and their actual positive
impression both increased over time (see right panel of Fig. 6). These
results are consistent with the results from the general survey, which
also showed increased positivity from participants in both the treatment
and control groups, suggesting the possible benets of simply observing
strangers.
Overall, the results from the daily surveys are broadly consistent
with the proposal that our intervention worked, in part, by repeatedly
conditioning people to the reality of talking to strangers. Strangers are
typically open to talking, and people’s conversations with strangers
typically go quite well. As such, our week-long intervention made peo-
ple’s predictions about talking to strangers steadily more positive,
thereby reducing important barriers to social connection.
4. Discussion
People are remarkably pessimistic about the prospect of talking to
strangers. Our novel “talking to strangers” intervention aimed to reduce
people’s fears about talking to strangers by prompting them to repeat-
edly have conversations with strangers over the course of ve days. By
the end of the study, participants in our treatment group reported
signicantly more positive attitudes towards talking to strangers: They
anticipated less rejection, reported less awkwardness, and felt more
condent in their conversational ability compared to controls—positive
effects that persisted for at least one week after the intervention had
ended.
Our intervention also improved people’s enjoyment and the im-
pressions people thought they made on strangers. Note, however, that
participants in the control condition also experienced modest im-
provements on these two measures, suggesting that even simply
observing strangers may have some benets.
Finally, our analysis of the daily surveys highlighted the dimensions
on which our intervention seemed most effective: fear of rejection,
perceived conversational ability, and awkwardness. Such analyses
revealed that people’s overly pessimistic expectations grew more posi-
tive and more accurate by the day, emphasizing the importance of
repeated experience in improving people’s attitudes towards talking
with strangers.
4.1. What features contributed to the effectiveness of our intervention?
4.1.1. Repeated practice
Our intervention prompted people to repeatedly strike up conversa-
tions with strangers over the course of a week, which proved highly
effective in reducing people’s fears about talking to strangers. But could
our intervention have achieved the same results in a less time-intensive
manner? The answer appears to be no—people’s beliefs changed grad-
ually over the course of the week, as people engaged in more
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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
9
conversations with strangers. Moreover, past research suggests that after
a single pleasant conversation with a stranger, people fail to generalize
their experience, instead returning to their more pessimistic expecta-
tions when anticipating another such conversation with someone new
(Sandstrom & Boothby, 2021). Repeated practice appears to be a critical
ingredient in our intervention’s success.
This emphasis on repeated experience is reminiscent of cognitive
behavioral therapies (Butler, Chapman, Forman, & Beck, 2006), but
while our intervention does rely on repeated behavioral experience, the
“cognitive” component is not explicitly present. In other words, people
in our intervention were not explicitly prompted to challenge or
restructure their thoughts about strangers—although we suspect that
people may have done so naturally over the course of the week.
Intriguingly, there is evidence that explicit cognitive restructuring is less
important than practice for the treatment of anxiety and social phobias
in particular (Clark, 1995; Longmore & Worrell, 2007).
4.1.2. Gamication
In light of people’s aversion to talking to strangers, we suspect that
part of the effectiveness of our intervention may be attributable to the
fact that it was delivered via a scavenger hunt game. We drew on several
features of “gamication” to encourage participants to repeatedly
perform a behavior that they normally tend to avoid altogether. For
example, we gave participants a choice of which missions to tackle each
day, and participants reported appreciating this freedom, which may
have helped them see talking to strangers as a challenge rather than a
threat. Anecdotally, participants also seemed to enjoy the points they
received for each mission, and kept an eye on the leaderboard that
showed their relative ranking each week, which may have increased
their motivation to talk to more strangers. Our research thus adds to
existing literature that has harnessed gamication features to encourage
people to adopt behaviors that support health and well-being (Johnson
et al., 2016).
Table 2
Descriptive and inferential statistics for the daily survey results.
Measure Time/Comparison Predicted Actual Predicted vs. Actual
Rejection Monday M =0.65 M =0.06
Tuesday M =0.47 M =0.15
Wednesday M =0.36 M =0.14
Thursday M =0.41 M =0.10
Friday M =0.29 M =0.12
Overall M =0.43, SE =0.04 M =0.11, SE =0.01 Ratio ¼3.75, 95% CI ¼[3.18, 4.43],
z ¼15.58, p < .001
Estimated simple slopes & Rating type
x time interaction
b ¼ ¡0.18, SE ¼0.03,
95% CI ¼[¡0.25, ¡0.12],
z ¼ ¡5.47, p < .001
b =0.04, SE =0.05,
95% CI =[−0.05, 0.14],
z =0.90, p =.37
b ¼0.23, SE ¼0.06,
95% CI ¼[0.11, 0.34],
z ¼3.87, p < .001
Conversational
ability
Monday M =4.18 M =5.01
Tuesday M =4.39 M =5.10
Wednesday M =4.72 M =5.31
Thursday M =4.72 M =5.31
Friday M =4.94 M =5.32
Overall M =4.58, SE =0.06 M =5.19, SE =0.06 ΔM ¼ ¡0.61, 95% CI ¼[¡0.69, ¡0.53],
t(2069) ¼-15.55, p < .001
Estimated simple slopes & Rating type
x time interaction
b ¼0.19, SE ¼0.02,
95% CI ¼[0.15, 0.23],
t(2052) ¼9.23, p < .001
b ¼0.09, SE ¼0.02,
95% CI ¼[0.06, 0.12],
t(2065) ¼5.12, p < .001
b ¼ ¡0.10, SE ¼0.03,
95% CI ¼[¡0.15, ¡0.05],
t(2057.23) ¼ ¡3.72, p < .001
Awkwardness Monday M =3.10 M =2.47
Tuesday M =2.82 M =2.27
Wednesday M =2.59 M =2.17
Thursday M =2.59 M =2.14
Friday M =2.42 M =2.06
Overall M =2.71, SE =0.04 M =2.24, SE =0.04 ΔM ¼0.48, 95% CI ¼[0.42, 0.53],
t(2070) ¼16.13, p < .001
Estimated simple slopes & Rating type
x time interaction
b ¼ ¡0.16, SE ¼0.02,
95% CI ¼[¡0.19, ¡0.13],
t(2054) ¼ ¡10.46, p < .001
b ¼ ¡0.10, SE ¼0.01,
95% CI ¼[¡0.13, ¡0.07],
t(2066) ¼ ¡7.69, p < .001
b ¼0.06, SE ¼0.02,
95% CI ¼[0.02, 0.10],
t(2058.78) ¼3.00, p ¼.003
Enjoyment Monday M =3.26 M =3.60
Tuesday M =3.28 M =3.58
Wednesday M =3.28 M =3.61
Thursday M =3.26 M =3.62
Friday M =3.35 M =3.76
Overall M =3.28, SE =0.03 M =3.63, SE =0.03 ΔM ¼ ¡0.35, 95% CI ¼[¡0.40, ¡0.29],
t(2083) ¼-12.71, p < .001
Estimated simple slopes & Rating type
x time interaction
b =0.02, SE =0.01,
95% CI =[−0.01, 0.04],
t(2056) =1.16, p =.25
b ¼0.03, SE ¼0.01,
95% CI ¼[0.01, 0.06],
t(2077) ¼2.74, p ¼.01
b =0.02, SE =0.02,
95% CI =[−0.02, 0.05],
t(2066) =0.89, p =.37
Positive impression Monday M =3.21 M =3.43
Tuesday M =3.32 M =3.46
Wednesday M =3.24 M =3.54
Thursday M =3.28 M =3.51
Friday M =3.36 M =3.65
Overall M =3.28, SE =0.03 M =3.51, SE =0.03 ΔM ¼ ¡0.23, 95% CI ¼[¡0.28, ¡0.18],
t(2080) ¼-9.18, p < .001
Estimated simple slopes & Rating type
x time interaction
b ¼0.03, SE ¼0.01,
95% CI ¼[0.001, 0.05],
t(2054) ¼1.98, p ¼.05
b ¼0.05, SE ¼0.01,
95% CI ¼[0.03, 0.07],
t(2073) ¼4.57, p < .001
b =0.03, SE =0.02,
95% CI =[−0.01, 0.06],
t(2061) =1.45, p =.15
Note. Analysis of rejection used a mixed-effects binomial regression: descriptives are estimated means for predicted and actual rejections, and comparisons between
predicted and actual are ratios. For all other measures, a mixed-effects regression was used: comparisons between predicted and actual are tests of the mean difference.
The rating type x time interaction is reported in the predicted vs. actual column; follow-up simple slopes analyses are reported in the predicted and actual columns.
Signicant effects indicated in bold.
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4.2. Limitations of the current research
Although gamication may have made the intervention more
engaging, the use of gamication poses a limitation: we do not know the
extent to which the effects generalize to other less “gamied” ways of
delivering the intervention. While gamication may have contributed to
people’s motivation, as long as an intervention has some mechanism to
ensure participant compliance in actually having conversations, we have
no reason to doubt that similar results would be observed.
As with most eld research that requires participants to complete
repeated tasks over time, our study suffered from some attrition. We
carried out extensive analyses (see SOM), nding that participants who
dropped out did not differ from those who nished the study on a range
of personality traits and general attitudes towards talking to strangers.
However, there is some evidence that drop-outs reported more negative
experiences than nishers during their rst day of conversations. That
said, most participants who eventually dropped out of the study per-
sisted beyond the rst day, at which point their responses on our pri-
mary dependent variables became statistically indistinguishable from
those of participants who completed the study.
Finally, one unexpected limitation is that our intervention appeared
to reduce negative outcomes, such as fear of rejection, more strongly
than it improved positive outcomes, such as people’s perceptions of the
impressions they made on their partners. This is a limitation in that this
pattern was not predicted, and we do not know exactly why it happened.
On the other hand, assuming such a pattern is consistent, it suggests
theoretical and practical implications that will allow future research to
make more precise predictions, either when trying to modify our
intervention for stronger effects, or more broadly, in future attempts to
explore the underlying psychology of initial interactions with strangers.
Fig. 5. Daily results for predicted likelihood of rejection and conversational ability and actual number of rejections and perceived conversational ability.
Note. The effect of a “talking to strangers” intervention on people’s daily predictions about the likelihood of rejection compared to the actual number of rejections
they experienced, and people’s daily predictions about their ability to carry out a conversation compared to their post-conversation reections about their ability (7-
point scale). Error bars represent 95% condence intervals.
Fig. 6. Daily results for predicted and actual awkwardness, enjoyment, and making a positive impression.
Note. The effect of a “talking to strangers” intervention on people’s daily predictions about their awkwardness, their enjoyment, and the positivity of the impression
they will make on their partner, compared to their actual experience reported after they nished their conversations each day (all on 5-point scales). Error bars
represent 95% condence intervals.
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Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
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4.3. Implications for encouraging more conversations with strangers
When people feel more optimistic about talking to strangers, do they
actually initiate more conversations with strangers? Models of behavior
change emphasize factors such as people’s attitudes, perceptions of the
norms, and perceived behavioral control as important predictors (e.g.,
Ajzen, 1985). Our intervention shifted measures that could be inter-
preted as indicators of people’s attitudes (enjoyment), perceptions of the
norms (rejection), and perceived behavioral control (conversational
ability). It is therefore not unreasonable to think that our intervention
might also shift people’s actual behavior. And indeed, we found pre-
liminary support for this hypothesis: participants in the treatment con-
dition reported talking to more strangers in the week following the study
compared to the week prior to the study. However, looking back, we
wish our instructions had been more specic about exactly what type of
conversations we were interested in (i.e., social, not instrumental); more
than one participant mentioned that they worked in retail and had
talked to dozens of customers. Further, our study was not primarily
designed to assess behavior change; we simply asked people to
remember how many conversations they had initiated over the course of
a week, which is inevitably an imprecise measure. These results were
also exploratory and so we urge caution in interpreting them, leaving the
question of prolonged behavior change to future research.
4.4. Implications for loneliness
Our intervention may have special relevance now, as a growing
number of scientists and public health ofcials are raising the alarm
about increasing levels of loneliness, and the dire health consequences
(Buecker, Mund, Chwastek, Sostmann, & Luhmann, 2021; Holt-Lunstad,
Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015). Emerging research has
documented several promising classes of interventions to address lone-
liness, including increasing opportunities for social interaction,
addressing maladaptive social cognition, and improving social skills
(Masi, Chen, Hawkley, & Cacioppo, 2011). Our intervention does not
fall neatly into one of these categories; rather, it ts in several.
First, our intervention increases opportunities for social interaction
by making people more aware of the opportunities that already exist in
their daily lives. Indeed, after our intervention, participants in the
experimental condition (but not the control condition) reported noticing
more opportunities to talk to strangers. Secondly, our intervention may
have facilitated the disruption of maladaptive cognition, allowing peo-
ple to develop an alternative, less pessimistic narrative about initial
interactions (e.g., “Talking to strangers is much better than I expect—I
can do this.”). Finally, while our intervention did not explicitly instruct
people on how to improve their social skills, people did feel more
conversationally skilled by the end of the intervention. More research is
needed to determine the effects of our intervention on loneliness, but we
can be certain that our intervention did lead people to make connections
that continued beyond the study itself: 41% of participants in the
treatment condition reported exchanging contact information and
following up with at least one of their conversation partners—a prom-
ising start.
4.5. Conclusion
Ultimately, our novel “talking to strangers” intervention was suc-
cessful, providing evidence that repeated experience talking to strangers
can reduce people’s fears about talking to strangers, and make them
more accurate in their predictions about future conversations.
At its heart, our intervention is simple: it involves repeatedly
approaching and talking to strangers. As such, this intervention is
something that many people could self-administer. We encourage
readers to try it, despite any natural instinct to avoid such inter-
actions—which even the authors confess to sharing. As our research
shows, these conversations really do get easier with practice, and the
experience will be more positive than you expect.
Open practices
Materials, data and analysis scripts are available here: (https://osf.
io/b76gf/).
Author contributions
All authors contributed equally to this paper. All authors developed
the study concept and contributed to the study design. G.M.S and E.J.B
collected the data. All authors analyzed the data and drafted the
manuscript.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Meredith Anderer, Shaaba Lotun, Megan Rodri-
guez, Kendra Sober, Qian Sun, Zihao Tian, and Charlotte Walden for
assistance with data collection and study management. This project was
funded by a Small Research Grant from the British Academy (Grant
SG162524; to G.M.S.).
Appendix
Table A1
Scavenger hunt “missions”.
Name Instructions
Al Fresco Find someone outdoors, and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
All Smiles Find someone who seems friendly and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Artsy Find someone who looks artistic and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Blue Mood Find someone who looks sad and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Bossy Pants Find someone who looks like a leader and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Caffeination Station Find a barista/server and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Coffee Break Find someone who’s drinking a coffee and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Do Gooder Find someone who seems like a nice or kind person and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Fashionista Find someone who’s accessorizing (e.g., wearing a scarf, hat…) and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Fun Fabric Find someone wearing stand-out print (e.g., stripes, animal-print) and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Graphic Tee Find someone who is wearing an interesting shirt and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Hot Find someone whom you nd attractive and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Hungry Find someone who’s eating and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Inked Up Find someone who has a tattoo and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Inside Find someone indoors and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Jock Find someone sporty and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
(continued on next page)
G.M. Sandstrom et al.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 102 (2022) 104356
12
Table A1 (continued )
Name Instructions
Kickin’ It Find someone who is wearing interesting shoes and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Line Up Find someone who’s waiting in a queue/line and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Manscape Find someone who has a beard/goatee/etc. and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Minion Find someone who is wearing a uniform and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Nailed It Find someone who has funky nails (e.g., unusual shade, fancy design) and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Next Gen Find someone who’s from a different generation than you and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
On Top Find someone who is wearing a hat and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Ray of Sunshine Find someone who looks happy and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Sexy Find someone whose gender differs from yours and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Skin Deep Find someone whose skin tone is different from yours and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Twins Find someone wearing the same thing as you (hair style, shirt, shoes, etc.) and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Unicorn Find someone who has eye-catching hair (e.g., pink tips), dyed hair, or a cool hair style and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Wild Card x 2 Find anyone of your choosing and [talk to/observe] them for a few minutes.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104356.
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Gillian M. Sandstrom is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex.
Erica J. Boothby is a Senior Lecturer in the Operations, Information, & Decisions
Department at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gus Cooney is a Senior Lecturer in the Operations, Information, & Decisions Department
at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
G.M. Sandstrom et al.