Who doesn’t know that feeling? You have just met someone, feel positive toward them, but also feel like you may be messing up or that the other person has not liked you. It’s a common human feeling and one where scientists have some good news.
A study published in the journal Psychological Science provides compelling reasons to cut ourselves some slack. Researchers from Cornell, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Essex have discovered that most people consistently underestimate how much their conversation partner likes them. This phenomenon, known as the “liking gap,” spans across different age groups and can persist for months. Fortunately, much of it is a product of our own perceptions.
A compelling series of experiments
In a series of experiments, scientists examined how accurately people gauged their conversation partner’s feelings towards them compared to the partner’s actual sentiments.
In one experiment, Yale students engaged in a brief five-minute conversation with another participant. They rated how much they liked the other person and estimated how much they believed the other person liked them. Surprisingly, individuals consistently undervalued how positively they were perceived by others.
Additional experiments revealed that this liking gap remained consistent, whether the conversation was short, moderate, or lengthy. This phenomenon wasn’t confined to controlled lab settings; it also manifested in real-life situations. The researchers recruited 100 individuals participating in “How to Talk to Strangers” workshops in the U.K. These participants answered the same questions to measure the liking gap both before and after engaging in a five-minute conversation with a stranger. Intriguingly, the liking gap was evident both before and after the conversation, indicating that people anticipate and experience this gap in real-world interactions.
Interestingly, the liking gap gradually diminished over time. Another experiment demonstrated that after eight months of cohabitating, college students accurately assessed how much their roommates liked them. However, it still took several months for this gap to completely disappear.
But why do we do this?
The authors of the study propose several psychological explanations for this liking gap. Firstly, individuals tend to be overly critical of themselves, often dwelling on perceived mistakes to improve in the future. While a speaker may nitpick their own performance, their conversation partner likely does not notice or care about these supposed flaws.
Furthermore, individuals tend to hold themselves to higher standards than they do others. This leads them to underestimate the positive impression they make, as they expect new interactions to be less satisfying than they actually turn out to be. People often set low expectations for these conversations, only to find that their conversation partners view them more positively than anticipated.
Lastly, individuals often assume that their nervousness and emotions are apparent to others, which is not the case. People cannot read minds and are typically unaware of their conversation partner’s self-consciousness or stumbling. In reality, they focus on observable behavior rather than inner thoughts and feelings.
In essence, this study serves as a reminder to relax during initial meetings. People are usually less judgmental than we imagine, and their opinions of us are often more positive than we believe. The authors of the study conclude that “people systematically underestimate how much their conversation partners like them and enjoy their company.” Conversations contribute significantly to our happiness, and others tend to like us more than we give them credit for.
