Can deep conversations lead to greater happiness?
Would you be happier with life if most of your conversations were deep discussions about existence and the meaning of events? Some might say that having such discussions all the time is likely to lead to a more depressive temperament. It has been argued that superficial talk keeps us happy by maintaining social order and putting us a healthy distance from tough topics, avoiding the possibility of conflict or overexposing ourselves. Some people believe that dealing with these difficult truths on a daily basis distracts from the everyday surface-level facts of life that keep us going.
But this conventional wisdom is challenged by a new study published in the journal of Psychological Science. Dr. Matthias Mehl of the University of Arizona Department of Psychology had 79 participants wear recording devices that enabled researchers to analyze conversation patterns. Mehl then used a survey to assess each individual's satisfaction level, and combined these figures to create his results.
Mehl found that a little less than 20% of all conversations qualified as small talk, 35.5% were categorized as substantive, and the rest fell into neither category. The results were unequivocal: People who had more small talk were less happy, while those who had more deep conversations were happier.
Deep conversations give meaning to life
People like to feel that they have control over their lives. But when an individual spends an inordinate amount of time on small talk, it does anything but provide a sense of control. It's more likely to encourage the individual to completely neglect the substantive aspects of life. The surface seems bright and uncomplicated, while the deeper issues remain obscure and intractable.
As this study seems to prove, when people have deep conversations, it gives them a stronger sense of control over their lives and the world. While existence may seem as troublesome and complicated as ever, a person who has deep discussions has at least begun to take control over things. It provides a greater sense of meaning to life, and it gives one a stronger sense of direction.
Deep conversations strengthen social bonds
The study also notes a few interesting factors relating to social behavior. For one thing, as Mehl writes, the study confirms past findings, which said, "higher well-being was associated with spending less time alone . . . and more time with others." And this fact has been well documented. A 2008 Harvard study found that "happiness spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion" and that "one person's happiness triggers a chain reaction that benefits not only his friends, but his friends' friends, and his friends' friends' friends." Meanwhile, a 2008 University of California San Diego study found that "happy people tend to be connected to one another" in so-called "happiness clusters" composed of networks of friends, spouses, and family members.
When deep conversation is found to be a major contributor to happiness, it shows that these happiness clusters are likely to be groups of people who, by temperament and custom, are all above-average conversationalists. But perhaps most importantly, these conversations strengthen bonds on a person-to-person basis. As Mehl writes, "just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in the interaction partners." The individuals benefit from having greater control over their lives, and these benefits are compounded when we share them.
Is deep conversation an antidepressant?
The one main problem with this study is that all of the participants were college undergraduates, a stage of life in which deep conversation is perhaps at a higher premium than it is in other stages. College students are in the midst of discovering who they are, and they try to impress their peers with their intellectual heft. Plus, it's difficult to measure whether happiness is caused by deep conversations, or if happy people simply tend to have more deep conversations because of their personality types.
Still, the study's findings do seem to give credence to Socrates' adage that "the unexamined life is not worth living," at least when the examination is done in concert with others. If true, it can't hurt to make a conscious effort to give our everyday conversations a deeper bent. At the very least, it will give you a greater sense of control, and it will help forge deeper connections with your conversation partners.