Small Talk May be More Beneficial than You Realize

If you stop by your neighbor's front stoop, go to that networking event or say, "hi" to a colleague in the breakroom, you will almost definitely end up making boring small talk—right? The kind that makes you wish a bed would emerge from the ground because you're surely going to drift off. The kind that you're better off avoiding at all costs.

Not so fast: New research suggests the topics people tend to dimiss as small talk may actually be the key to feeling more connected.

According to a study published April 13 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people consistently underestimate how enjoyable conversations about "boring" topics actually are. Across nine experiments with 1,800 total participants, the gap between expectation and experience was robust and consistent. And the effect held across three countries—the U.S., France and Singapore—suggesting it's not a cultural fluke.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.