Classic small talk topics are usually completely irrelevant. Mostly it is about the weather, the past weekend or the past vacation. Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the influence of the first impression that arises. »Subjects who lead short small talk interactions with strangers develop an idea of their personality, especially with regard to their extra version,« write Neha Bose and Daniel Sgroi from the University of Warwick in the open access magazine »Plos One«. This affects their subsequent behavior in strategic games.
Several studies have already examined in the past the influence of one's own personality on strategic decisions. However, less is known about how the impression that people get from the personality of others can influence such interactions.
For their study, Bose and Sgroi asked 168 out of a total of 338 subjects to talk to another participant via chat software for four minutes. In this way, the two economists wanted to exclude disturbing effects such as facial expressions and gestures as well as the influence of the external appearance. After that, the test subjects should note what impression they had gained from the personality of their conversation partner. The focus was on the two characteristics of extra version and neuroticism. Then the participants were asked to play two strategic games with their conversation partner. The 170 subjects of the comparison group did not talk to their partner before the games.
Extraverted people stand out
The researchers found that depending on the game, it varied a little, as the personality impressions obtained in small talk affected the later game behavior. In a game that contained both competitive and cooperative elements, the participants behaved more cooperative if they thought their partner was extraverted. Extraverted people are characterized by sociability and conviviality; Extraversion is therefore usually the best recognizable property in a short conversation. In a competition game that was about predicting the behavior of the opponent, the participants had greater difficulties to trick their opponents when they felt that they were similar.
"Our work highlights the importance of regular small talk communication, even if it does not seem relevant or important, " the authors conclude from their experiment. "Through short, seemingly trivial interactions with others, we become better at assessing the personality of our interlocutors, which in turn increases our performance when dealing with them in the future." However, this is only a first exploratory study under laboratory conditions. Further research in real situations is necessary in order to be able to make more accurate statements.
