Surrounded
Conversations about boring topics are more interesting than we think
Elizabeth Trinh, Nicole Thio & Nadav Klein
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Conversations enhance social connection and well-being, but the kinds of conversations that come to mind when thinking of these benefits are ones about interesting topics. Everyday life, however, does not spare people from conversations about boring topics. We examine the extent to which people’s expectations of conversations about boring topics are calibrated with their actual experiences. Nine preregistered experiments (five in the main text, four in the Supplemental Material; total N = 1,800) reveal that participants consistently underestimated how enjoyable and interesting conversations about boring topics were. Expectations were relatively more calibrated for conversations about interesting topics. This pattern held across virtual and in-person settings, conversations with friends and strangers, and self-generated and experimenter-assigned topics. This occurs partly due to the relative ease of assessing the static elements of conversations and the difficulty of assessing their dynamic elements. The topic is a static element that is easy to assess prior to a conversation, and so people overweight it in their forecasts. The level of engagement conversations command -- the need to respond, listen, and pay attention to another person -- makes them enjoyable, but is harder to assess because it dynamically emerges only once a conversation begins. Expectations about enjoyment guide decisions to enter conversations, suggesting that miscalibration between predicted and actual enjoyment can lead people to avoid conversations they would, in fact, enjoy.
The detection of episodic memory in others biases social choice
Elisa Ciaramelli et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 14 April 2026
Abstract:
We often share personal memories with others, but the social function of episodic memory retrieval is not clear. In two experiments (N1 = 50, N2 = 125), run in two different labs, in different countries with different languages, and using naturalistic as well as experimentally crafted personal narratives, we show that participants can distinguish between context-rich (episodic) memories and context-poor (semantic) memories shared by others, and consistently ascribe greater memory ability to individuals sharing episodic compared to semantic personal memories. Moreover, participants report stronger social preference and feelings of closeness for individuals sharing personal episodic memories. The appraisal of episodic quality in memories shared by others, and not inferred personality traits of the narrator, predicted interpersonal closeness on a trial-by-trial basis. These findings reveal a fundamental social function of the episodic memory system: enabling the sharing of context-rich personal memories that foster close relationships. We propose that preferring partners who display strong episodic recall may confer adaptive advantages, linking social selection to the effectiveness of memory systems, particularly hippocampal function.
The environment impressions model
Travis Lim & Eric Hehman
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across six studies (N = 7,290), the present research identifies and validates four factors underlying the impressions people form of the environments they live in and navigate every day: density, desirability, light, and temperature. U.S. participants qualitatively described environments (Study 1), and both U.S. and U.K. participants rated environments on those characteristics (Studies 2-4). Exploratory factor analyses identified the factors underlying environment impressions. Subsequent validation revealed that these factors are associated with different behavioral intentions (Study 5) and that systematically manipulating the appearance of environments caused impressions on the relevant factor to change (Study 6). Overall, the present work proposes the environment impressions model, which serves as the foundation for our expanding understanding of how impressions of the environment might influence an individual’s attitudes and behaviors.
Ensemble perception in entitativity judgments of natural crowds
Sarah Ariel Lamer et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2026
Abstract:
We conducted two studies to examine how rapid ensemble perceptions of emotion shape judgments of entitativity. We hypothesize that when a perceiver encounters a crowd, they rapidly discern the degree of emotional variability in that group via ensemble coding, and this input provides a strong basis for both immediate and deliberative entitativity inferences. We test this hypothesis using images of a representative sample of natural groups collected via Instagram. Each person in each of ∼200 group images was independently coded for facial affect, gender, and race. Participants evaluated facial emotion variability in each group. We hypothesized that people perceive group variability in facial emotion after brief exposure (150 ms), and that these rapid perceptions predict entitativity judgments of groups viewed for longer periods (3 s). We further hypothesized that rapid ensemble perceptions of emotion variability support the rapid formation of entitativity judgments: entitativity judgments made after 150 ms will approximate those made after 3 s. In Study 1, participants saw images for 5 s each, evaluating (a) shared emotion among group members or (b) entitativity. Study 2 employed a 3 (exposure: 150 ms, 750 ms, 3 s) x 2 (rating: shared emotion, entitativity) x 2 (faces visible: yes, no) between-subjects design. All hypotheses were supported, and the effects were largely independent of the race and gender composition of the groups. These data suggest that complex conceptual judgments about small groups can be formed in the initial instants of perception. We discuss the implications for ensemble coding theories and methods, as well as for entitativity theories.
Lonelier people feel less empathic despite intact neural empathy responses after meditation training
Marla Dressel et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Loneliness, which has reached an all-time high in the United States, has been linked to reduced self-reported empathy. Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is aimed at extending love and kindness to others and has been shown to increase empathy. But whether LKM can reduce loneliness, and whether this corresponds to higher levels of trait empathy, state empathy, and/or neural empathic responding, has not been assessed. In this pre-registered mixed-design randomized controlled trial, 108 participants completed LKM or active control training. Loneliness and trait empathy were assessed pre- and post-intervention. Neural empathic responding was measured in 54 participants during functional MRI by computing the multi-voxel pattern similarity between experiencing and observing both pain and fearful anticipation of pain. Both interventions reduced loneliness, but not trait empathy, which failed to support the hypothesis that LKM is effective in reducing loneliness by increasing empathy. Furthermore, we found no credible evidence that loneliness is associated with differences in neural empathic responding or state empathy for pain. However, loneliness was associated with lower self-reported empathy. Together, these results suggest that lonelier individuals simulate others’ experiences but may not subjectively perceive themselves as empathetic, emphasizing the potential of loneliness interventions that address maladaptive social cognition.