How to Get Over the Fear of Small Talk
For some people, small talk is a uniquely terrifying form of torment. If this applies to you, you can probably remember in minute detail your last few attempts to find a way to communicate when silence would be considered rude and inhospitable . Maybe you’re in a long line with one of your neighbors while you both happen to be shopping at the same local store. Having exhausted the most obvious list of issues, you must now look for new ideas to fill in the awkward silence. Your neighbor also seems unwilling or unable to join the conversation. Now you feel like it’s up to you to come up with some new and clever talking points.
If you’ve been watching coverage of recent royal processions and ceremonies honoring the late Queen Elizabeth II, you may have noticed that the commentators seemed exceptionally good at having something to say when there was actually nothing to say. Did you notice how many times they repeated the same observation or delved into the same historical facts about the late Queen and her monarchy? How did they manage to fill the time despite the lack of content? What could you learn from them?
Small talk and why it matters
Ruth Lambley (2021) from York Saint John University recently wrote an article about the importance of small talk to put other people at ease. Her work focuses on a specific function of small talk as a means of promoting better communication between research interviewers and participants, or what she calls “alliance”.
As a research method, interviewing presents unique challenges that you can immediately imagine when you think about the situation. In fact, chances are you’ve been “interviewed” even if you don’t know it. When a researcher interviews a participant, the intention of the interviewer is to elicit some sort of information from the interviewee (just as you might be interviewed by a healthcare professional). Unlike ordinary conversations, the interviewer is in control of the conversation, creating a power imbalance.
In mental health research, as Lambley points out, “power inequalities are a common obstacle to the participation of people with mental health problems” (pp. 586–587). An ally allows for “coproduction” of responses, meaning that the respondent works with the interviewer to try to produce the most accurate answers possible. Additionally, co-production allows research participants to actively participate in the production of a study’s results, which Lambley says is increasingly a focus of funding agencies looking to ensure the “quality, validity and credibility of the results.” (p. 588).
On that last point, imagine that a health care provider interviews you to determine your quality of physical function and symptoms. What would make you feel like you can admit to something that isn’t working so well, especially when your problem is one you’d rather not think about let alone talk about?
Start a conversation with small talk
Here, small talk can serve to even out the power imbalance in an interview situation. In the research methodology developed by Lambley and her team, researchers used small talk to build rapport and allow respondents to feel more comfortable sharing their feelings of anxiety. Members of her team even shared with the participants their own personal experiences of mental health. This might lead you to skewed results, but the British researcher showed that the trade-off benefited the quality of the research by providing higher-quality data.
Now that you see the value of small talk as a way to reduce power differences and create a bond between two conversation partners, it’s time to move on and look at specific tools you can employ as you work to improve your chat skills. skills work.
In the first place, you might stop and think about the idea of a “power difference” between you and the other person. Is there something about your neighbor that makes your neighbor feel like you’re judging them? You may have unknowingly given the impression that you think you are better than them in some significant way. You’ve “humbly boasted” about a situation like a renovation you’ve done on your home, complaining about the cost, while making it clear that you’re in better financial shape than they are.
With this realization, you can move on to the next step and create a small talk bridge to repair the damage you did in that previous interaction. Be careful not to enter the territory of humble boasting, but instead try actual humility. While waiting in line at a store isn’t the best opportunity to share personal information, you could use any time you have to reveal something about yourself that was a little painful or difficult. Maybe the reason you’re in this store in the first place has some small talk potential.
Moving on to a non-backstory situation, the Lambley article also provides some other pointers that you could implement to improve your small talk skills. Maybe you’re sitting next to someone you don’t know that well at a dinner hosted by a mutual friend. Perhaps in the past, when you were in similar situations, you decided to break the ice by asking a few questions. Without realizing it, you may have created a dynamic in which you come across as an “interviewer.” The more questions you ask, the more you portray that other person as someone who might not feel like giving information to someone who seems so “curious.”
In the York Saint John University research team, another approach the interviewers used to avert this possibility of a barrage of questions was to ask participants to share their thoughts on a piece of music or a photo. They also asked participants to tell stories or describe their impressions of a picture.
Applying these strategies to a common social occasion, you might try to bring up topics that allow the other person to tell stories about themselves. You could even tell a story that you think is neutral enough for the other person to decide whether or not to share their own thoughts in return.
Small talk as a stepping stone to better relationships
If simply sharing experiences is enough to calm a research participant down enough to talk about difficult topics, imagine how small talk can improve your own relationships. Redefining a potential small talk situation from an “interview” to an opportunity to share reflections could yield myriad unexpected benefits. You and your neighbor, now on friendly terms, can enjoy some joint activities as you take advantage of each other’s closeness. You might learn something new about where you live that can give you helpful tips.
In situations where you’re getting to know someone, there are endless ways that a small-talk conversation can grow into a kind of “large-talk” relationship. When you bring what Lambley notes as “lived experiences” into a conversation, the other person can feel like you’re the kind of person they can trust. Who knows where this could all lead?
To sum up, Turn small talk into an opportunity to share life experiences with either new or familiar people, rather than as a test of your social skills. Your fulfillment and that of your interlocutors can benefit in unexpected ways.