How many times per week do you find yourself talking about topics you have no interest in or have already discussed a million times — just for something to say? Whether it’s waiting for a slow elevator with a co-worker, talking to an acquaintance at an industry event, or chatting with a complete stranger at a networking event, it happens to all of us. Can you use small talk to test someone’s intelligence?
Go for it.
So, to combat these incredibly boring conversations, I started asking people unexpected, thought-provoking questions that couldn’t be answered with a simple yes or no. The results were awesome: I learned cool facts about other people that I would’ve never picked up in “normal” conversation — and as a bonus, we became closer.
And as a double bonus, I got to stop weighing in on the weather. In spite of seeming to have little useful purpose, small talk is a bonding ritual and a strategy for managing interpersonal distance. It serves many functions in helping to define the relationships between friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances.
In particular, it helps new acquaintances to explore and categorize each other’s social position. Small talk is closely related to the need for people to maintain a positive face and feel approved of by those who are listening to them. It lubricates social interactions in a very flexible way, but the desired function is often dependent on the point in the conversation at which the small talk occurs:
- Conversation opener: when the speakers do not know each other, it allows them to show that they have friendly intentions and desire some positive interaction. In a business meeting, it enables people to establish each other’s reputation and level of expertise. If there is already a relationship between the two talkers, their small talk serves as a gentle introduction before engaging in more functional topics of conversation. It allows them to signal their mood and to sense the mood of the other person.
- At the end of a conversation: suddenly ending an exchange may risk appearing to reject the other person. Small talk can be used to mitigate that rejection, affirm the relationship between the two people, and soften the parting.
- Space filler to avoid silence: in many cultures, silences between two people are usually considered uncomfortable and Tension can be reduced by starting phatic talk until a more substantial subject arises. Generally, humans find prolonged silence uncomfortable, and sometimes unbearable. That can be due to human evolutionary history as a social species, as in many other social animals, silence is a communicative sign of potential danger.