The Power of Talking to a STRANGER

As children we're told not to talk to strangers. But now you're an adult, it's time to forget that, because having a chat with someone you don't know could change your whole day

- Helen Foster

It could be said that everything we know about the power of chatting to a stranger started with a hot dog lady.

Dr Gillian Sandstrom was a young doctorate student studying in Canada, when she'd regularly visit a hot-dog stand on the university campus. Over time, she and the woman who worked on the hot-dog stand struck up a connection.

“I started nodding and smiling at the lady and, when she responded, even just that small connection made me feel seen, safe and part of the campus community at a time when I was pretty stressed,” says Sandstrom, now a lecturer in psychology and head of the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. The positive impact of her own experience led her to study the effect of simple social interactions, like a quick chat with the barista making your coffee.

She found that people were roughly 17 per cent happier on the days when they struck up a chat over the hiss of the cappuccino machine, or said hi to a neighbour in the hallway. “My work and that of others clearly shows that talking to strangers puts you in a more positive mood,” she says. “It also makes you trusting of other people which, I think, makes the world feel a little friendlier and safer.”

The reason for this is simple. People need people. We need to feel connected, even for just a few seconds—and the more people we do this with, the merrier. In fact, according to a study from Harvard Business School, people who interact within more different relationship levels—ranging from friends, family/partners, colleagues and strangers—throughout the day are happier than those with a less broad mix of interactions.