We were told not to talk to strangers. This is the true story of the scientists who tested that rule on a Chicago train — and of what our acquaintances quietly do for our careers.
Ten words and phrases in four activities. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words: to underestimate · awkward · small talk. Say the right one, then reveal.
Read each part. Then answer the quick questions from memory before you check. Then discuss the question.
Every weekday morning, trains carry thousands of commuters from the suburbs into the centre of Chicago. Most passengers do the same thing: they sit alone, look at their phones or out of the window, and say nothing. Two psychologists at the University of Chicago, Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, wanted to know why. Was silence really what people wanted — or were they making a mistake?
At a station called Homewood, near the start of the line, research assistants stopped 118 commuters before they got on the train. Each person was given an envelope with a short survey and a $5 gift card, and one of three instructions. The first group was told: "Please have a conversation with a new person on the train today. Try to make a connection. Find out something interesting about him or her and tell them something about you." The second group was told to keep to themselves and enjoy their solitude. The third group was told to do what they normally did.
At the end of the journey, everyone filled in the survey. The people who had talked to a stranger reported the most positive commute of all three groups. And they did not say it was any less productive.
Then the researchers asked a different group of commuters to imagine the same three instructions. They predicted exactly the opposite: that sitting alone would be more pleasant than talking to a stranger. Another group guessed that fewer than half of other passengers would want to talk. In fact, in the experiment, every commuter in the talking group who returned the survey had managed to have a conversation — except a few who said nobody sat next to them. Not one person reported being rebuffed. The researchers saw the same pattern when they repeated the study on Chicago buses.
1. What were the three instructions that the commuters received?
2. What did people predict — and what really happened?
1. Talk to a new person and try to make a connection; keep to yourself and enjoy the solitude; do what you normally do.
2. They predicted that solitude would be best and that people wouldn't want to talk. In reality, the talkers had the most positive commute, and nobody reported being rebuffed.
Even after a good conversation, many of us go home and replay it. Did I talk too much? Was that joke stupid? She probably thought I was boring. In 2018, four psychologists — Erica Boothby, Gus Cooney, Gillian Sandstrom and Margaret Clark — decided to measure this feeling.
In the first study, they put two strangers together in a laboratory and asked them to talk for about five minutes. Afterwards, each person answered two kinds of question: How much did you like your partner? and How much do you think your partner liked you? Again and again, people underestimated how much the other person liked them and enjoyed their company. The researchers called this the liking gap.
They found the same gap in other places. First-year university students who were getting to know the people they lived with showed it — and in their case it lasted for months. Adults at public workshops in the UK called "How to Talk to Strangers" showed it too. Longer conversations, from a couple of minutes to three quarters of an hour, didn't make it go away.
Why does it happen? During a conversation, we are busy watching ourselves and criticising our own performance. Our partner, meanwhile, is busy doing exactly the same. So each of us notices our own awkward moments — and misses the other person's signals that they are enjoying it.
1. What two questions did people answer after the five-minute conversation?
2. What is "the liking gap", and why does it happen?
1. How much they liked their partner, and how much they thought their partner liked them.
2. People underestimate how much the other person liked them. It happens because we are busy criticising our own performance and miss the other person's positive signals.
Decades earlier, a young American sociologist, Mark Granovetter, had interviewed professional, technical and managerial workers in a suburb of Boston who had recently changed jobs. Many of them had found their new job through a personal contact. Granovetter asked a simple question: how often did you see that person at the time?
The answers surprised him. Only about one in six (16.7%) said they saw the contact often. More than half (55.6%) said occasionally, and more than a quarter (27.8%) said rarely — once a year or less. People often corrected him when he asked whether a friend had told them about the job: "Not a friend, an acquaintance." In 1973 he published his famous paper, The Strength of Weak Ties. His explanation: your close friends know the same people and hear the same news as you. Acquaintances move in different circles, so they bring you information you would never hear otherwise.
For almost fifty years, this was a famous idea that was hard to test properly. Then, in 2022, researchers from LinkedIn, MIT, Stanford and Harvard published a study in the journal Science. Between 2015 and 2019, LinkedIn had tested different versions of its "People You May Know" feature on more than 20 million users. Some people were shown more suggestions of distant contacts, others more suggestions of close ones. Over five years, these users made about two billion new connections and took 600,000 new jobs.
The results supported Granovetter — with a twist. Weaker ties helped people change jobs more than strong ties, but only up to a point. The most useful contacts were not complete strangers but moderately weak ties: people who shared some contacts with you, but not many. The researchers also found that weak ties helped most in more digital industries, while in less digital industries, strong ties were more useful.
1. What did Granovetter discover about the contacts who helped people find jobs?
2. What did the LinkedIn study add to his idea?
1. Most of them were people the job changers saw only occasionally or rarely — acquaintances, not close friends.
2. Weak ties did help more, but only up to a point: moderately weak ties were the most useful. And the effect depended on the industry.
Every conversation with a stranger starts with a question. Good questions need the right word order — and sometimes a softer, more polite form.
Write each question. Then say it aloud.
1. you / do / how often / the train / take ? →
2. you / tell / could / me / the meeting / where / is ? →
3. job / your / who / you / about / told / current ? →
4. I / was / if / you / wondering / free / were / later →
1. How often do you take the train? 2. Could you tell me where the meeting is? 3. Who told you about your current job? 4. I was wondering if you were free later.
2 and 4 are indirect: statement order after the opening phrase. 3 is a subject question: no did.
Each question is a bit direct for a first conversation. Rewrite it as an indirect question using the phrase in brackets.
1. What do you do? (Do you mind me asking…)
2. Did you enjoy the conference? (I was wondering…)
3. How did you find this job? (Can I ask…)
1. Do you mind me asking what you do?
2. I was wondering if / whether you enjoyed the conference.
3. Can I ask how you found this job?
Check: did you remove do / did and use statement order? Did you add if / whether for the yes/no question?
You'll use it again in the Speak tab — Task C is a real conversation with a stranger.
The studies in this story are real, and the numbers come from the researchers who ran them. Put together, they suggest that we are often wrong about other people — in a way that costs us.
Speak against the clock — and use good questions where they fit: direct, indirect and follow-up.
Retell the story in your own words. Use these steps: silent commuters → Homewood station and the three envelopes → the most positive commute → the wrong predictions → nobody rebuffed → five-minute conversations in the lab → the liking gap and why it happens → Granovetter's job changers → "not a friend, an acquaintance" → 20 million LinkedIn users → moderately weak ties.
Use at least three questions (for example, the questions the scientists asked) and five key words (commute, acquaintance, rejection, underestimate, awkward, small talk, gap, network, break the ice, grapevine).
First argue FOR: think about the Chicago trains, the liking gap and weak ties. Then argue AGAINST: think about privacy, people who want quiet time, safety, cultural differences and the fact that a train chat is not a friendship. Finally, say what you really think — and where you draw the line.
Role play. You and your teacher are strangers sitting next to each other on a long train journey. Start the conversation, keep it going for at least three minutes, and try to find out one interesting thing about the other person. Use at least two indirect questions and three follow-up questions. Afterwards, each of you says how much you think the other enjoyed it — then check for a liking gap!
Or choose one of these: