14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new scientific study, it would appear that people who are happy tend to engage more in interpersonal communications than unhappy people. However, when they do this, they also talk with more sense, and tend to engage in less small talk than the other group. The results of the new investigation make sense, experts say, given the fact that sad or unhappy people tend to not be in the mood for serious conversations, and prefer to keep things shallow for the time being. The new study was conducted by experts at the Washington University in St Louis, in cooperation with colleagues from the University of Arizona, LiveScience reports.
Psychologists at these two institutions were curious as to the differences in conversation types that appear between sad and happy people, and so they went on to investigate. In their experiments, the researchers asked a number of volunteers to wear an Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) for about four days, as they went about their daily lives. This device is an unobtrusive recording instrument, which periodically comes to life, and records snippets of sounds as the test subjects engage in various activities. The samples are collected randomly, and so researchers can be sure that their study will not be hampered with.
In this particular instance, the science group managed to collect about 20,000 recordings. Each of the EAR devices sampled some 30 seconds of sounds from each participant, once ever 12.5 minutes. The team then went on to listen to all of the recordings, separating them depending on the basis that they contained either meaningful discussions, or just small talk. In addition to using the sound snippets, the team members also asked each participant to undergo a personality test, as well as an assessment of their general well-being. Full details of their results are scheduled for publication in an upcoming issue of the respected scientific journal Psychological Science.
Some of their conclusions were, however, mentioned ahead of print. The group learned for instance that happy persons tended to spend up to 70 percent more time talking than their unhappy peers. The same group also spent 25 percent less time all by themselves, with no one to interact with. When it came to meaningful conversations, happy people were 200 percent more likely to engage in such behavior than the other group. Although scientists couldn't identify a direct cause-and-effect link, they argue that deep, meaningful conversations may have the ability to make people happier.