It turns out, more conversations about things that we perceive to be boring are actually interesting.
The small talk you try to avoid because you think it will be boring may actually be more enjoyable than you think, and good for you as well, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“We tend to assume that if a topic sounds dull, the conversation will be dull too,” said Elizabeth Trinh, MA, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan and lead author of the research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “But that’s not what people actually experience.”
In nine experiments involving 1,800 participants, researchers found that people consistently underestimated how interesting and enjoyable conversations about boring topics would be.