For every relationship, friendship or an acquaintance someone has made, it all started somewhere small. Asking someone what their favorite season is, how the weather is outside or even a comment about someone’s outfit can all play a part into what is called small talk. According to Matthias R. Mehl, Simine Vazire, Shannon E. Holleran and C. Shelby Clark (2010), small talk is ordinary, predictable conversations. It may also be known as “gossip,” “chat” or “time-out talk” according to Justine Coupland (2000). In Jennifer Tung’s article, 10 Big Rules of Small Talk, some simple guidelines are given on how to approach a small talk conversation. These rules include do a little homework, greet people appropriately, remember names, don’t hold back,
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This rule should have been the third or fourth behind greeting someone appropriately, instead of almost the last one. A study containing 73 video recordings of face-to-face interactions, in various situations, were closely studied to identify how people who are familiar and unfamiliar approach and interact with each other (Pillet-Short, 2011). In the study, it was found that there are a total of eight basic factors (Pillet-Short, 2011). Body coordinating actions, person reference interpretations, greetings, repeating person reference interpretations, incorporating the question “how are you,” declaring of previous interactions, introduction assessments and touch (Pillet-Short, …show more content…
A study was done with 99 undergraduates, 32 males and 47 females, who wore an Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) for four days (Mehl, et al., 2010). The EAR recorded conversations and were monitored to test whether the conversations remained at surface level or was boosted to a meaningful conversation (Mehl, et al., 2010). The theory of this experiment was that more than half of the conversations would get past a surface level talk. This theory was conducted through the idea that males are more likely to discuss sports or external activities and females are more likely to discuss social life, family life or some aspect of personal care such as clothing (Althen, 1992). For a conversation to be substantive, meaningful information had to be exchanged (Mehl, et al., 2010). The findings where that 17.9 percent of conversations were identified as small talk, 35.5 percent were identified as substantive and the other conversations fell into neither category (Mehl, et al.,
This rule should have been the third or fourth behind greeting someone appropriately, instead of almost the last one. A study containing 73 video recordings of face-to-face interactions, in various situations, were closely studied to identify how people who are familiar and unfamiliar approach and interact with each other (Pillet-Short, 2011). In the study, it was found that there are a total of eight basic factors (Pillet-Short, 2011). Body coordinating actions, person reference interpretations, greetings, repeating person reference interpretations, incorporating the question “how are you,” declaring of previous interactions, introduction assessments and touch (Pillet-Short, …show more content…
A study was done with 99 undergraduates, 32 males and 47 females, who wore an Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) for four days (Mehl, et al., 2010). The EAR recorded conversations and were monitored to test whether the conversations remained at surface level or was boosted to a meaningful conversation (Mehl, et al., 2010). The theory of this experiment was that more than half of the conversations would get past a surface level talk. This theory was conducted through the idea that males are more likely to discuss sports or external activities and females are more likely to discuss social life, family life or some aspect of personal care such as clothing (Althen, 1992). For a conversation to be substantive, meaningful information had to be exchanged (Mehl, et al., 2010). The findings where that 17.9 percent of conversations were identified as small talk, 35.5 percent were identified as substantive and the other conversations fell into neither category (Mehl, et al.,