Highlights
- striking up conversations at random is the cheapest form of therapy there is
- people could improve their own momentary well-being — and that of others — by simply being more social with strangers,
- Start with easy stuff, like talking to the barista at the coffee shop, or the checkout person at the store, where you know you both have a limited time.” Or in an elevator, she says, where
- our evolved psychology works both for and against us whenever we attempt to form more transitory social bond
- In a world where food was scarce, predators were abundant, and you needed to cooperate to survive, “If you’re booted out of the group, you’re dead. It really, really mattered to be part of the group. So that could explain why social rejection feels so bad.
- being ostracized is so deeply ingrained that we feel social rejection as “equivalent to physical pain,”
- individuals are motivated to avoid situations in which rejection is likely.”
- upticking levels of cortisol (the hormone that controls the body’s defensive stress response when we feel threatened).
- By trying to increase efficiency, in some ways, we’re reducing all these little opportunities for social interaction.