{"id":227449,"date":"2025-12-19T01:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/good-listeners-connect-more-easily-with-strangers-study-finds"},"modified":"2025-12-19T01:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:40:13","slug":"good-listeners-connect-more-easily-with-strangers-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/good-listeners-connect-more-easily-with-strangers-study-finds","title":{"rendered":"Good listeners connect more easily with strangers, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/good-listeners-connect-more-easily-with-strangers-study-finds2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With many people now heavily relying on electronic devices to communicate with others, connecting on a deeper level with others, particularly face-to-face, can prove challenging. Recent nationwide surveys and psychological studies suggest that today many people feel lonely, socially isolated and\/or disconnected from others living in their same geographical area.<\/p>\n<p>Understanding the factors that contribute to social connection could inform the development of more effective interventions aimed at reducing loneliness and improving people\u2019s mental health or overall well-being. As communication is generally crucial for the formation of social bonds, listening behaviors and an openness towards what others share might be key drivers of social connection.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently carried out a study aimed at testing this hypothesis by examining the behavior of strangers engaged in conversation with each other. Their findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s44271-025-00342-2\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Communications Psychology<\/i>, suggest that people who engage in high-quality listening behaviors tend to feel more socially connected to others, even if they are meeting them for the first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With many people now heavily relying on electronic devices to communicate with others, connecting on a deeper level with others, particularly face-to-face, can prove challenging. Recent nationwide surveys and psychological studies suggest that today many people feel lonely, socially isolated and\/or disconnected from others living in their same geographical area. Understanding the factors that contribute [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1694,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}