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Do conversations end when people want them to?

experimental-history.com · 4,108 words · saved by 1 readers

Years ago, I was getting ready for a party and I suddenly realized something: I didn’t want to go to the party. Inevitably, I knew, I was going to get stuck talking to someone, and there wouldn’t be any way to end the conversation without embarrassing both of us (“It’s been great talking to you, but not great enough that I want to continue!”). But then I thought, wait, what makes me think I’m so special? What if the other person feels exactly the same way? What if we’re all trapped in this conspiracy of politeness—we all want to go, but we’re not allowed to say it? Surprisingly, no one knows the answers to these questions. Eight billion humans spend all day yapping with each other, and we have no idea if those conversations end when people wish they would. So my PhD advisor Dan and I set out to get some answers using the most powerful methods available to us in psychology: we started bothering people. (This is the blog version of a paper I published a few years ago; you can read the wh

Do conversations end when people want them to? N = 1172 Adam Mastroianni Jul 22, 2025 487 47 66 Share Article voiceover 0:00 -20:55 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. photo cred: my dad Years ago, I was getting ready for a party and I suddenly realized something: I didn’t want to go to the party. Inevitably, I knew, I was going to get stuck talking to someone, and there wouldn’t be any way to end the conversation without embarrassing both of us (“It’s been great talking to you, but not great enough that I want to continue!”). But then I thought, wait, what makes m

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