What's nicer than a good conversation? Like the one we entertain with a friend or with a person just met with whom an unexpected connection is immediately established.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Good conversations create a safe space. They are an emotional paradise where we can exchange information that enriches us, helps us build confidence and calm stress through positive reinforcement. From a physiological point of view, conversing with acquaintances and strangers acts on our brain as a powerful reward and well-being system.
A dynamic, stimulating and productive conversation between two or more people represents a true alchemy for neuronal processes. Even if in a barely perceptible way, every information we receive ignites the engine of empathy; the dopamine and serotonin circuits are activated and we are flooded with a pleasant feeling of well-being and motivation.
How many times have we experienced this wonderful injection of positive energy? Nowadays there are many opportunities to talk to people of all kinds on the most disparate topics; in reality, enjoying a truly rewarding dialogue is a situation that does not happen so often.
Sometimes chance makes us meet a person with whom, after a few sentences, immediate complicity and affinity is established. This is the magic of relationships. This is what happened between Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson.
The two great novelists met for the first time after the publication of Treasure Island. Despite their character, origins (American the first, Scottish the second), lifestyle and literary, an indelible friendship was established from a casual conversation. A friendship destined to last decades through the correspondence or through meetings in person made up of dialogues that ended at dawn.
A good conversation must exhaust the subject, not the interlocutors.
-Winston Churchill-
The good conversations and the emotional connection
Certainly Henry James and Louis Stevenson, in addition to being brilliant novelists, possessed what is now called conversational intelligence. This term, introduced only a few years ago by psychologist Judith E. Glaser, refers to a crucial tool for our personal development.
As we all know, not all of us are able to maintain a good level of dialogue. Truman Capote, for example, said that a conversation is first of all a dialogue and never a monologue. Few people are gifted with this particular type of intelligence, which explains why we rarely encounter an ideal conversation.
But it is necessary to delimit this reflection: it is not the lack of intelligence that limits the quality of a dialogue, it is rather a lack of emotional skills. Today, in fact, the field of conversational intelligence is gaining ground; important dimensions such as empathy, social skills, common sense, trust and integrity come together in it.
Conversing is more than talking
Conversing is more than a communication process or an exchange of information. It is a deeper and more fulfilling act. After all, a dialogue, understood as a space in which two or more people interact, is also present in the animal world.
- It may seem surprising, but some studies like the one conducted by the University of York in June 2018 prove it. Animals such as crows, elephants or even fireflies use a communication system among the like as fascinating as it is revealing.
- In the case of human beings, however, we could say that good conversations are a step higher than the simple process of communication.
- The results of another scientific research (Pérez, Carreiras, Duñabeitia) show that the rhythm of the brain waves recorded in two people who are conversing is synchronized. According to the researchers "it is a communion between brains that goes beyond language and is a key element in interpersonal relationships".
Good conversations bring happiness
When we talk to someone, two things can happen: either we are comfortable or we are not. It doesn't matter if the person is a family member or a stranger. We all have a colleague or relative with whom we will never be comfortable talking.
Other times we have a pleasant conversation with a person we have just met, with whom we feel immediate affinity. A deep dialogue doesn't just provide interesting information, it also gives us a feeling of trust and understanding. In these cases the door opens to an emotional universe made up of higher quality interpersonal relationships.
As far as possible, therefore, we should look for these situations. Essays like that of Matthias Mehl published in the specialized journal Psychological Science remind us that empty, idle and forced chatter generates tension and discomfort.
We then become social explorers capable of engaging in good conversations; we seek the support of people who are important to us, with whom we can maintain an open, exciting, pleasant and fulfilling dialogue. After all, this is where happiness resides, in this safe dimension in which to learn, understand and train affection.
