{"id":442,"date":"2021-02-10T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/its-cuthemedev1.carleton.ca\/mental-health\/?p=442"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:06:14","slug":"why-you-should-talk-to-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/2021\/why-you-should-talk-to-strangers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Talk to Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        Why You Should Talk to Strangers\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p>You\u2019re an adult now, so it is OK\u2014good even\u2014to talk to strangers. Humans are a social species, yet some people are dispositionally more social than others; think of the introversion-extraversion dimension. <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/hub-research-members\/\">Dr. John Zelenski<\/a> and colleagues have found that asking people\u2014even introverted people\u2014to act like extraverts for a few minutes consistently boosts their moods. Although dispositional introverts often anticipate anxiety, it rarely materializes in the moment. Other researchers have taken this idea to subway cars and coffee shops, and the result is the same: connecting with others produces good moods, and better than many people anticipate beforehand. If you are still not sold on socializing, there are other ways to exercise your inner extravert via more active, novel, and adventurous activities even while alone, and this seems to work too. For links to the studies, see: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/ca\/blog\/happy-trails\/201604\/why-you-should-talk-strangers\">https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/ca\/blog\/happy-trails\/201604\/why-you-should-talk-strangers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019re an adult now, so it is OK\u2014good even\u2014to talk to strangers. Humans are a social species, yet some people are dispositionally more social than others; think of the introversion-extraversion dimension. Dr. John Zelenski and colleagues have found that asking people\u2014even introverted people\u2014to act like extraverts for a few minutes consistently boosts their moods. Although [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-wellness-wednesday"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}