You look around the room, desperate for an escape from this boring monologue, but can’t think of a polite way to leave. Sigh. You stay where you are and choose to endure the conversation instead of being rude and leaving.
You may have had more than a sneaking suspicion that this was true, but now it’s backed by research: Conversations rarely end when people want to, a new study finds.
Researchers conducted two smaller studies to find out the differences between how long conversations between two people last and how long each participant wanted them to go.
The studies were inspired by parties that study author Adam Mastroianni attended at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Now a graduate student of psychology at Harvard University, he said he was afraid to go to another party because he might get stuck in a conversation with someone and have no polite way to end it.
Then he thought, “What if we’re both stuck in this conversation because we mistakenly think the other person wants to continue?”
As it turns out, Mastroianni was onto something.
The first study asked 806 participants to recall their most recent conversation with someone. Almost 80% of the conversations were between a romantic partner, friend or family member.
More than 66% of participants said there was a point during their conversation when they felt it should have ended.
And they enjoy their conversations less, the study found. Participants who said there was a time when they wanted the conversation to end enjoyed the conversation less than those who said the time was up (4.7 out of 7 on a 7-point scale versus those who said no, average 5.66 out of 7).
The second study brought 252 strangers to a lab to have their conversations observed by the researchers. The couples were asked to speak for one to 45 minutes, then they were taken to separate rooms for interviews.
The results were nearly identical to those of the first study, with more than 68% of participants indicating that there was a point during the conversation when they wished it was over. That group also enjoyed their conversations less.
This part of the study allowed the researchers to hear both sides of the story, so they gathered more data on what each participant assumed from the other in terms of the desired length of the conversation.
Researchers found that participants misjudged their partner’s desired talk time by more than 63%, indicating they had almost no idea what their partner’s wishes were, Mastroianni said.
Being socially polite can keep people from leaving conversations when they want to, Mastroianni said. Talking to someone is like driving on the highway, he said. People can get out at any exit, but people cannot stop the moment they want because they can hit other cars or walls.
“You have to wait for the right time to leave, and it turns out that the distance between those exits can be quite long at times,” said Mastroianni.
How to end a conversation gracefully
The study highlights key points about having conversations with others and opens the door to learning how to have better discussions, said Linda Sapadin, a psychologist over 35 who specializes in communications in Long Island, New York. . She was not involved in the investigation.
If you want a conversation to end, Sapadin recommends telling the other person to leave and saying something positive about your shared interaction.
If someone was complaining about a particular area of their life, she recommended saying that you hope things will get better for them.
While the majority of participants in both studies felt there was a point in the conversation when they wished it was over, some wanted the conversation to last longer. If you tend to fall into that category, Sapadin recommended paying close attention to your partner’s body language to pick up hints that they are ready to end the discussion.
If they roll their eyes, don’t make much eye contact with you, or don’t respond to what you’re saying, it might be time to end the conversation, she said.
People who wanted the conversation to go on enjoyed it just as much as people who said the conversation ended exactly when they wanted it, Mastroianni found.
“In my own conversations, I try to leave a little earlier, knowing that you can talk to someone again,” he said.
Mastroianni said he is interested in researching in the future when it is socially acceptable for people to leave a conversation and how conversations work in groups of more than two people.