SHARING MAKES BOTH GOOD, BAD EXPERIENCES MORE INTENSE
Undergoing an
experience with another person -- even if we do it in silence, with someone we
met just moments ago -- seems to intensify that experience, according to new
research published in Psychological Science. The
research shows that people who share experiences with another person rate those
experiences as more pleasant or unpleasant than those who undergo the
experience on their own.
"We often think
that what matters in social life is being together with others, but we've found
it also really matters what those people are doing," says
psychological scientist and lead researcher Erica Boothby of Yale University.
"When people are
paying attention to the same pleasant thing, whether the Mona Lisa or a song on
the radio, our research shows that the experience is much more pleasurable. And
the reverse is true of unpleasant experiences -- not sharing them makes them more
pleasurable, while sharing them makes them worse."
Thinking about shared
experiences like going to the movies or viewing art in museums, Boothby and
Yale colleagues Margaret Clark and John Bargh wanted to explore the
consequences of sharing experiences that unfold socially but silently.
In their first study,
23 female college students came to the lab and met another participant who
would be completing the study at the same time. Unbeknownst to the students,
the "other participant" was actually part of the research team and
she always played the role of the second participant in the study.
The pair was told that
they would engage in several activities, including tasting chocolate and
looking at a booklet of paintings, side by side at a table. They were told they
would be assigned to complete the activities in random order but, in reality,
the student was always only assigned to taste the two chocolates, one at the
same time as the second participant and the other while the second participant
was looking at the booklet. After the student tasted both chocolates, the
experiment ended "early" before they got a chance to look at the
artwork.
Although the chocolate
samples were presented as two different chocolates, they were actually squares
taken from the same bar of 70% dark chocolate.
Students reported
liking the chocolate they had tasted at the same time as the other participant
more than the chocolate they had tasted while the other participant was looking
at the booklet. Although the chocolate pieces were identical, the students
tended to report the "shared" chocolate as being more flavorful,
which suggests that the mere act of sharing may influence how things are
actually sensed or perceived by us.
To find out whether
sharing makes any experience more pleasant or actually intensifies specific
feelings (positive or negative), the researchers tasked another group of
students to taste a bitter "chocolate substitute" (really just 90%
dark chocolate, which pre-testing revealed to be unpleasant).
This time, the students
said that they liked the "shared" chocolate less. They also reported
feeling more absorbed in the tasting experience and more in tune with the other
participant when they tasted the chocolates at the same time.
The researchers
suggest that sharing an experience with someone else, even silently, may focus
our attention, making us more attuned to what we are sensing and perceiving.
"When people
think of shared experience, what usually comes to mind is being with close
others, such as friends or family, and talking with them," says Boothby.
"We don't realize the extent to which we are influenced by people around
us whom we don't know and aren't even communicating with."
Ultimately, these
findings may have significant implications for social life in a world that is
filled with distractors:
"We text friends
while at a party, check our Twitter feed while out to dinner, and play Sudoku
while watching TV with family -- without meaning to, we are unsharing
experiences with the people around us," says Boothby. "A pleasant
experience that goes unshared is a missed opportunity to focus on the activity
we and others are doing and give it a boost."
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