Gillian M Sandstrom

You know, every time that we show care or connection or kindness or compassion to a stranger.

In fact, I have a whole chapter on on the power of weak ties where Gillian Sandstrom, for example, talks about each time we say hello on the street, it actually brings more sense of trust and belief of good and wellbeing of our communities to others.

And that these little moments of weak ties of simply even saying hello to the person delivering our mail or perhaps making our coffee, at a coffee shop, that this can actually improve our sense of trust amongst each other and improves our wellness.

And so these are little moments where we're often so efficient.

Well, again, let me go a little deeper into the research.

This is Dr. Gillian Sandstrom out of the UK.

So when I say talk to a stranger, I don't mean, you know, first off, I don't mean you have to have a 10-minute conversation with every stranger.

But I will also let you know that a wave can also have a positive impact.

I want you to stop asking, "Do they like me? Do they wanna be friends with me?" And instead, I would like you to ask yourself, "Well, do I enjoy their company? Do I enjoy being around them? Am I inherently interested in building a friendship here, or am I looking for a signal that I am good, that I'm worthy of friendship?" Because that tiny shift can change everything.

I also want you to remember something called the liking gap, and this is a psychological phenomenon that researchers Boothby and others, including Gillian Sandstrom, who will be on our podcast soon, this is something that they have found in their research.

And the liking gap tells us this, that we and others consistently underestimate how much other people like us, how much they enjoy us, how much they wanna get to know us, how much they enjoy conversations with us.

And what this means is that your brain is probably a less reliable narrator than you think.

The people that we're closest to tend to be quite similar to us, whereas strangers, they have different perspectives and different ideas and different values.

Dr. Gillian Sandstrom is associate professor of psychology at the University of Sussex and author of the book Once Upon a Stranger.

Dr. Sandstrom also highlights the psychological distance between us and a stranger that means we don't have to worry so much about the impact of opening up to them.

There was a study that I think is really interesting by someone named Mario Small, and what they found was 45% of the time when people discuss something important to them, it wasn't someone that they were close to.