Since then, this so-called Fast Friends technique has helped create emotional bonds between thousands of strangers. Art uses them regularly in his lectures and freshman classes to help people connect. People have applied them to help facilitate cross-race friendships and reduce prejudice. Theyâve even been used to bolster trust and improve understanding between police officers and community members in cities where tensions are running high.
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And therein lies the challenge. Deep self-disclosure requires social connection. But to get to that social connection, people need to have disclosed things about themselves previously. This catch-22 is part of the reason why the Fast Friends procedure is so effective. Rather than jumping to the heavy stuff right away, it eases people in, encouraging gradual self-disclosure.
The Fast Friends questions help. They donât start too big, but they also donât stay too small. They start safe and they build, becoming increasingly probing and revealing. And by requiring both parties to respond, they ensure everyone is contributing, deepening trust. The sustained, escalating, and reciprocal self-disclosure strengthens interconnectedness and can bring any two people closer together.
Using similar language can facilitate conversation, make people feel connected, and increase their perception that they are part of the same tribe. All of which can increase liking, trust, and a variety of positive downstream outcomes.
Here is where Emmy Wernerâs research, our own Harvard Study research, and many other pieces of research from across cultures and populations converge to show that a critical link between childhood experience and positive adult social connections is our ability to process
emotions.
It is from our relationships as childrenâespecially our relationships with our familyâthat we first learn what to expect from others. This is when we begin to develop the emotional habits, so to speak, that will be with us for the rest of our lives. These habits often define the way we connect to others and our ability to engage others in mutually supportive ways.
A crucial point here is that our ability to process emotions is malleable. In fact, managing emotions is one of the things we actually get better at as we grow old. And there is strong evidence that we donât have to wait until late in our lives for this to happen. With the right guidance and some practice, we can learn to be better at managing our feelings at any age.
In one fascinating study, researchers divided a set of participants (who wanted a coffee) into two groups: one group was instructed to have an interaction with the barista, and the other to be as efficient as possible. Like the âstrangers on a trainâ study that we mentioned in Chapter Two, the researchers found that people who smiled, made eye contact, and had a social interaction with the baristaâin this case, a complete strangerâcame away feeling better, and with a greater sense of belonging, than those who were instructed to be as efficient as possible. In short, having a friendly moment with a stranger was uplifting.
Small moments can provide an uplift for our mood and they can help balance out some of the stress we feel. An annoying commute can be softened by a short conversation with the security guard at work. A sense of disconnection can be alleviated when we say hello to our mail carrier. These kinds of minute interactions can affect our mood and energy throughout the day. If we get in the habit of seeking out and noticing opportunities for these daily uplifts, over time they can have far-reaching effects. Not only for us, but for our social networks as a whole; repeated casual contact has been shown to foster the formation of closer friendships. And sometimes even the most casual contact can open us up to whole new realms of experience.