 experiments
Boothby and her colleagues performed a series of experiments.
Experiment 1a: Is There a Liking Gap?
In this test, the researchers recruited 36 people from the Yale community, 72.2 percent female, and 27.8 percent male. The average age of participants was 23.25 years, with a standard deviation of 6.12 years.
Each subject was introduced to a same-sex partner, and, having been provided some ice-breaking questions to keep the conversation going, the two were seated side-by-side at a large table and tasked with chatting until a researcher returned in five minutes. The conversation was recorded on a computer nearby that displayed a large analog-style clock to help the new acquaintances pace themselves.
Afterward, the subjects were separated and asked to rate their agreement with eight statements.
Four assessed how much they liked the other person:
- “I generally liked the other participant.”
- “I would be interested in getting to know the other participant better.”
- “If given the chance, I would like to interact with the other participant again.”
- “I could see myself becoming friends with the other participant.”
Four assessed how much they thought the other person like them:
- “The other participant generally liked me.”
- “The other participant would be interested in getting to know me better.”
- “If given the chance, the other participant would like to interact with me again.”
- “The other participant could see himself/herself becoming friends with me.”
The researchers concluded, “after a brief conversation with another person, people significantly underestimated how much others liked them.” They found their experiment “provided the predicted evidence of the liking gap.”
Before moving on, a follow-up test, 1b, assessed whether or not subjects were clearly signifying their approval of each other during the conversation, and the researchers concluded that they clearly had — the signals were just not being picked up.
Study 2: Why Does the Liking Gap Exist?
In this experiment with paired same-sex conversants from a pool of 84 students and recent graduates — 59.5 percent female, 40.5 percent male and a median age of 19.25 years — there were no icebreakers provided. Instead, the instructions were simple: “You’ll have about five minutes to talk, and you can talk about whatever you like. I’ll keep time from the other room and then return when it’s time to move on.”
Afterward, they were separately asked two questions:
- “What are the top three moments from your conversation that caused you to form the impression of the other person that you did?”
- What are the top three moments from your conversation that caused the other person to form the impression of you that he/she did?”
Subjects were then asked to describe the significant moments in detail and assign them a rating of 1–7, from “extremely negative” to “extremely positive.”
The researchers were able to conclude, “When participants reflected on their conversations, their most salient thoughts about how others viewed them were more negative than their most salient thoughts about how they viewed others, and this difference was related to how much they believed their conversation partners liked them.”
Study 3: Does the Liking Gap Persist in Longer Conversations?
In their third experiment, this time with 102 subjects — 52.9 percent female, 47.1 percent male and a median age of 23.62 — were given up to 45 minutes to chat about anything, self-regulating the duration as they saw fit, and then questioned.
The team wanted to ascertain whether the length of a conversation affected the presence of a liking gap. The answer? No: “In sum, across conversations that ranged from 2 min to 45 min, people systematically underestimated the extent to which their conversation partners liked them and enjoyed the conversation.”
Study 4: Can the Liking Gap Be Observed in the Real World?
To find this out, 128 people attending “How to Talk to Strangers” workshops were evaluated —52 percent female, 42 percent male and a median age of 29.61.
Before pairing off to talk for five minutes with someo