Name: Good morning.
Age: Immaterial – it really doesn’t matter. Good morning!
Good morning? What do you want? I’m in a hurry – are you hitting on me? No!
Do I know you? No!
So why are you saying good morning to me? In order to boost my happiness. Maybe yours, too.
Oh, OK, good morning to you, too, then, I suppose. See, it feels good, doesn’t it?
A bit weird, but I guess so. That’s because casual interaction with strangers can lead to greater life satisfaction.
Really? Really! Don’t take it from me: there’s a new study.
Right … 23 people surveyed by the Happy-clappy Society, in order to promote themselves, published in Kumbaya Weekly. Actually, it came out in the academic journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
One of my favourite magazines, as it happens – always a terrific read. It was a study of 60,000 people, led by Dr Esra Ascigil of Sabanci University near Istanbul.
Ah, well, they are friendlier in Turkey. It’s not going to work with cold, grumpy Britons, is it? Data came from work carried out by researchers at the University of Sussex, in partnership with the BBC, on English-speaking participants, about two-thirds of whom were from the UK.
How did it work? Participants responded to the question: how many strangers have you started a social conversation with in the past seven days? They were also asked to rate how satisfied they were with life.
And the results? “In the OLS analyses on Sample A, greeting (b = .103, p < .001), thanking (b = .100, p < .001), and conversing with weak ties more often (b = .112, p < .001) predicted greater life satisfaction ...”
Obviously I understand, but for the less academically inclined, in plainer English please. More conversations with strangers = greater life satisfaction. That applies in Turkey, Britain, most probably in Timbuktu, too. Dr Ascigil puts it nicely: “Having a sense of belonging involves feeling like you are accepted and valued by other people – it is often considered a fundamental human need.”
Wasn’t there something along similar lines in Scandinavia recently? You’re probably thinking of the Säg hej! (Say hello!) campaign, introduced in the small city of Luleå in northern Sweden to tackle loneliness.
Yes! Then imported to the big city of London by the Guardian – with mixed results.
Do say: “Good morning!” Obviously.
Don’t say: “Go away, otherwise I’ll call the police.”
