Look around the room, desperate to escape this tedious monologue, but you can’t find a polite way out. Sigh. He stays, choosing to hold the conversation instead of being rude and leave.
You may already have more than one suspicion that this was true, but it is now backed by research: conversations rarely end when people want it, according to a new study.
The researchers conducted two smaller studies to find out the differences between the duration of conversations between two people and the duration of each participant.
The studies were inspired by the parties attended by the study’s author, Adam Mastroianni, at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Now a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard University, he said he was afraid to go to another party because he might stay in a conversation with someone and not have a polite way to end it.
Then he thought, “What if we’re both stuck in this conversation because we mistakenly think the other person wants to continue?”
It turns out Mastroianni was into something.
The first study asked 806 participants to recall their most recent conversation with someone. Almost 80% of the conversations were between a romantic couple, a friend or a family member.
More than 66% of participants reported that there was a moment during the conversation when they thought it should be over.
And the studio found that they enjoy their conversations less. Participants who said there was a time when they wanted the conversation to end enjoyed the conversation less than those who said time has passed (4.7 out of 7 on a 7-point scale versus those who say no, with an average of 5.66 out of 7).
The second study took 252 strangers to a lab for researchers to observe their conversations. Couples were asked to talk for one to 45 minutes and then taken to separate rooms for interviews.
The results were almost identical to the first study, with more than 68% of participants reporting that there was a point during the conversation when they wanted it to end. That group also enjoyed their conversations less.
This part of the study allowed the researchers to hear both sides of the story, so they collected more data about what each participant assumed about the other in terms of the desired duration of the conversation.
The researchers found that participants incorrectly estimated the length of the conversation their partner wanted at more than 63%, which shows they had almost no idea of their partner’s wishes, Mastroianni said.
Being socially educated can keep people from leaving conversations whenever they want, Mastroianni said. Talking to someone is like driving a car down the highway, he said. People can get off at any exit, but people can’t pass the time they want because it could hit other cars or walls.
“You have to wait for the right time to go out, and it turns out that the distance between those outings can sometimes be quite long,” Mastroianni said.
How to gracefully end a conversation
Linda Sapadin, a psychologist over 35 who specializes in communication in Long Island, New York, explains that the study provides important points about conversations with other people and opens the door to learning how to engage in better discussions. He did not participate in the study.
If you want me to end a conversation, Sapadin recommends telling the other person to leave and saying something positive about your shared interaction.
If someone complained about some areas of your life, they advised you to comment that you expect things to get better.
While most participants in both studies believed that there was a point in the conversation when they wanted it to end, some wanted the conversation to continue longer. If you tend to fall into this category, Sapadin recommends paying close attention to your partner’s body language to keep in mind that they are ready to end the discussion.
If they roll their eyes, don’t have much eye contact, or don’t respond to what you’re saying, it might be time to end the conversation.
People who wanted the conversation to continue longer enjoyed it in the same way that people who said the conversation ended exactly when they wanted it, found Mastroianni.
“In my own conversations, I try to make the mistake of leaving a little earlier with the understanding that you can talk to someone again,” he said.
In the future, Mastroianni said he is interested in researching when it is socially acceptable for people to leave a conversation and how conversations in groups of more than two people work.