Asking Questions Increases Likability

Posted on July 25, 2017

Previous research on question-asking has shown that, especially when meeting someone new, people tend to talk to about themselves – a lot. In a situation like a job interview, applicants try to highlight their strengths by talking about them. However, as Huang and colleagues’ recent study showed, talking about yourself may not actually be the most effective strategy for selling yourself.

“The tendency to focus on the self when trying to impress others is misguided, as verbal behaviors that focus on the self, such as redirecting the topic of conversation to oneself, bragging, boasting, or dominating the conversation, tend to decrease liking,” the researchers write. “In contrast, verbal behaviors that focus on the other person, such as mirroring the other person’s mannerisms, affirming the other’s statements, or coaxing information from the other person, have been shown to increase liking.”

In a 2015 study published in Psychological Science, Duke University researchers Korrina Duffy and Tanya Chartrand found that extraverts were more likable than more introverted people not because they talked more, but because they were better at mimicking other people’s body language.


Category(s):Emotional Intelligence

Source material from Association for Psychological Science