词汇大师-- Happier People Spend Less Time on Small Talk

　　AA: I’m Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: a psychologist says well-being¹ is related to having less small talk and more substantive² conversations.
RS: Matthias Mehl of the University of Arizona led a study in which 79 undergraduates -- 60 percent female -- wore a device that recorded hundreds of samples of their conversations over four days.
The researchers rated the conversations as either small talk or substantive talk. Then they compared the results with the participants’ earlier assessments³ of their level of happiness, and how happy three of their friends considered them.
AA: Professor Mehl explains how the study defined small talk.
MATTHIAS MEHL: "We defined it as an uninvolved conversation of a banal⁴ nature that’s trivial in the amount of information that is exchanged."
RS: "Just as an aside, is small talk -- is it a universal?"
MATTHIAS MEHL: "I think small talk is universal in the sense that everybody has small talk, but the way small talk works may be different between cultures. I remember one of the first days at the office where I was working back then at the University of Texas. And after a while it became clear to me that I was coming off as pretty rude. I was thinking about that and it occurred to me that the reason why I was coming off as pretty rude -- which by the way I guess nicely fits the German stereotype⁵ -- is because I didn’t know how to do small talk in English.
"And so when I requested some information from a fellow grad student I said ’Hey, by the way, do you have that survey, do you have that questionnaire?’ And what I should have said is ’Well, how was your weekend? Did you have a good time? What did you do? Yeah, I’m working on this study and I was wondering whether maybe you could provide me with this questionnaire."
RS: "Why did you do this current study? Why were you interested in happiness as related to small talk or substantive talk?"

　　MATTHIAS MEHL: "Because it could have gone either way. If you think about how small talk is defined, it’s defined as social lubricant. People usually engage in it order to socially connect. So from many angles, it could have come out the opposite way, that happy people are those that maybe don’t worry and are happy and as long as they surf on the superficial aspect of life, they should be fine, right? They should be happy. And maybe it’s those deep conversations that get you into those existential troubles and then you end up unhappy. So it could easily have gone the other way, and that’s why we were interested."
AA: "Tell us what you found exactly."
MATTHIAS MEHL: "We found two things. The first thing I think is also very important, but other research has already shown that as well. We found that happy participants spend considerably⁶ less time alone and considerably more time with others. So the happy life is really a social life. The time spent alone, in the absence of any other better information about a person, is in fact a good proxy⁷ of the person’s happiness.
"And when you then look into the kinds of social lives people have, then we found that happy participants had considerably more substantive conversations and considerably fewer small talk. So we found that the happiest participant has twice as many substantive conversations and one-third as much small talk compared to the unhappiest participant. That’s quite a robust⁸ and quite a big finding."
RS: "What do you do with these numbers? What does this say to you?"
MATTHIAS MEHL: "We’re currently doing a study in our lab where we follow up on these findings and we ask participants to do more of either one -- to do more small talk or to engage in more substantive conversations. And this study will hopefully ultimately answer the question of whether substantive conversations can make people happier, whether the causal direction is from substantive conversations to happiness.
"And the very first thing we found, even in the absence of any real data, was that they are very different. You cannot just run up [to] a stranger and talk about your view on life after death. And it works equally badly if you go to your best friend and talk for the next ten minutes just about the weather and about some TV show that you do or do not like.
"So looking back it makes a lot of sense, because what we know about human beings from a psychological perspective is that they are social animals and they are meaning-making animals. So in an otherwise pretty chaotic⁹ world, if you have a meaningful conversation, it helps you to understand it. It helps you to develop meaning around that. And we know that meaning is something that humans need to be happy."
AA: Matthias Mehl at the University of Arizona. The study is in the journal Psychological Science. And that’s WORDMASTER for this week.
RS: Archives of our programs are at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I’m Rosanne Skirble.

1 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

2 substantive   

adj.表示实在的；本质的、实质性的；独立的；n.实词，实名词；独立存在的实体

参考例句：

• They plan to meet again in Rome very soon to begin substantive negotiations.他们计划不久在罗马再次会晤以开始实质性的谈判。
• A president needs substantive advice,but he also requires emotional succor. 一个总统需要实质性的建议，但也需要感情上的支持。

3 assessments   

n.评估( assessment的名词复数 )；评价；（应偿付金额的）估定；（为征税对财产所作的）估价

参考例句：

• He was shrewd in his personal assessments. 他总能对人作出精明的评价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Surveys show about two-thirds use such assessments, while half employ personality tests. 调查表明，约有三分之二的公司采用了这种测评；而一半的公司则采用工作人员个人品质测试。 来自百科语句

4 banal   

adj.陈腐的，平庸的

参考例句：

• Making banal remarks was one of his bad habits.他的坏习惯之一就是喜欢说些陈词滥调。
• The allegations ranged from the banal to the bizarre.从平淡无奇到离奇百怪的各种说法都有。

5 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

6 considerably   

adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上

参考例句：

• The economic situation has changed considerably.经济形势已发生了相当大的变化。
• The gap has narrowed considerably.分歧大大缩小了。

7 proxy   

n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人

参考例句：

• You may appoint a proxy to vote for you.你可以委托他人代你投票。
• We enclose a form of proxy for use at the Annual General Meeting.我们附上委任年度大会代表的表格。

8 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。

9 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。