Navigating the Complexities of Conversations: Insights and Interventions for Positive Outcomes

Abstract: Conversations play crucial roles in human social life and are essential for building and maintaining relationships, improving well-being, and achieving collective goals. Despite the frequent occurrence of conversations, people do not always have the desired experiences. In fact, given the complex nature of conversations, people often make mistakes and suboptimal decisions in conversations that lead to negative consequences in their impressions and relationships. In this symposium, several leading scholars in conversation research will share their works that unpack people’s decision-making processes and behaviors in conversations and the associated outcomes. The papers focus on various aspects of conversations, including the content (i.e., what to say), the temporal dimension (i.e., when/whether to respond), the experience (i.e., how people feel about the conversation), and nonverbal behaviors (e.g., eye gaze) in conversations. They draw on empirical research conducted with a variety of methods including surveys, experiments, and natural language processing methods to investigate conversation phenomena in multiple settings. The findings provide deep insights into how people make judgments and decisions in conversations and suggest effective interventions that can guide conversations for more positive outcomes. The first paper examines the effect of a common strategy that people use when praising others: backhanded compliments. The second paper investigates the perception gaps underlying the ghosting behavior in asymmetric conversations. The third paper looks at how the content of the conversation can influence the conversational flow. Finally, the fourth paper moves beyond what people say and investigates the relationship between eye gaze and psychological safety in leader-follower conversations.

Keywords: Conversation Dynamics; Communication; Impression Management; Relationships