tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/talking-39003/articlesTalking – The Conversation2023-06-30T05:08:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2088362023-06-30T05:08:01Z2023-06-30T05:08:01Z‘Oh that happened to me, too!’ Sharing your experiences in conversation is common but sometimes it’s best to just listen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534963/original/file-20230630-23-4573r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5982%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/ethnic-psychologist-touching-black-depressed-clients-shoulder-5699491/">Pexels/Alex Green</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Do you have a friend who responds to almost every anecdote you tell with “Oh my gosh, me too! This reminds me of when that happened to me.” Or perhaps <em>you</em> are that friend. Maybe you instinctively aim to bond with others by talking about experiences you’ve had that feel similar to what your friend has just shared.</p>
<p>In psychology, this is called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/now-lets-talk-about-me-self-disclosure-is-intrinsically-rewarding-6897">self-disclosure</a>” – a habit of disclosing something about yourself to another person, often in an effort to forge a connection. </p>
<p>But while this practice feels incredibly natural to some (more commonly extroverts than introverts), it can rub others the wrong way, as a recent viral tweet showed:</p>
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<p>Some furiously agreed, while others felt <em>not</em> responding to a friend’s story with your own experiences would almost violate the norms of conversation.</p>
<p>So why does self-disclosure elicit such strong reactions? And what can psychology tell us about this habit?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/now-lets-talk-about-me-self-disclosure-is-intrinsically-rewarding-6897">Now, let's talk about me: self-disclosure is intrinsically rewarding</a>
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<h2>Why do people use self-disclosure?</h2>
<p>Self-disclosure is a bonding tool – a way of sharing part of yourself. It can <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00558/full">deepen intimacy and friendships</a> and makes you a bit vulnerable. That vulnerability can touch other people’s emotions, make them feel you trust them and can forge a connection.</p>
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<p>Women typically do it <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597822000036">more</a> than men. Perhaps that is because women tend to be socialised to be allowed to be vulnerable or express they are not coping, whereas men are often socialised not to.</p>
<h2>So why does it rub some people the wrong way?</h2>
<p>Nuance is important here. Not all self-disclosure is helpful, and likewise I don’t think anyone is arguing a person should just sit there mute while one friend does all the sharing. </p>
<p>The goal is to have a sense of balance; effective self-disclosure is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210311300070X?via%3Dihub">reciprocal</a>. Jumping in too quickly with “Oh yes, that happened to me” can end up saturating conversation and make your friend feel they were never heard in the first place. It can be inadvertently invalidating and feel unbalanced.</p>
<p>A vast body of psychology research tells us that, fundamentally, humans want to feel heard. If your friend has just told you about some significant thing that happened to them, allow them space to express their feelings and their experience. </p>
<p>Another way a well-meaning self-disclosure can end up worsening imbalance is when one person shares an experience that, to them, feels equivalent – but it’s not. Your experience of the time you <em>almost</em> lost a loved one is not the same as your friend’s experience of actually losing a loved one.</p>
<p>Sometimes people jump in with advice and what, to them, feel like similar stories out of a misplaced effort to “fix” the first person’s problems.</p>
<p>But people’s contexts are different and their capacities are different.</p>
<p>Ironically, your effort to “help” may leave your friend with a sense of shame they are not able to solve their problem as easily as you did. </p>
<h2>Grief can be a flashpoint</h2>
<p>Grief can be a real flashpoint for this clash around self-disclosure. If a friend is talking about grief and your instinct is to jump in with your own experiences, please remember no two experiences of grief are the same.</p>
<p>Grief can be an incredibly isolating experience. In the acute aftermath people will swarm around you and you can feel very busy, but a few days or weeks later you are stuck with the grief while everyone else gets back to normal life. </p>
<p>Even close friends can panic and not know what to say after the immediate dust has settled. They may try to “help” by talking about their own experiences, or encourage a person to “move on” but this can end up invalidating the grieving person’s experience.</p>
<p>The safest thing is to listen and let a person who is grieving just feel their emotions.</p>
<h2>It’s not a competition</h2>
<p>Not every clash over self-disclosure is about grief, of course. Sometimes it can happen over seemingly banal things. You’re happy about a minor achievement, but after sharing it with a friend they say they did that, too.</p>
<p>If you’re an instinctive self-discloser, just be aware sharing your experiences too quickly after your friend can sometimes read as competitiveness (even if unintended).</p>
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<span class="caption">A self-disclosure clash can happen over something banal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/women-arguing-while-pointing-finger-in-face-at-home-6383206/">Pexels/Liza Summer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Not all self-disclosure is wrong!</h2>
<p>Not all self-disclosure is harmful. Sharing your lived experiences can form the basis of a great conversation and a meaningful connection. We don’t want to be in a position where we have to shrink our joy because we worry about how it will affect anyone and everyone.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, we need to let each other have joy, sadness, anger and all the emotions. </p>
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<p>Giving each other the space to feel those emotions is key. When your friend tells their story, ask them a few questions about it. Give them time and space to reflect on their experience and how it affected them, before you jump in straight away with your own experience. </p>
<p>And remember that context is key: sometimes self-disclosure will deepen your connection, while other times talking about your experiences may not actually be all that helpful.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-your-earliest-childhood-memories-say-about-you-101330">What do your earliest childhood memories say about you?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208836/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Felmingham has received funding from the NHMRC and the ARC.</span></em></p>Jumping in too quickly with ‘Oh yes, that happened to me’ can end up saturating conversation and make your friend feel they were never heard in the first place.Kim Felmingham, Chair of Clinical Psychology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2076752023-06-20T16:18:45Z2023-06-20T16:18:45ZFour ways to have hard conversations with your friends – without making things worse<p>It’s painful to watch someone you care about make what you perceive as bad life choices – we all want what’s best for our loved ones. This can be particularly hard when they are dating someone you don’t think is good, or right for them.</p>
<p>Swifties (fans of Taylor Swift) have experienced this recently when Taylor Swift was reported to be dating famed bad boy and <a href="https://graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/matt-healy-kissing-fans/">“problematic” favourite Matt Healy</a> from the band The 1975. Some fans form <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/13/too-close-for-comfort-the-pitfalls-of-parasocial-relationships">parasocial relationships</a> with famous figures like Swift – this is where they feel like they have a close personal relationship with a celebrity and feel invested in them, while the celebrity has no idea who they are.</p>
<p><a href="https://slate.com/culture/2023/06/taylor-swift-matty-healy-dating-breakup-the-1975-backlash.html">Taylor Swift’s</a> actions are visible for public dissection and become fodder for viral social media content. As this new relationship dominated social media timelines, many of her fans found themselves wishing she would make a different choice.</p>
<p>Swifties called for her to end the relationship. For them, it was simple – Healy was no good for her. Swift seems to have listened as the pair are <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/why-taylor-swift-matty-healy-broke-up.html">reported to have parted ways</a>. But it’s not so easy to tell your real friends what to do with their lives, especially around matters of romance, love and sex. </p>
<h2>Unwanted advice</h2>
<p>Getting others to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=o_tgBgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Robles,+J.+S.+(2015).+Directives.+In+K.+Tracy+(Ed.),+International+Encyclopedia+of+Language+and+Social+Interaction.+Wiley-Blackwell.&ots=ZQBwzIBulz&sig=TKFuo9yFHx-hfJhieOpqs5RzyiY#v=onepage&q&f=false">alter their behaviour</a> when they haven’t asked for help can come across as insulting or as a “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00328.x?casa_token=ZCg59fc2yR8AAAAA:xLm28hkURU6xKxYyoS2E3qxD6SJgugoQ4RaprvDwhq0MMmriKqFW1CaToNKVdA1WTN_HCa5nLhbWPA">threat</a>”. </p>
<p>This is because when you try to direct others’ behaviour, it involves <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1461445610370126?casa_token=55ya38qn21EAAAAA:OIvkBQITOK7VZG2jvF--8tNl5LOyHgs7u6RORZ815jM5PMm9gmn5Ftn6KHEHiCSd2_WJl9VaRCfK">two dimensions</a>: one is entitlement (your power to tell them what to do) and the other is contingency (how difficult it would be for them to take that action). </p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/he-is-always-there-to-listen-friendships-between-young-men-are-more-than-just-beers-and-banter-200301?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">‘He is always there to listen’: friendships between young men are more than just beers and banter</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-to-be-a-good-housemate-to-your-parents-206300?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Five ways to be a good ‘housemate’ to your parents</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ethical-non-monogamy-what-to-know-about-these-often-misunderstood-relationships-200785?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Ethical non-monogamy: what to know about these often misunderstood relationships</a></em></p>
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<p>Giving unsolicited advice is a high-entitlement move that suggests you know better – a hard thing to claim when you’re talking as an outsider about someone else’s private love life. And asking someone to break things off with someone they’ve committed to is a high-contingency act that requires serious effort, emotionally and otherwise.</p>
<p>This is frustrating because our opinions about our friends’ lives stem from wanting to help and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hcr/article-abstract/23/4/454/4564959?redirectedFrom=PDF&casa_token=5bGYuWw69GcAAAAA:Ulai54Dk9MxZoXERGO3atywHDRMeXscEV6iypfsC9YVb_2OigXU7uQZNv8lGeknCs4afPwFP3GGAiA">support them</a>. And sometimes, friends make choices that are not just unwise, but dangerous. Hard conversations only get harder if the other person doesn’t agree there’s a problem, or that they need to change anything.</p>
<p><strong>1. Solid evidence</strong></p>
<p>First, you need a good base of evidence before you start these conversations. You cannot simply assert a belief when it comes to other people’s experiences: you need to be able to provide concrete examples that they can remember, interpret and discuss. </p>
<p>You can use some of the same basic strategies used in research to <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02088.x?casa_token=XKX0QI2dafoAAAAA:SXhzLjclI9BrZkaAT8EO9OITDrnieGucOFD4VZx4NYXIIuO4N6tD-cPzn2fUeBBLlxJDBSDkYvqHAw">understand and improve</a> the situation: specific, agreed examples give us a shared point of reference for doing so. Having these shared references is critical if the other person doesn’t see a problem. </p>
<p><strong>2. Increase their awareness of the impact</strong></p>
<p>Second, you’ll have to get them to notice that the situation might feel wrong and/or how what they’re doing might be impacting others in a negative way.</p>
<p>To do this, try encouraging them to acknowledge and track <a href="https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/4116/9/Accepted%20version%20QRIP%20Huma%20Stokoe%20%20Sikveland.%20(2020).%20Putting%20persuasion%20(back)%20in%20its%20interactional%20context.pdf">evidence in their everyday life</a>. Have they noticed how their partner treats parents and friends? How do they feel in public versus private with their partner? Are there discrepancies between what their partner says versus what they do? Help your friend recognise the problem first themselves and they might be easier to persuade that something needs to change.</p>
<p><strong>3. Avoid conflict</strong></p>
<p>Third, if there is a potential for conflict there are small things you can do to deal with it. For example, when you anticipate disagreement you can <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23273798.2019.1590609">design what you say</a> to head off possible misunderstandings or negative interpretations. </p>
<p>You might say “this is just how it seems to me”, or “I might not have the right idea” before you offer your view. You can also follow up on responses to check for possible misunderstandings as you go along. For example, you can keep asking questions to understand what a possible disagreement actually means – this approach is common in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08351813.2019.1631044">therapy</a>. </p>
<p>A good tactic involves <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399115300847?casa_token=tbv8B0-BYGIAAAAA:jlSnuIOSg-KFwiaF9XYC39GA6LhvJ9bB2irjqBurZ9mncwThOIHTJneVqwS-D8AF-lk-SypugQ">restating</a> what they’ve said back to them to confirm you’ve got it right. You should ensure the other person feels <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TBArEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA101&ots=YlLxH2hzAn&sig=HBSAxNPLMyfFl7npNoeUa9O_9_o#v=onepage&q&f=false">carefully listened to and emotionally supported</a>, even if there is a disagreement.</p>
<p>If you do encounter disagreement, it is important to avoid <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003803857801200107?casa_token=mmjgOb1Y-3QAAAAA:0XednDIOhWN9_sCoOaaCIB2RFzWPlGy3ED9vbWNnuI8P935X8W42jAtUyPajgxafXykeo-1f5AFi">blaming</a> the other person, or making <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00148128.pdf">exaggerated statements</a> in the heat of the moment that they can easily reject. </p>
<p>However, this does not mean avoiding emotion altogether. <a href="https://www.torrossa.com/en/resources/an/5002154">Emotion</a> is a normal and useful dimension of everyday social interaction, but be thoughtful. For instance, rather than showing frustration, emphasise your own concern and respect for your friend.</p>
<p><strong>4. Baby steps</strong></p>
<p>Finally, take an incremental approach. Suggest a small step that involves making them aware of the possible issues in their relationship and plan for future conversations.</p>
<p>Keep in mind you are unlikely to succeed in getting them to consider your viewpoint in a <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/spc3.12755">single conversation</a>. The bigger the problem being addressed, the more work it takes and the longer it takes. It’s worth the struggle because it’s an investment in the future of your friend’s life. But until they agree something is wrong, they are unlikely to make any major changes.</p>
<p>Whether it was due to interventions from friends or not, Taylor Swift’s alleged bad relationship choice may have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/5/17/23726170/taylor-swift-matty-healy-dating-relationship-the-1975">undone</a> – but it doesn’t always turn out that way. Sometimes you have to live with other people’s bad decisions, at least until they too recognise the problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Robles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sometimes you have to let your friends know when they’ve made a bad choice in life but there’s a way to go about it.Jessica Robles, Lecturer in Social Psychology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1971692023-01-05T13:28:19Z2023-01-05T13:28:19ZTalking across the political aisle isn’t a cure-all - but it does help reduce hostility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502986/original/file-20230103-70262-i01ayc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Americans tend to not cross their political divides amicably. New research shows what helps this actually happen. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1306503806/photo/crowds-standing-on-two-separated-zones.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=-iHFW6BsnGt9LHENiKhLkJ0kYYWJP1OJFVkxY1uBLI8=">Orbon Alija</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Simmering tension in American politics came to a head two years ago, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. The <a href="https://clinecenter.illinois.edu/coup-detat-project/statement_jan.27.2021">failed insurrection</a> on Jan. 6, 2021, resulted in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/us/politics/jan-6-capitol-deaths.html">several deaths and injuries to almost 150 police officers</a>. </p>
<p>But on the cusp of the November 2022 midterm elections, the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/poll-61-republicans-still-believe-biden-didnt-win-fair-square-2020-rcna49630">majority of Republicans</a> said they still believed the false claim asserted by the Capitol rioters – that President Joe Biden won in 2020 because of voter fraud.</p>
<p>The Jan. 6 riots are an extreme example of what happens when a country becomes trapped in a cycle of polarization and distrust. But that does not mean there is no hope for bridging that divide.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=05S4uMoAAAAJ&hl=en">We are</a> political science <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RIAXDbwAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars who</a> specialize in political polarization. Our recent work suggests that while there is no quick fix to the problems of polarization and animosity, there are ways to lower the temperature of the country’s politics. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A middle aged white woman wearing a red shirt and hat extends her hand into the face of another white person with dark hair and a hat. Behind her stand protesters with American flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502987/original/file-20230103-3468-s5lgny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Trump supporter places her hand in the face of a counter protester in November 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1237713637/photo/president-donald-trump-supporters-protest-the-election-results-in-st-paul-minnesota.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=UX9wLixmNe0P_7LGkU8J490ZKV5uIkoiG99HdOEwHBM=">The Washington Post/Contributor</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Talking can bring the temperature down</h2>
<p>About <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trust/archive/winter-2021/america-is-exceptional-in-its-political-divide">80% of registered voters</a> — Democrats and Republicans alike — said in October 2020 that their differences with the other side were about core American values, not just differences of opinion. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/">Majorities</a> of both registered Republicans and Democrats also have called the other side immoral and dishonest in 2022 public opinion polls. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, then, few voters and most people do not want to talk to those on the other side of the aisle, thinking it will be a waste of time. </p>
<p>The truth of the matter, however, is quite different. </p>
<p>We conducted an academic study throughout 2019, bringing people who said they identified as either Republicans or Democrats together in person for cross-party conversations. We intended to examine the effects of in-person discussion on polarization. </p>
<p>In total, we hosted over 500 people from around metropolitan Philadelphia in community centers, libraries, schools and any other venue that might have us. The results of this experiment, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/we-need-to-talk/3564AAE9352AD63929C2DFC22D8FB9EF">released in</a> November 2021 in a short book titled “We Need to Talk,” suggest that such conversations offer a pathway to minimizing animosity. </p>
<p>In our work, we found that in-person conversations with people from the other side of the political spectrum reduced partisan hostility by almost 20%. </p>
<p>Participants first read a short article suggesting that there is a surprising amount of consensus and common ground among Republicans and Democrats. Every participant then took turns expressing their agreement or disagreement with the text, and then were asked to discuss American politics more broadly. </p>
<p>Each group talked for approximately 15 minutes. In order to ensure that people felt comfortable expressing themselves, we did not record or monitor their conversations in any way. We also asked that people remain civil and respectful and to stick to a specific issue or problem. </p>
<p>These conversations have several different effects. First, they help people to see that sometimes the parties share <a href="https://politicalscience.stanford.edu/publications/unstable-majorities-polarization-party-sorting-and-political-stalemate">common ground</a>. Conversation exposes that people can agree on some issues, at least some of the time. </p>
<p>Second, conversation also helps people better understand other people’s point of view, and may also help them see that other people might have a valid reason for their beliefs. </p>
<p>Importantly, this depolarizing effect did not disappear the moment participants left the group discussions. When we interviewed people a week later, we found that talking it out had a lasting impact on the participants. </p>
<p>One of our favorite moments while conducting this study came after one of our first sessions at a public library in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Several people stayed after the study in order to continue their conversations, to the point where the librarian had to come in and ask us to leave, as the room was needed for the next group that had reserved it. </p>
<h2>In-person benefits</h2>
<p>When people think of those from the other political party, they have a rather <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/697253">warped view</a> of who that person is. For example, Americans think that almost 1 in 3 Democrats are LGBTQ, while, in reality, only 6% are. Because people mostly interact with those like themselves, their views of the other party are heavily influenced by the mass media. Many media sources — <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/10/23/national-politics-on-twitter-small-share-of-u-s-adults-produce-majority-of-tweets/">especially social media sites</a> — tend to amplify the loudest and most extreme voices on both sides, drowning out the bulk of people in the middle.</p>
<p>But as we found in our research, when people see that not all people in the other party are extremists, they realize that they might have painted the other party with too broad of a brush.</p>
<p>Practically, this kind of engagement can have different possible effects – including reducing political violence like what occurred on Jan. 6. </p>
<p>How, then, can Americans be encouraged to bridge the political divide and find common ground? That is hard, no doubt, but there are many <a href="https://www.bridgealliance.us/our_members_bridging_ideological_divides">civic groups</a> that are working to do just that. For example, we’re both members of the scholars council for the bipartisan organization <a href="https://braverangels.org/">Braver Angels</a>, which is an independent group bringing Americans together, trying to bridge political divides on many different issues. </p>
<p><a href="https://livingroomconversations.org/">Many</a> <a href="https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/opinion/2021/02/07/opinion-how-my-neighbors-voice-building-unity-greenville/4371286001/">other</a> nonprofit groups like this exist throughout the country, and a number of foundations and <a href="https://www.civichealthproject.org/">other groups</a> are supporting that important work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cartoon drawing shows a woman with yellow hair, holding up her hands, facing towards a man with blue hair, also gesturing with his hand. They speak into speech bubbles that have elipses in them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502988/original/file-20230103-105135-palg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conversations between Republicans and Democrats for just 15 minutes helped people find common ground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1297359834/vector/business-person-have-a-talk.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=36D5FOeaH6P1CQIP3YATk50wU4o048F5MOlm9CSqulI=">iStock / Getty Images Plus</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>It’s in people’s own hands</h2>
<p>Bridging these divides is ultimately up to all Americans. Most people avoid in-person political discussions across lines of disagreement because <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/11/05/more-now-say-its-stressful-to-discuss-politics-with-people-they-disagree-with/">they fear</a> confrontation and discomfort. </p>
<p>But if people enter a conversation with an open mind — and a willingness to hear the other side without trying to persuade them — they will likely learn something. Obviously, given most people’s social networks, this is not an opportunity that arises every day. But if it does, it presents an important opportunity to learn more about those from the other party, and how you might have some common ground. There are <a href="https://www.listenfirstproject.org/listen-first-conversations-complete-guide">many guides online</a> to having such conversations that can help people get started.</p>
<p>To be clear, conversation is not a cure-all for political division and animosity, and there will be divides that cannot be bridged. The goal is not unanimity, but a better understanding of one another. </p>
<p>There is no quick fix to the country’s political divisions, but through good faith conversation, Americans may be able to lower the political temperature, at least a little bit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In-person conversations between Republicans and Democrats lasting just 15 minutes were found to lessen political animus, research shows.Dominik Stecuła, Assistant professor of political science, Colorado State UniversityMatthew Levendusky, Professor of political science, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1956372022-12-16T13:14:48Z2022-12-16T13:14:48ZOver the holidays, try talking to your relatives like an anthropologist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500772/original/file-20221213-20478-ts9sxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C11%2C7326%2C4891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many people go their entire lives knowing little about their relatives' childhoods and formative experiences.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/hands-of-senior-woman-holding-cup-of-coffee-royalty-free-image/556674747?adppopup=true">Westend61/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How is it possible to spend so much time with your parents and grandparents and not really know them?</p>
<p>This question has puzzled me <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/anthropology/faculty/elk612">as an anthropologist</a>. It’s especially relevant for the holiday season, when millions of people travel to spend time with their families. </p>
<p>When my parents were alive, I traveled long distances to be with them. We had the usual conversations: what the kids were doing, how the job was going, aches and pains. It wasn’t until after my parents died, though, that I wondered whether I really knew them in a deep, rich and nuanced way. And I realized that I’d never asked them about the formative periods of their lives, their childhoods and teenage years. </p>
<p>What had I missed? How had this happened? </p>
<p>In fact, I had interviewed my mother a few years before her death. But I only asked her about other relatives – people I was curious about because my father’s job had taken us to places away from the rest of the family. I based my questions for my mother on the bit of information I already had, to build a family tree. You might say I didn’t know what I didn’t know. </p>
<p>I decided to research the kinds of questions that would have elicited from my mother things about her life that I had no clue about and that now remain hidden and lost forever. I interviewed older people to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690817/the-essential-questions-by-elizabeth-keating-phd/">develop questions</a> that would paint a vivid picture of a person’s life as a child and teenager. I wanted details that would help me see the world that had influenced the person they became. </p>
<p>So I used my training as an anthropologist to ask the type of questions an anthropologist would ask when trying to understand a way of life or culture they know little about. Anthropologists want to see the world from another person’s point of view, through a new lens. The answers I got from older people opened whole new worlds for me.</p>
<h2>Probing the mundane</h2>
<p>One secret to having a deep conversation with your elders when you’re together over the holidays is to set aside your customary role. Forget, for the space of the interview, about your role as their grandchild or child, niece or nephew, and think like an anthropologist.</p>
<p>Most <a href="https://lib.guides.umd.edu/c.php?g=326980&p=2198795">genealogical inquiries</a> concentrate on the big life events like births, deaths and marriages, or building a family tree. </p>
<p>But anthropologists want to know about ordinary life: interactions with neighbors, how the passage of time was experienced, objects that were important to them, what children were afraid of, what courtship practices were like, parenting styles and more. </p>
<p>When you ask about social life, you’ll get descriptions that paint a picture of what it was like to be a child figuring things out back then – when, for instance, as one relative explained, “Unless you were told to go and say hello to Grandma, you never just, as a child, spoke to adults.” </p>
<p>On the other hand, when you ask about important objects, you’ll hear about those tangible things that pass from generation to generation in your family that are vessels of value. These ordinary things can convey stories about family life, just as this person who grew up in the U.K. describes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Mum used to say to me that the best part of the day was me coming home from school, coming in the back door and sitting on the stool in the kitchen and just talking, a mother-daughter thing. I’ve still got that stool from the kitchen. My father built it in evening classes. My children remember sitting on the stool in the kitchen, too, while Grandma was baking, passing time, drinking cups of tea and eating shortbread.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My interview subject, now a grandparent herself, had a hard time understanding the fascination young people have with the social worlds contained in their phones. </p>
<p>But on the topic of phones, I found there can also be unexpected points of connection across generations. When I asked one grandparent about the home she grew up in, as she was visualizing her home in rural South Dakota, she suddenly remembered the telephone they had, a “<a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62876/10-aspects-old-telephones-might-confuse-younger-readers">party line</a>” phone, which was common in the U.S. back then. </p>
<p>All the families in the area shared one phone line, and you were supposed to only pick up the phone when you heard your family’s special ring – a certain number of rings. But as she told it, her mother’s connection to the community was greatly expanded even then by telephone technology:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We had a phone, and it was on a party line. And you know, we would have our ring, and of course, you’d hear the other rings too. And then sometimes, my mom would sneak it and lift up the receiver to see what was going on.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The hands of two people clasping over a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500777/original/file-20221213-18128-ku00pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In addition to being exposed to a different way of life, there can also be unexpected points of connection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/you-have-my-full-support-royalty-free-image/1135286661?phrase=holding%20hands%20at%20table%20black&adppopup=true">PeopleImages/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘All you have to do is ask’</h2>
<p>I enjoyed the interviews with older people so much that I gave my students at the University of Texas at Austin the assignment to interview their grandparents. They ended up having exhilarating, interesting and generation-bridging conversations. </p>
<p>Their experiences, along with mine, led me <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690817/the-essential-questions-by-elizabeth-keating-phd/">to write a guide</a> for people wanting to learn more about their parents’ and grandparents’ early lives, to protect a part of family history that is precious and easily lost.</p>
<p>Grandparents are <a href="https://www.jenonline.org/article/S0099-1767(20)30425-6/fulltext">often lonely</a> and feel <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388922/The-ignored-elderly-Weve-invisible-society-say-half-65s.html">no one listens</a> or takes what they have to say seriously. I found out that this can be because many of us don’t know how to start a conversation that gives them a chance to talk about the vast knowledge and experience they have. </p>
<p>By taking the position of an anthropologist, my students were able to step out of their familiar frame of reference and see the world as older generations did. One student even told the class that after interviewing her grandmother, she wished she could have been a young person in her grandmother’s time.</p>
<p>Often, the tales of “ordinary” life relayed to my students by their older relatives seemed anything but ordinary. They included going to schools segregated by race, women needing a man to accompany them in order to be allowed into a pub or restaurant, and leaving school in the sixth grade to work on the family farm.</p>
<p>Time and again, grandparents said some version of “no one’s asked me these questions before.” </p>
<p>When I was first developing the right questions to ask older family members, I asked one of my research participants to interview her elderly mother about daily life when she was a child. Toward the end of that interview, she said to her mother, “I never knew this stuff before.” </p>
<p>In response, her 92-year-old mother said, “All you have to do is just ask.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Keating does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you skirt the small talk and dig a little deeper, you’ll be surprised at what you might learn.Elizabeth Keating, Professor of Anthropology, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881962022-09-07T12:22:45Z2022-09-07T12:22:45ZPeople think they should talk less to be liked, but new research suggests you should speak up in conversations with strangers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483090/original/file-20220906-18-46b7jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=402%2C54%2C2616%2C1955&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Purposely holding your tongue when you meet someone new likely won't help make a good impression.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mature-woman-talking-with-fellow-traveler-in-subway-royalty-free-image/1268635833">JackF/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>In conversations with strangers, people tend to think they should speak less than half the time to be likable but more than half the time to be interesting, according to new research my colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NTGqlWAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Tim Wilson</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BMUua1kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Dan Gilbert</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TuHJUYAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">and I</a> conducted. But we’ve also discovered this intuition is wrong. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221104927">Our paper</a>, recently published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, sheds light on the prevalence of these beliefs and how they are mistaken in two ways.</p>
<p>First, we found that people tend to think they should speak about 45% of the time to be likable in a one-on-one conversation with someone new. However, it appears speaking up a bit more is actually a better strategy.</p>
<p>In our study, we randomly assigned people to speak for 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% or 70% of the time in a conversation with someone new. We found that the more participants spoke, the more they were liked by their new conversation partners. We call the mistaken belief that being quieter makes you more likable a “reticence bias.”</p>
<p>This was only one study with 116 participants, but the outcome aligns with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jqVzag8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">other researchers’</a> prior findings. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407512459033">a previous study</a> randomly assigned one participant in a pair to take on the role of “speaker” and the other to take on the role of “listener.” After engaging in 12-minute interactions, listeners liked speakers more than speakers liked listeners because listeners felt more similar to speakers than speakers did to listeners. This outcome suggests one reason people prefer those who speak up: Learning more about a new conversation partner can make you feel like you have more in common with them.</p>
<p>The second mistake we found people make is failing to recognize that their new conversation partners will form global impressions of them that are not extremely nuanced. In other words, people are unlikely to walk away from a chat with someone new thinking that their interaction partner was quite interesting but not very likable. Rather, they are likely to form a global impression – for example, a generally positive impression, in which they view their partner as both interesting and likable.</p>
<p>For these reasons, our new research suggests that, all else being equal, you should speak up more than you typically might in conversations with new people in order to make a good first impression.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man sitting on park bench and woman in wheelchair talking" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483091/original/file-20220906-4758-px7qez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Advice you’ve heard about how to make a good first impression may not be based on evidence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/man-talking-to-woman-in-wheelchair-royalty-free-image/817442352">Antonio_Diaz/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Many people want to know how to make a good first impression, as evidenced by the enduring <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/books/books-of-the-times-classic-advice-please-leave-well-enough-alone.html">popularity of related self-help books</a>.</p>
<p>But because such books are not always based on empirical evidence, they can lead people astray with unfounded claims such as this advice from “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/342329/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-by-carnegie-dale/9781785044229">How to Win Friends and Influence People</a>”: “Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves … than they are in you.”</p>
<p>Research like ours can help people gain a more scientifically grounded understanding of social interactions with new people and ultimately become more confident and knowledgeable about how to make a good first impression.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>In our research, participants were instructed to speak for a certain amount of time in their conversations. This approach has the obvious benefit of allowing us to carefully manipulate speaking time. One limitation, though, is that it does not reflect more natural conversations in which people choose how long to talk versus listen. Future research should investigate whether our findings generalize to more natural interactions.</p>
<p>Further, we assigned people to speak for only up to 70% of the time. It’s possible, and even likely, that completely dominating a conversation – such as by speaking 90% of the time – is not an optimal strategy. Our research does not suggest people should steamroll a conversational partner but rather that they should feel comfortable speaking up more than they typically might.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Quinn Hirschi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The common advice to let the other person talk more might backfire if you want to make a positive first impression.Quinn Hirschi, Principal Researcher at the Center for Decision Research, University of ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1868772022-08-08T12:20:46Z2022-08-08T12:20:46ZWhen was talking invented? A language scientist explains how this unique feature of human beings may have evolved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475710/original/file-20220722-19-z3alh3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5734%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Humans are the only animals that express their thoughts in full sentences.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/son-whispering-into-fathers-ear-royalty-free-image/1270752418?adppopup=true">Oliver Rossi/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>When was talking invented? – Albert R., age 12, Florida</strong></p>
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<hr>
<p>The truth is, no one knows for sure when talking was “invented.” It’s a big mystery. But as <a href="https://www.socsci.uci.edu/%7Erfutrell/">a language scientist</a> for 15 years, I can tell you our best guess about when people started talking to each other using language, and how we think it got started.</p>
<h2>Human language and how long it’s been around</h2>
<p>Talking is an activity unique to <em>Homo sapiens</em>, our species. In <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24940617">every culture where most people can hear</a>, people talk with spoken language. And in groups where lots of people are deaf – as in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_sign_language">certain</a> <a href="http://sandlersignlab.haifa.ac.il/html/html_eng/pdf/EMERGING_SIGN_LANGUAGES.pdf">villages</a> where a lot of people are born deaf for genetic reasons – or in Deaf communities throughout the world, people talk with their hands, using sign languages. There are <a href="https://www.littlepassports.com/blog/world-community/the-many-languages-of-sign-language/">lots of different sign languages</a>, just as there are lots of different spoken languages.</p>
<p>Birds sing songs. <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-dogs-bark-are-they-using-words-to-communicate-153345">Dogs bark</a>, and cats meow. But these forms of communication are simple compared with human language. An animal might make 10 different sounds, for example, but an adult human knows <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0213">more than 20,000 words</a>. Additionally, we’re the <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist197a/hockett60sciam.pdf">only animal</a> that expresses thoughts in full sentences. Because language is unique to humans and so different from anything else in the animal kingdom, researchers don’t really think language was invented; instead we think it evolved during human beings’ evolution from other apes. </p>
<p>So to find out when talking started, you have to look back to when humans first evolved. Scientists believe humans as we know them today likely <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao5961">evolved around 300,000 years ago</a>. Some of our evolutionary ancestors like <em>Homo erectus</em> and cousins like the Neanderthals <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.01.001">may have had language too</a>, but researchers don’t know for sure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A chalk drawing of monkey to human evolution" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476369/original/file-20220727-11735-ejyizd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Scientists believe that ancestors to modern humans may have used speech too.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/evolution-royalty-free-image/163746345?adppopup=true">altmodern/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>What’s amazing is that for almost all of that time, all people did with language was talk; there wasn’t any reading or writing until <a href="https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/the-evolution-of-writing/">roughly 5,000 years ago</a>, which is recent compared with how long modern humans have been around. For almost all of the time that humans existed on planet Earth, no one read a book or a sign, or wrote down their name.</p>
<p>People started writing things down <a href="https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/from-accounting-to-writing/">so they could keep track of accounts</a>. For example, if Farmer Joe owed Farmer Jill three sheep, then they would draw a picture of a sheep and write down three marks. Eventually these little pictures turned into hieroglyphics and then into the letters that we use today to write down all kinds of things like grocery lists and poems and stories. </p>
<h2>Where talking comes from</h2>
<p>Another question you might wonder about is where talking comes from. Before people used language, how did they communicate with each other? Did they just make sounds at each other as animals do? The truth is, we don’t know the answer here either. But there are two main theories. </p>
<p><a href="https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/langorigins.html">The first theory</a> is that language started with people making different sounds, mostly imitating the things around them, like animal calls, nature sounds and the sounds of tools. Eventually they started using these sounds to talk to each other. They might make the sound of whooshing wind to talk about the weather or imitate the sound of a bird to tell a friend that there was a bird nearby. Then over hundreds of thousands of years, those sounds turned into words that people began to learn as part of their language. At some point, people started stringing the words together to form sentences.</p>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/origins-human-communication">The other main theory</a>, which is a more recent idea, is that people started off by gesturing – pointing at things with their hands, imitating actions using their bodies and making faces. Eventually these gestures turned into a full sign language. This process continues today in villages where lots of people are deaf. If a lot of deaf people who don’t know a sign language come together, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/l_072_04.html">they will spontaneously invent one</a> within a few years. </p>
<p>This theory guesses that after developing sign languages, people eventually started making sounds along with their gestures. At some point, they switched to mostly making sounds that became words instead of just using their bodies. The reason they switched to making sounds, the theory goes, is that talking out loud lets you communicate with someone even when you can’t see them. </p>
<p>Big questions like this let all of us explore what it means to be human beings. Only humans have language, and so figuring out where language comes from is a way to figure out where we come from too.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186877/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Futrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A language scientist explains that talking was never invented but has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.Richard Futrell, Associate Professor of Language Science, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803852022-03-31T12:42:50Z2022-03-31T12:42:50ZWhat is aphasia? An expert explains the condition forcing Bruce Willis to retire from acting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455332/original/file-20220330-23801-c9ph71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C5991%2C3961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bruce Willis has announced he is stepping away from acting.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bruce-willis-attends-the-17th-annual-a-great-night-in-news-photo/1140471275?adppopup=true">Theo Wargo/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Actor Bruce Willis, 67, is “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/movies/bruce-willis-aphasia.html">stepping away” from his career in film and TV</a> after being diagnosed with aphasia, his family announced on March 30, 2022.</em></p>
<p><em>In a message <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbu-CyELWio/">posted on Instagram</a>, his daughter, Rumer Willis, said that the condition was “impacting his cognitive abilities.”</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.bu.edu/sargent/profile/swathi-kiran-ph-d-ccc-slp/">Swathi Kiran</a>, director of the <a href="https://www.bu.edu/aphasiaresearch/">Aphasia Research Laboratory</a> at Boston University, explains what aphasia is and how it impairs the communication of those with the condition.</em></p>
<h2>What is aphasia?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/aphasia/symptoms-causes/syc-20369518">Aphasia</a> is a communication disorder that affects someone’s ability to speak or understand speech. It also impacts how they understand written words and their ability to read and to write.</p>
<p>It is important to note that aphasia can take different forms. Some people with aphasia only have difficulty understanding language – a result of damage to the <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/temporal-lobe#:%7E:text=The%20temporal%20lobe%20is%20one,conscious%20and%20long%2Dterm%20memory.">temporal lobe</a>, which governs how sound and language are processed in the brain. Others only have difficulty with speaking – indicating damage to the <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318139">frontal lobe</a>. A loss of both speaking and comprehension of language would suggest damage to both the large temporal lobe and frontal lobe.</p>
<p>Almost everyone with aphasia struggles when trying to come up with the names of things they know, but can’t find the name for. And because of that, they have trouble using words in sentences. It also affects the ability of those with the condition to read and write.</p>
<h2>What causes aphasia?</h2>
<p>In most cases, <a href="https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/effects-of-stroke/cognitive-and-communication-effects-of-stroke/stroke-and-aphasia#:%7E:text=It's%20a%20language%20disorder%20that,home%2C%20socially%20or%20at%20work.">aphasia results from a stroke or hemorrhage</a> in the brain. It can also be caused by damage to the brain from impact injury such as a car accident. Brain tumors can also result in aphasia.</p>
<p>There is also a separate form of the condition called <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/primary-progressive-aphasia/symptoms-causes/syc-20350499">primary progressive aphasia</a>. This starts off with mild symptoms but gets worse over time. The medical community doesn’t know what causes primary progressive aphasia. We know that it affects the same brain regions as in cases where aphasia results from a stroke or hemorrhage, but the onset of symptoms follow a different trajectory.</p>
<h2>How many people does it affect?</h2>
<p>Aphasia is unfortunately quite common. Approximately <a href="https://www.stroke.org.uk/effects-of-stroke/communication-problems#:%7E:text=Aphasia%20affects%20your%20ability%20to,of%20stroke%20survivors%20have%20it.">one-third of all stroke survivors</a> suffer from it. In the U.S., around <a href="https://www.aphasia.org/aphasia-resources/aphasia-factsheet/">2 million people have aphasia and around 225,000 Americans</a> are diagnosed every year. Right now, we don’t know what proportion of people with aphasia have the primary progressive form of the condition.</p>
<p>There is no gender difference in terms of who suffers from aphasia. But people at higher risk of stroke – so those with cardiovascular disabilities and diabetes – are <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/preventing-problems/heart-disease-stroke">more at risk</a>. This also means that minority groups are more at risk, simply because of the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/racism-disparities/index.html#:%7E:text=The%20data%20show%20that%20racial,compared%20to%20their%20White%20counterparts.">existing health disparities in the U.S</a>.</p>
<p>Aphasia can occur at any age. It is usually people over the age of 65 simply because they have a higher risk of stroke. But young people and even babies can develop the condition.</p>
<h2>How is it diagnosed?</h2>
<p>When people have aphasia after stroke or hemorrhage, the diagnosis is made by a neurologist. In these cases, patients will have displayed a sudden onset of the disorder – there will be a huge drop in their ability to speak or communicate.</p>
<p>With primary progressive aphasia, it is harder to diagnose. Unlike in cases of stroke, the onset will be very mild at first – people will slowly forget the names of people or of objects. Similarly, difficulty in understanding what people are saying will be gradual. But it is these changes that trigger diagnosis.</p>
<h2>What is the prognosis in both forms of aphasia?</h2>
<p>People with aphasia resulting from stroke or hemorrhage will recover over time. How fast and how much depends on the extent of damage to the brain, and what therapy they receive.</p>
<p>Primary progressive aphasia is degenerative – the patient will deteriorate over time, although the rate of deterioration can be slowed.</p>
<h2>Are there any treatments?</h2>
<p>The encouraging thing is that aphasia is treatable. In the non-progressive form, <a href="https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/aphasia">consistent therapy</a> will result in recovery of speech and understanding. One-on-one repetition exercises can help those with the condition regain speech. But the road can be long, and it depends on the extent of damage to the brain.</p>
<p>With primary progressive aphasia, symptoms of speech and language decline will get worse over time.</p>
<p>But the clinical evidence is unambiguous: Rehabilitation can help stroke survivors regain speech and the understanding of language and <a href="https://www.aphasia.org/aphasia-resources/primary-progressive-aphasia/">can slow symptoms</a> in cases of primary progressive aphasia.</p>
<p>Clinical trial of certain types of drugs are under way but in the early stages. There do not appear to be any miracle drugs. But for now, speech rehabilitation therapy is the <a href="https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/aphasia">most common treatment</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Swathi Kiran receives funding from National Institutes of Health. She is a Board Member of the National Aphasia Association. </span></em></p>The ‘Die Hard’ actor is suffering from a communications disorder that affects 2 million Americans.Swathi Kiran, Professor of Neurorehabilitation, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1738322022-01-13T13:02:48Z2022-01-13T13:02:48ZWhen meeting someone new, try skirting the small talk and digging a little deeper<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440506/original/file-20220112-23-1nrb7zq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C284%2C5760%2C4292&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Gossip' (ca. 1922) by American painter William Penhallow Henderson.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-gossip-ca-1922-artist-william-penhallow-henderson-news-photo/1314800673?adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Meeting new people and building friendships are critical for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1011492107">mental</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011902">physical well-being</a>.</p>
<p>This does not, however, mean that everyone will take advantage of new chances to connect.</p>
<p>Even before the COVID-19 pandemic compelled most people to stay physically distant, our research suggests that people were already keeping too much social distance from one another. </p>
<p>In particular, our behavioral science research suggests that people tend to be overly pessimistic about how conversations with new acquaintances will play out. </p>
<p>Across <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-88608-001">a dozen experiments</a>, participants consistently underestimated how much they would enjoy talking with strangers. This was especially true when we asked them to have the kinds of substantive conversations that actually foster friendships. </p>
<p>Because of these mistaken beliefs, it seems as though people reach out and connect with others less often and in less meaningful ways than they probably should.</p>
<h2>Moving beyond water cooler talk</h2>
<p>People usually only disclose their deepest disappointments, proudest accomplishments and simmering anxieties to close friends and family.</p>
<p>But our experiments tested the seemingly radical idea that deep conversations between strangers can end up being surprisingly satisfying. </p>
<p>In several experiments, the participants first reported how they expected to feel after discussing relatively weighty questions like, “what are you most grateful for in your life?” and “when is the last time you cried in front of another person?” </p>
<p>These participants believed they would feel somewhat awkward and only moderately happy discussing these topics with a stranger. But after we prompted them to actually do so, they reported that their conversations were less awkward than they had anticipated. Furthermore, they felt happier and more connected to the other person than they had assumed.</p>
<p>In other experiments, we asked people to write down questions they would normally discuss when first getting to know someone – “weird weather we’re having these days, isn’t it?” – and then to write down deeper and more intimate questions than they would normally discuss, like asking whether the other person was happy with their life. </p>
<p>Again, we found that the participants were especially likely to overestimate how awkward the ensuing conversations about the more meaningful topics would be, while underestimating how happy those conversations would make them. </p>
<p>These mistaken beliefs matter because they can create a barrier to human connection. If you mistakenly think a substantive conversation will feel uncomfortable, you’re going to probably avoid it. And then you might never realize that your expectations are off the mark.</p>
<h2>Yes, others do care</h2>
<p>Misconceptions over the outcomes of deeper conversations may happen, in part, because we also underestimate how interested other people are in what we have to share. This makes us more reluctant to open up. </p>
<p>It turns out that, more often than not, strangers do want to hear you talk about more than the weather; they really do care about your fears, feelings, opinions and experiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman and man seated at table talk to one another." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440508/original/file-20220112-17-14xnyj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘In the Cafe’ (1891) by Belgian artist Jan Moerman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-the-cafe-oil-painting-by-dutch-painter-jan-moerman-b-news-photo/56300859?adppopup=true">Pierre Bourgogne/Fine Art Photographic/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The results were strikingly consistent. For the experiments, we recruited college students, online samples, strangers in a public park and even executives at financial services firms, and similar patterns played out within each group. Whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert, a man or a woman, you’re likely to underestimate how good you’ll feel after having a deep conversation with a stranger. The same results even occurred in conversations over Zoom.</p>
<h2>Aligning beliefs with reality</h2>
<p>In one telling demonstration, we had some people engage in both a relatively shallow and comparatively deeper conversation. People expected that they would prefer a shallow conversation to the deeper one before they took place. After the interactions occurred, they reported the opposite.</p>
<p>Moreover, the participants consistently told us that they wished they could have deeper conversations more often in their everyday lives. </p>
<p>The problem, then, is not a lack of interest in having more meaningful conversations. It’s the misguided pessimism about how these interactions will play out.</p>
<p>It’s possible, though, to learn from these positive experiences.</p>
<p>Think of the trepidation kids have of diving into the deep end of a swimming pool. The uneasiness is often unwarranted: Once they take the plunge, they end up having a lot more fun than they did in shallower waters. </p>
<p>Our data suggests that something similar can happen when it comes to topics of conversation. You might feel nervous before starting a deeper conversation with someone you barely know; yet once you do, you might actually enjoy digging a little deeper than you typically do.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The broader takeaway of our work is that these miscalibrated expectations can lead many people to be not quite social enough for their own good and the well-being of others. </p>
<p>Having deeper conversations joins a growing list of opportunities for social engagement – including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618772506">expressing gratitude</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000277">sharing compliments</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000962">reaching out and talking to an old friend</a> – that end up feeling a lot better than we might think.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A series of experiments explored the seemingly radical idea that opening up to strangers can be deeply satisfying.Amit Kumar, Assistant Professor of Marketing, The University of Texas at AustinMichael Kardas, Postdoctoral Fellow in Management and Marketing, Northwestern UniversityNicholas Epley, John Templeton Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science, University of ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1366632020-04-24T12:22:03Z2020-04-24T12:22:03ZCoronavirus drifts through the air in microscopic droplets – here’s the science of infectious aerosols<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330205/original/file-20200423-47794-1ypobds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From your lungs into the air around you, aerosols carry coronavirus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/man-with-flu-coughing-and-sneezing-royalty-free-image/148981627?adppopup=true"> Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 1970s when I was growing up in Southern California, the <a href="https://timeline.com/la-smog-pollution-4ca4bc0cc95d">air was so polluted</a> that I was regularly sent home from high school to “shelter in place.” There might not seem to be much in common between staying home due to air pollution and staying home to fight the coronavirus pandemic, but fundamentally, both have a lot to do with aerosols.</p>
<p>Aerosols are the tiny floating pieces of pollution that make up Los Angeles’ famous smog, the dust particles you see floating in a ray of sunshine and also the small droplets of liquid that escape your mouth when you talk, cough or breathe. These small pieces of floating liquids can contain pieces of the coronavirus and can be major contributor to its spread.</p>
<p>If you walk outside right now, chances are you will see people wearing masks and practicing social distancing. These actions are in large part meant to prevent people from <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/face-masks-do-not-replace-social-distancing-why_l_5e970b37c5b65eae709d3fc7">spreading or inhaling aerosols</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://shellym80304.com">I am a professor of mechanical engineering</a> and study aerosols and air pollution. The more people understand how aerosols work, the better people can avoid getting or spreading the coronavirus.</p>
<h2>Airborne and everywhere</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330207/original/file-20200423-47820-1e6axkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aerosols are everywhere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/child-flour-game-royalty-free-image/157329692?adppopup=true">slobo/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An aerosol is a clump of small liquid or solid particles floating in the air. They are everywhere in the environment and can be made of anything small enough to float, like smoke, water or coronavirus-carrying saliva. </p>
<p>When a person coughs, talks or breathes, they throw anywhere between <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F15459624.2012.684582">900 to 300,000 liquid particles</a> from their mouth. These particles <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2010.11.010">range in size</a> from microscopic – a thousandth the width of a hair – up to the size of a grain of fine beach sand. A cough can send them traveling at speeds <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2010.542785">up to 60 mph</a>. </p>
<p>Size of the particle and air currents affect how long they will stay in the air. In a still room, tiny particles like smoke can stay airborne for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1352-2310(02)00157-7">up to eight hours</a>. Larger particles fall out of the air more quickly and land on surfaces after a few minutes. </p>
<p>By simply being near other people, you are coming into constant contact with aerosols from their mouth. During a pandemic this is a little more concerning than normal. But the important question is not do exhaled aerosols exist, rather, how infectious are they? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330206/original/file-20200423-47794-1org5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The coronavirus is small and easily transported by airborne particles of saliva.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/virus-on-black-background-royalty-free-image/1212421196?adppopup=true">fotograzia/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Aerosols as virus delivery systems</h2>
<p>The new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is tiny, about 0.1 microns - roughly 4 millionths of an inch - in diameter. Aerosols produced by people when they breathe, talk and cough are generally between about <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F15459624.2012.684582">0.7 microns</a> to around <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2234804/pdf/jhyg00188-0053.pdf">10 microns</a> – completely invisible to the naked eye and easily able to float in air. These particles are mostly biological fluids from people’s mouths and lungs and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.23698">can contain bits of virus genetic material</a>. </p>
<p>Researchers don’t yet know how many individual pieces of SARS-CoV-2 an aerosol produced by an infected person’s cough might hold. But in one preprint study, meaning it is currently under peer review, researchers used a model to estimate that a person standing and speaking in a room could release up to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.12.20062828">114 infectious doses per hour</a>. The researchers predict that these aerosolized bits of saliva would easily infect other people if this happened in public indoor spaces like a bank, restaurant or pharmacy.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is how easy these particles are to inhale. In a recent computer model study, researchers found that people would most likely inhale aerosols from another person that is talking and coughing while sitting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106859">less than 6 feet away</a>.</p>
<p>While this seems bad, the actual process from exposure to infection is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-covid-19s-infectious-dose-and-viral-load-135991">complicated numbers game</a>. Often, viral particles found in aerosols are damaged. A study looking at the flu virus found that only <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1003205">0.1% of viruses</a> exhaled by a person are actually infectious. The coronavirus also starts to die off once it has left the body, remaining viable in the air for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2004973">up to three hours</a>. And of course, not every aerosol coming from an infected person will contain the coronavirus. There is a lot of chance involved.</p>
<p>Public health officials still don’t know whether direct contact, indirect contact through surfaces, or aerosols are the main <a href="https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3707-y">pathway of transmission</a> for the coronavirus. But everything experts like myself know about aerosols suggests that they could be a major pathway of transmission.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330242/original/file-20200423-47841-zm8fap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aerosol driven outbreaks have been linked to restaurants, shops and many other public places.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hong-Kong-China-Outbreak/37408763dcd441db9dad9180db4377f2/69/0">AP Photo/Vincent Yu</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Evidence of aerosol transmission</h2>
<p>It is almost impossible to study viral transmission in real time, so researchers have turned to environmental sampling and contact tracing to try to study the spread of the coronavirus in aerosols. This research is happening extremely fast and most of it is still under peer review, but these studies offer extremely interesting, if preliminary, information. </p>
<p>To test the environment, researchers simply sample the air. In Nebraska, scientists found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.23.20039446">airborne SARS-CoV-2 in a hospital</a>. In China, scientists also found the virus in the air of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.08.982637">a number of hospitals as well as a department store</a>. </p>
<p>But environmental sampling alone cannot prove aerosol transmission. That requires contact tracing.</p>
<p>One restaurant in Guangzhou, China, was the site of a small outbreak on Jan. 23 and offers direct evidence of aerosol transmission. <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article">Researchers</a> believe that there was one infected but asymptomatic person sitting at a table in the restaurant. Because of the air currents circulating in the room due to air conditioning, people sitting at two other tables became infected, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.16.20067728">likely because of aerosols</a>. </p>
<p>Overall, the evidence suggests that it is much <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-transmission-chinese-study-shows-covid-more-likely-spread-indoors/">more risky to be inside</a> than outside. The reason is the lack of airflow. It takes between <a href="https://www.aivc.org/sites/default/files/airbase_4213.pdf">15 minutes and three hours</a> for an aerosol to be sucked outside <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK143277/">by a ventilation system</a> or float out an open window.</p>
<p>Another preprint study of outbreaks in Japan suggests that the chances of direct transmission are almost <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.28.20029272">20 times higher indoors compared</a> to outdoors. In Singapore, researchers traced the first three outbreaks directly to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30528-6">few shops, a banquet dinner and a church</a>. </p>
<p>Once outside, these potentially infectious aerosols disappear in the expanse of the atmosphere and are much less of a worry. It is of course possible to catch the virus outside if you are in close contact with a sick person, but this seems very rare. Researchers in China found that only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058">one of 314 outbreaks</a> they examined could be traced back to outdoor contact. </p>
<p>There has been recent concern over <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/">aerosol transmission during running and biking</a>. While the science is still developing on this, it is probably wise to give other bikers or runners a little more room than normal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330208/original/file-20200423-47810-1n1kzds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wearing masks and social distancing reduce the risk of spreading or inhaling aerosols.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Louisiana/bb82598420d646edbce881537b399efa/88/0">AP Photo/Gerald Herbert</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to reduce aerosol transmission</h2>
<p>With all of this knowledge of how aerosols are produced, how they move and the role they play in this pandemic, an obvious question arises: what about masks?</p>
<p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing a face mask in <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html">any public setting</a> where social distancing is hard to do. This is because homemade masks probably do a reasonable job of blocking aerosols from leaving your mouth. The evidence <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-wear-face-masks-in-public-heres-what-the-research-shows-135623">generally supports their use</a> and more research is coming to show that masks can be very effective at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3fkt">reducing SARS-CoV-2 in air</a>. Masks aren’t perfect and more studies are currently underway to learn how effective they really are, but taking <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1435">this small precaution</a> could help slow the pandemic. </p>
<p>Other than wearing a mask, follow common sense and the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/index.html">guidance of public health officials</a>. Avoid crowded indoor spaces as much as possible. Practice social distancing both inside and outdoors. Wash your hands frequently. All of these things work to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and can help keep you from getting it. There is a significant amount of evidence that COVID-19 is transmitted by the inhalation of airborne particles, but by carefully following the advice of experts, individuals can minimize the risk they pose.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelly Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Aerosols are the tiny particles of liquid and material that float around in our environment. When they come from an infected person, they may be a significant source of coronavirus transmission.Shelly Miller, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1355902020-04-06T12:08:01Z2020-04-06T12:08:01ZThe CDC now recommends wearing a mask in some cases – a physician explains why and when to wear one<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325419/original/file-20200404-74235-h877qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C1280%2C705&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The change in CDC guidance comes in response to new research on how the new coronavirus can spread.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/flu-h1n1-swine-contagious-person-sneezing-40246747"> Peter Denovo/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> has changed its policy and is now advising everyone, whether or not they have symptoms of COVID-19, to cover their face with a mask or cloth covering whenever social distancing is difficult to maintain. To be clear, the CDC is not saying you should wear a mask wherever you go, but rather in places where people congregate, including grocery stores and public transportation and ride-shares. </p>
<p>The shift in recommendations reflects <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/25769/chapter/1">growing evidence</a> that COVID-19 can be transmitted by a person’s exhalations and normal speech but also the fact that people are not effectively covering their sneezes and coughs.</p>
<h2>The stealth virus</h2>
<p>COVID-19’s middle name should be “stealth.” People can be shedding virus for <a href="https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/symptom-spread-may-complicate-covid-19-containment">one to three days</a> before showing any symptoms – including no coughing, sneezing or fever – in what’s called “presymptomatic transmission.” A <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e1.htm">Singapore study</a> suggests that 10% of infections are attributable to presymptomatic spread. </p>
<p>A study of the 3,711 passengers and crew on the <a href="https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.10.2000180">Diamond Princess</a> cruise ship indicates that close to 1 in 5 COVID-19 carriers never develop symptoms. Some these people transmit the virus through “asymptomatic transmission.” The proportion of infected people that never develop symptoms could be more like <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00822-x">one-third</a> for the general population that is younger and healthier than typical cruise takers. </p>
<p>The virus’s ability to spread so easily from one person to the next is why people are being asked to <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-why-social-distancing-is-one-of-the-best-tools-we-have-to-fight-the-coronavirus-134742">physically distance</a> themselves from one another. But people still have to go out to get essentials at places where people gather. </p>
<p>If a person is not coughing or sneezing, how are they spreading the virus? One way is by contact. The virus lives on the mucous membranes in the throat and nose. With people touching their faces every <a href="https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(14)01281-4/fulltext">two-and-a-half minutes,</a> on average it’s easy to see how the virus gets on our hands, and then we can spread it to commonly used surfaces like door knobs, a plastic handle in the subway or someone else’s hand. <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973">Steel and plastic</a> surfaces can harbor live virus for three days.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/piCWFgwysu0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wearing a mask can help protect others if you sneeze or cough in public. Growing evidence indicates that it can also protect the wearer from airborne virus particles.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other manner of spread is by asymptomatic infected people simply <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2843947/?report=reader">breathing</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6984704/">talking</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6382806/">yelling</a> or <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak">singing</a>. These activities <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aerosols/pdfs/Aerosol_101.pdf">aerosolize virus</a>, creating airborne virus particles – also called droplet nuclei – that are so tiny they can float around in the air for <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973">three hours</a>. Coughing and sneezing produce larger water and virus-borne <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK143281/">droplets</a>, as well as producing <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852">aerosolized virus</a>. </p>
<p>Common medical devices, like nebulizer machines for people with asthma and CPAP machines for those with sleep apnea, can aerosolize virus. But the concentration of aerosolized virus will be small in a large well-ventilated space and practically absent outdoors. Infectious aerosolized virus becomes more of a concern in a place like a small, poorly ventilated room. Places like a patient’s bedroom in their home, some nursing home rooms and a classroom would all be concerning to me as a <a href="https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/profile/thomas-perls/">physician</a>. Hospital rooms are generally better ventilated.</p>
<p>Another key determinant of getting infected is the amount of time you are exposed – so your risk is much less with five minutes versus 30 or more minutes of exposure. People think about the danger of radiation exposure in very much the same way – how close you are to the source, the concentration of exposure and the amount of time you are exposed. </p>
<h2>DIY and surgical masks may protect you and others</h2>
<p>The purpose of all of us wearing face coverings or surgical masks anywhere people congregate is first and foremost to protect others if we sneeze or cough. These coverings will stop much of the large droplets that could otherwise reach people as far away as 18 feet away. Just-published <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2">research</a> indicates that surgical masks can also decrease the amount of aerosolized virus the people produce by breathing and talking. </p>
<p>A big question is: Can these DIY or <a href="https://www.osha.gov/Publications/respirators-vs-surgicalmasks-factsheet.html">surgical masks</a> also protect the wearer? The same research <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2">study</a> shows these masks impede aerosolized virus being expelled out by the user so presumably they can decrease breathing in the virus as well. But they aren’t foolproof. These coverings don’t fit the face tightly, so aerosolized virus and larger droplets can be sucked in through the gaps between the face and the mask when we take a breath. </p>
<p>Additionally, some of the viral particles are so small that they can be inhaled through the cloth or paper that’s used to make these masks. People should not be lulled into a false sense of security in thinking that these types of masks will protect them from airborne, aerosolized virus especially in poorly ventilated spaces frequented by others. The best thing to do is to either avoid such spaces or be in them for as short a period of time as possible.</p>
<h2>The bottom line</h2>
<p>The chance of catching COVID-19 from a person walking by outdoors is extremely small. Wearing face coverings is recommended and requested for when you are indoors, including mass transit and ride-shares, with other people. </p>
<p>Anywhere you go, maintain <a href="https://qz.com/1830347/social-distancing-isnt-the-right-language-for-what-covid-19-asks-of-us/">physical distancing</a> of at least 6 feet with no bodily contact. If someone nearby sneezes or coughs and they aren’t wearing a mask, get at least 20 feet away, quickly. When you do go out on an errand, wear a face covering and get your business done as fast as you can. </p>
<p>You don’t need a N-95 mask if you wear a face covering when you go out in a public indoor place or ride mass transit and practice good physical distancing. Health care workers have to care for their COVID-19 patients within very close distances for prolonged periods of time. If they don’t have a N-95 mask, the risk goes way up for them. If you have a N-95 mask, please donate it to your local hospital or first responder.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Perls does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The CDC now recommends that everyone wear a face covering when they go into a public place. But there’s confusion about why and if this protects the wearer, people around them or both.Thomas Perls, Professor of Medicine, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1308382020-02-07T15:30:48Z2020-02-07T15:30:48ZHow our phones disconnect us when we’re together<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314189/original/file-20200207-27524-t43fpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-unhappy-lesbians-not-talking-each-604726124">Shutterstock/WAYHOME studio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Smartphones have changed the world. A quick glance around any street or communal space shows how dominant <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/271851/smartphone-owners-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-age/">our favourite</a> digital devices have become. </p>
<p>We are familiar with the sight of groups of teenagers not talking, but eagerly composing messages and posts on their screens. Or seeing couples dining silently in restaurants, ignoring the romantic flickering candle in favour of the comforting blue light of their phones. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45042096">Attempts</a> have been made to come up with rules of phone etiquette during face-to-face interactions. But why do these devices that are meant to connect us when we’re far apart seem to cause so much division when we’re close together?</p>
<p>Some research has begun to examine this question. In one 2016 <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shalini_Misra/publication/270730343_The_iPhone_Effect_The_Quality_of_In-Person_Social_Interactions_in_the_Presence_of_Mobile_Devices/links/55d5c20608aeb38e8a804bce/The-iPhone-Effect-The-Quality-of-In-Person-Social-Interactions-in-the-Presence-of-Mobile-Devices.pdf">study</a> conducted in US coffee shops, researchers found that using a mobile device while spending time with someone reduced the ability of one conversation partner to properly listen and engage with the other. This effect was particularly strong when the people interacting didn’t know each other well. </p>
<p>In another more <a href="https://www.guidea.be/Portals/0/dtxArt/blok-document/bestand/Dwyer-et-al.-2018.-Smartphone-users-undermine-interactions_1dcf1a50-21c2-4e35-87c7-04bff4c34056.pdf">recent study</a>, researchers told restaurant goers to either leave their phones out on the table or to put them in a box, out of reach and sight. At the end of the meal, participants were asked how enjoyable the meal was and how distracted they had felt. </p>
<p>People who had their phones on the table felt more distracted, which in turn led to lower enjoyment of their time spent eating with friends or family. </p>
<p>My own research has also delved into the topic of phones distracting from high quality face-to-face interactions. In <a href="https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.ucsc.edu/dist/5/491/files/2014/09/College-Students-Mobile-Phone-Use-During-Face-to-Face-Interaction.pdf">my study</a>, I invited pairs of friends to come to the lab to take part in an experiment and then asked them to wait for five minutes sitting side by side in a waiting area while I printed out questionnaires. </p>
<p>This was actually a deception. I was only really interested in what they would do during the five minutes of “waiting time”, so I secretly filmed them to see what they did. I then asked them to complete a questionnaire on how well they thought that period of interaction had gone. </p>
<p>Finally, I disclosed to the participants that they had been recorded and asked for permission to keep the tapes to analyse in our study. Everyone allowed us to keep their videos (even the pair who had criticised my outfit when I left them alone). Then with the help of my research assistants, we watched all the videos to see how much each pair of friends had used their phones. </p>
<p>We found that 48 out of the 63 friendship pairs used their mobile phones, and on average they used their phones for one minute and 15 seconds out of the five-minute period. We calculated these averages based on both friends’ behaviours because interactions are dependent on both people who are present. So even if only one person used their phone, we would still expect their phone use to influence the quality of the interaction. </p>
<p>The longer they spent using their phones, the lower the quality of their interaction. We also found that regardless of how close the friends were, they all had worse interactions when they used their phones. </p>
<p>Watching the videos of friends using their phones taught me a lot about why they can be such a problem in face-to-face interactions. On occasion, the phones were used to share information, like showing a picture or email that they wanted to discuss. These types of usage didn’t seem to hurt their interactions, but they also didn’t happen very often. </p>
<p>Only 21% of people used their phones in this way and on average the sharing only lasted five seconds. What happened more often was what I refer to as “<a href="https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1366&context=wwuet">distraction multitasking</a>”, when friends were listening with one ear but still looking at and thinking about what was on their phones. </p>
<h2>Distraction device</h2>
<p>This type of use made up the majority of what we observed on the tapes. One particularly sad clip I will always remember was between two female friends. Both friends were getting along well after I left them alone, and then one of them got out her phone. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314232/original/file-20200207-27548-1qe4ds6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Experiment at work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Genavee Brown</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the meantime, her friend had thought of something she would like to say and looked up eagerly about to share perhaps some gossip or good news. But as soon as she saw that her friend was completely absorbed in her phone, she looked away, disappointed and hurt. They didn’t speak again during the waiting period. </p>
<p>This seems to me to be the biggest problem that phones create in face-to-face interactions. They make us less available to others by distracting us from important social cues, like that light in a friend’s eyes when she has something important to tell us. </p>
<p>While technologically mediated conversations can be useful to maintain our relationships, most of us still prefer face-to-face interactions to <a href="https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4285">bond with our friends</a>. Face-to-face conversations can feel safer for sharing intimate information – like things we’re worried about or proud of – because they can’t be saved and shared with others.</p>
<p>Being physically present also allows for physical contact, like holding someone’s hand when they’re scared or giving them a hug when they’re sad. When someone is focused on their phone, they may miss out on opportunities to give this kind of support. </p>
<p>The best phone etiquette to remember is that phones are meant to <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-mobile-phone-for-christmas-doesnt-mean-less-family-time-for-teenagers-128081">help us connect</a> with our friends and family when they’re far away. When they’re right in front of us, we should take full advantage of the opportunity to connect in real life – and leave our phones alone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Genavee Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Facing up to phone interruptions.Genavee Brown, Lecturer in Psychology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116132019-05-03T04:13:16Z2019-05-03T04:13:16ZCurious Kids: how do babies learn to talk?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263346/original/file-20190312-86710-tlaxjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2500%2C1250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The experience that babies get from eavesdropping on their mother’s conversations in utero helps their brain tune into the language that they will learn to speak once they are born.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emily Nunnell/The Conversation CC-BY-ND</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/kidslisten/imagine-this/">Imagine This</a>, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.</em> </p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>How do babies learn to talk? – Ella, age 9, Melbourne.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>What a great question, Ella! </p>
<p>Babies are born ready to learn and although they don’t “talk” in the first weeks of life, they know how to communicate what they are feeling. They do this by crying. And it is something they do a lot before they produce words.</p>
<p>Babies begin to learn the rules of language as soon as the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1527336908001347">little bones inside their ears</a> and connections to their brain have grown. They can hear the rhythm and melody of their mother’s voice for three months before they are born and this changes the way their brain develops. </p>
<p>The experience that babies get from eavesdropping on their mother’s conversations in utero helps their brain tune into the language that they will learn to speak once they are born. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v-fUZspbvjo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-can-chimpanzees-turn-into-people-91839">Curious Kids: Can chimpanzees turn into people?</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>Infant-directed speech</h2>
<p>Have you ever heard someone talking to a baby with a funny voice that sounds almost like they are singing? People often use a higher pitch, speak slower and repeat what they say when they talk to babies.</p>
<p>Research from <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/babylab/research/research_focus">baby labs</a> all over the world shows that adults help babies work out the sounds of language by using this special style of speech. Researchers call it infant-directed speech. </p>
<p>Scientists have developed different methods to test what babies like to listen to. We know that in the first year of life, babies turn their heads towards a speaker using infant-directed speech. Or they may suck on a dummy that will play recordings of someone who is using <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2245748">infant-directed speech</a> instead of the flatter style of speech adults use to talk to each other. </p>
<p>This shows that babies prefer infant-directed speech to adult-directed speech. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260941/original/file-20190226-150688-1uvw1jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Have you ever heard someone talking to a baby with a funny voice that sounds almost like they are singing? Research suggests babies prefer it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/affectionate-young-man-holds-his-baby-746802370">AJP/shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using a sing song voice helps babies tell the difference between words like “mummy” or “daddy” because: </p>
<p>1) the higher pitch draws the baby’s attention to speech</p>
<p>2) speech sounds like “ma” and “da” are exaggerated, simplified or repeated. That gives babies a better chance at hearing the difference between them.</p>
<p>3) the affectionate tone of voice encourages infants to play with caregivers who draw attention to different words by speaking more loudly or slowing down their speech. </p>
<h2>Learning a language</h2>
<p>When babies listen to lots of speech, the connections in their brains are more sensitive to speech that is spoken in the environment around them. </p>
<p>So a baby who hears lots of Cantonese or Mandarin, for example, will learn that the difference in the tone of the speaker’s voice is important and can change the meaning of a word.</p>
<p>A baby learning English, on the other hand, will learn that the tone of a speaker’s voice does not necessarily have the same effect on meaning.</p>
<h2>Did you know?</h2>
<p>Parents who respond to their baby’s happy babbling sounds by imitating them or talking about the sounds they were making might be onto a good idea. <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140827122632.htm">Researchers</a> found that this was linked to the baby making more complex sounds and developing language skills sooner. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260937/original/file-20190226-150698-cbe4c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Infants can understand many words before they can say them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cheerful-mother-teaching-her-male-toddler-297400199">Olena Yakobchuk/shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Infants can understand many words before they can say them. By nine months of age, babies can usually understand words like “bye-bye” and wave when somebody says it.</p>
<p>As infants get older, they <a href="https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/01/">babble</a> more and their babble begins to sounds more like words than non-speech sounds. </p>
<p>By the time babies reach their first birthday, most infants have started to produce their first words. At one year of age, babies can usually understand as many as 50 words, and can say one or two words like “mama” or “dada”.</p>
<p>The story of how babies learn to talk is a fascinating one, Ella. It is amazing to think that you and I, and even your own parents were once little babies learning how to use language to communicate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260936/original/file-20190226-150702-1itip2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ahhh-boo!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-birds-sing-98381">Curious Kids: Why do birds sing?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au</em></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christa Lam-Cassettari has received funding from the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation in Sweden, ARC Centre of Excellence Dynamics of Language, the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, the South West Sydney Research Grant and the Career Interruption Grant from Western Sydney University.</span></em></p>Using a sing song voice helps babies tell the difference between words like ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’.Christa Lam-Cassettari, Interim Leader MARCS Institute BabyLab, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1132932019-04-03T10:48:07Z2019-04-03T10:48:07ZWant to understand accented speakers better? Practice, practice, practice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267175/original/file-20190402-177199-1ccspqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=232%2C481%2C4392%2C3360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If the goal is to communicate, why should the speaker bear all the burden?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/lp1AKIUV3yo">Mimi Thian/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conversation is at the heart of people’s lives. We use language to communicate our hopes and dreams to our closest friends, to ask for help from colleagues at work and to describe our ailments to medical professionals. Typically this process of communication goes fairly smoothly.</p>
<p>But there are circumstances that can make communication even between two healthy adults more challenging – consider the native language background of the two participants. It’s commonly understood that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/002383099503800305">non-native speech is harder to understand</a> than native speech, and this challenge <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1995.tb00963.x">can result in communication failures</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wi_55KAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">linguist and cognitive scientist</a>, I’m interested in the half of the conversation equation that often gets overlooked: the native listener. Given that, worldwide, there are <a href="https://elt.oup.com/catalogue/items/global/linguistics/oxford_applied_linguistics/9780194421645">more non-native speakers of English</a> than native speakers, this is an especially interesting topic to consider here in the United States.</p>
<h2>What did you say?</h2>
<p>Communicative efficiency, or the time it takes to complete a task through conversation, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830910372495">delayed when speakers do not share</a> a language background.</p>
<p>There are several reasons why non-native speech is more challenging for a native listener to understand than speech from another native speaker. </p>
<p>Researchers know, for example, that listeners are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1994.tb00612.x">better at understanding a familiar talker</a> than an unfamiliar talker, regardless of language background. It makes sense that people get to know the specific properties of those they interact with frequently and over time improve at understanding them.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267188/original/file-20190402-177196-w152hm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A busy restaurant or a noisy cocktail party can make it hard to understand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/VVI4CMdnwl0">diana/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also clear that non-native speech deviates from native speech on a variety of dimensions, ranging from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1159/000487269">how single sounds are produced</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4929622">speaking rate</a>. All of these acoustic qualities can make non-native speech more challenging for native listeners to understand. It’s similar to how other types of listening challenges can affect perception – think about the difficulties of listening to <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/dav/aaua/2000/00000086/00000001/art00016">speech at a noisy cocktail party</a>.</p>
<h2>Conversations have two participants</h2>
<p>Typically, in conversations between native and non-native speakers, the burden of success of the conversation is placed on the non-native speaker. But in conversation it takes two to tango. </p>
<p>Some studies suggest, in fact, that listeners are bringing more to the conversation you might assume. Yes, non-native speech is acoustically different than native speech, but a variety of other social factors can affect how non-native speech is understood.</p>
<p>For instance, expectations influence speech perception. Imagine hearing a word where part of the sound is covered up by some other noise – like “*ate” where the star represents a consonant sound covered up by the sound of a cough. You might have a challenging time figuring out what the word is. Is it gate? Date? Bait? Or something else all together?</p>
<p>But now, imagine you hear the same phrase in the sentence “Please check the latch on the *ate.” As a listener, you’d logically fill that in with a “g” to complete the word “gate.” However, if you hear the same acoustic signal in a sentence like “Please check the time and the *ate,” you’d be more likely to hear that sound as a “d” to fill in the word “date.” </p>
<p>In addition to linguistic expectations, social expectations also affect perception. That is, if you think the speaker is likely to be an accented speaker, your perception of the speech you hear may shift.</p>
<p>Using a technique called “matched-guise,” researchers play the same speech <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00973770">for listeners in two conditions</a> – one in which the speech is paired with a static image of an Asian face and another in which the speech is paired with a white face.</p>
<p>When the speech is paired with a Standard American English-accented voice, individuals perceive the speech to be more accented when paired with the Asian face than the white face, and listeners are less able to accurately transcribe what the speaker says. Interestingly, when the speech is Chinese-accented, listeners show a benefit when the speech is paired with an Asian face – that is, listeners are better at perception <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830914565191">when the accent and the face “match.”</a></p>
<p>Taken together, these results suggest that individuals use their social expectations when listening to non-native speech. Some recent studies have even demonstrated that a good predictor of how well listeners feel they perform on the task of transcribing non-native speech is their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2017.01.006">attitudes toward non-native speakers</a>, rather than their actual transcription accuracy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267208/original/file-20190402-177193-c66m6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">International negotiations or interpersonal communications – both benefit from better comprehension of non-native speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-confident-politicians-taking-part-international-762746494">Pressmaster/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beefing up your listening skills</h2>
<p>Since listeners bring so much of their own experience to the table during communication, I suggest it’s unfair to place the entire burden of communication on the non-native speaker. If that’s the case, what can the native listener do to improve communication outcomes?</p>
<p>The answer is easy: Practice!</p>
<p>Recent research suggests that native listeners <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.04.005">can improve their ability to understand</a> speech with relatively little exposure. In lab-based studies, listeners practice transcribing non-native speech. Individuals who partook in this practice improve their ability to understand a new accented talker as compared to listeners who did not.</p>
<p>This benefit exists <a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4789864">within individual accents and across accents</a>, given sufficient exposure to a variety of talkers. If a native English listener spends some time listening to Mandarin- and French-accented English, not only will she get better at understanding speakers from China, France and Thailand, but the effect seems to extend to those from Guatamala, Korea and Russia. Researchers, including me, are still investigating the exact mechanisms that underlie this adaptation. Psycholinguists are also working on deriving other cognitive science-driven tools to help native and non-native listeners communicate more successfully.</p>
<p>The number of non-native speakers of English is <a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2013/acs/acs-22/acs-22.pdf">growing in the United States</a>; at the same time, their proficiency in English is also growing every year. Rather than placing the burden solely on the individuals who are already working to learn a language, native listeners can share this challenge, and work to improve their own perceptual abilities.</p>
<p>A little practice can go a long way toward making communications smoother and more pleasant for all parties, and improved communicative efficiency can have implications for business and political negotiations in addition to everyday personal interactions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Michaud Baese-Berk receives funding from the National Science Foundation; all views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF. </span></em></p>It can be hard to understand a non-native speaker of your own language. But conversation is a two-way street and linguists are figuring out how native listeners can improve their half of the interaction.Melissa Michaud Baese-Berk, Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1125822019-03-29T11:27:09Z2019-03-29T11:27:09ZThe dying art of conversation – has technology killed our ability to talk face-to-face?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266167/original/file-20190327-139349-13qj93w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What with Facetime, <a href="https://theconversation.com/skype-hospital-appointments-are-coming-but-dont-hold-your-breath-109842">Skype</a>, Whatsapp and Snapchat, for many people, face-to-face conversation is used less and less often. </p>
<p>These apps allow us to converse with each other quickly and easily – overcoming distances, time zones and countries. We can even talk to virtual assistants such as Alexa, Cortana or Siri – commanding them to play our favourite songs, films, or tell us the weather forecast.</p>
<p>Often these ways of communicating reduce the need to speak to another human being. This has led to some of the conversational snippets of our daily lives now taking place mainly via <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-dont-want-ai-that-can-understand-us-wed-only-end-up-arguing-82338">technological devices</a>. So no longer do we need to talk with shop assistants, receptionists, bus drivers or even coworkers, we simply engage with a screen to communicate whatever it is we want to say.</p>
<p>In fact, in these scenarios, we tend to only speak to other people when the digital technology does not operate successfully. For instance, human contact occurs when we call for an assistant to help us when an item is not recognised at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-shoplifters-justify-theft-at-supermarket-self-service-checkouts-97029">self-service checkout</a>.</p>
<p>And when we have the ability to connect so quickly and easily with others using technological devices and software applications it is easy to start to overlook the value of face-to-face conversation. It seems easier to text someone rather than meet with them. </p>
<h2>Bodily cues</h2>
<p>My research into digital technologies indicates that phrases such as “word of mouth” or “keeping in touch” point to the <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html">importance of face-to-face conversation</a>. Indeed, face-to-face conversation can strengthen social ties: with our neighbours, friends, work colleagues and other people we encounter during our day.</p>
<p>It acknowledges their existence, their humanness, in ways that instant messaging and texting do not. Face-to-face conversation is a rich experience that involves drawing on memories, making connections, making mental images, associations and choosing a response. Face-to-face conversation is also multisensory: it’s not just about sending or receiving pre-programmed trinkets such as likes, cartoon love hearts and grinning yellow emojis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266168/original/file-20190327-139374-fmlpic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Quicker and easier, but are we losing the human touch?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When having a conversation using video you mainly see another person’s face only as a flat image on a screen. But when we have a face-to-face conversation in real life, we can look into someone’s eyes, reach out and touch them. We can also observe the other person’s body posture and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37688404_Hand_and_Mind_What_Gestures_Reveal_About_Thought">the gestures they use when speaking</a> – and interpret these accordingly. All these factors, contribute to the sensory intensity and depth of the face-to-face conversations we have in daily life.</p>
<h2>Speaking to machines</h2>
<p><a href="https://sherryturkle.com/">Sherry Turkle</a>, professor of social studies of science and technology, warns that when we first “speak through machines, [we] forget how essential face-to-face conversation is to our relationships, our creativity, and our capacity for empathy”. But then “we take a further step and speak not just through machines but to machines”. </p>
<p>In many ways, our everyday lives now involve a blend of face-to-face and technologically mediated forms of communication. But in my teaching and research I explain how digital forms of communication can supplement, rather than replace face-to-face conversation.</p>
<p>At the same time though, it is also important to acknowledge that some people value online communication because they can express themselves in ways they might find difficult through face-to-face conversation.</p>
<h2>Look up from your phone</h2>
<p><a href="http://garyturk.com/portfolio-item/lookup/">Gary Turk</a>, is a spoken word poet whose poem Look Up illustrates what is at stake by becoming entranced by technological ways of communicating at the expense of connecting with others face-to-face. </p>
<p>Turk’s poem draws attention to the rich, sensory aspects of face-to-face communication, valuing bodily presence in relation to friendship, companionship and intimacy. The central idea running through Turk’s evocative poem is that screen-based devices consume our attention while distancing us from the bodily sense of being with others. </p>
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<p>Ultimately the sound, touch, smell and observation of bodily cues we experience when having a face-to-face conversation cannot be fully replaced by our technological devices. Communicating and connecting with others through face-to-face discussion is valuable because it is not something that can be edited, paused or replayed. </p>
<p>So next time you’re deciding between human or machine at the supermarket checkout or whether to get up from your desk and walk to another office to talk to a colleague – rather than sending them an email – it might be worth following Turk’s advice and engaging with the human rather than the screen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Chan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>No longer do we need to talk with shop assistants, receptionists, bus drivers or even coworkers, we simply engage with a screen to communicate whatever it is we want to say.Melanie Chan, Senior Lecturer, Media, Communication and Culture, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1091902019-01-29T00:52:00Z2019-01-29T00:52:00ZCurious Kids: how did spoken language start?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251855/original/file-20181221-103631-xzfayn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5250%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the ways we work out what proto-language might have been like is by looking at languages which have developed from nothing in recent times. One of the best examples is Nicaraguan Sign Language.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ZLtsJXwQ2Fg">Unsplash/Jo Hilton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/kidslisten/imagine-this/">Imagine This</a>, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.</em> </p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>I want to know how did language in words start? - Finn, age 10, Melbourne.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>This is a great question for a curious kid. But it is such a hard question that in 1866 the Linguistic Society of Paris got sick of people writing about it with nothing more than guesses, and <a href="http://www.slp-paris.com/spip.php?article5">banned articles on the topic</a>.</p>
<p>Fortunately, scientific progress in the past 150 years has changed this situation. We don’t have all the answers, but we can make better guesses than people could in 1866.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-is-water-made-109434">Curious Kids: how is water made?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>In the beginning</h2>
<p>The first thing to think about is that at one time there was no spoken language. </p>
<p>We’re confident language as we know it did not exist around 6 million years ago because our ancestors then were also the ancestors of chimpanzees, who do not have language. </p>
<p>And our best guess (from <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00397/full">this article</a>) is that we had language at least 500,000 years ago, because it seems Neanderthals may have had language like ours, and our last common ancestor with them was half a million years before today.</p>
<p>So what happened between no-language and language? </p>
<p>Because change is generally gradual - an idea that scientists call the “principle of uniformity” - many people who study language origins believe there was an intermediary stage, called “proto-language”. It’s hard to find out what happened in language so long ago, because words don’t have bones, and so don’t leave fossils.</p>
<p>One of the ways we work out what proto-language might have been like is by looking at languages that have developed from nothing in recent times. One of the best examples is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language">Nicaraguan Sign Language</a> (LSN). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255068/original/file-20190123-100285-2dfhxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Through repeated interaction inside our small community groups and between those groups over thousands of years, better ways of communicating with sound arose by either chance or by people being creative.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Daniel Fazio on Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-does-english-have-so-many-different-spelling-rules-98831">Curious Kids: Why does English have so many different spelling rules?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The children who created their own language</h2>
<p>Before 1977, deaf children in Nicaragua lived with their families and were often very isolated, as there were no special schools for them. Generally, they created their own gestures for communicating with their families. But by 1983, more than 400 of them were attending a school in the capital city. The students there really wanted to speak to each other, but did not have a common language. </p>
<p>They started to create one together, transforming their separate home signing systems into the beginnings of a new language. Younger children learned from older children, and changed the hand gestures to make them more fluent.</p>
<p>So before spoken language might have got started, just like before LSN got started, we probably communicated in a proto-language with a small range of sounds and signs local to our own group. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255072/original/file-20190123-100261-1yockfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Language changes constantly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through repeated interaction inside our small community groups and between those groups over thousands of years, better ways of communicating with sound arose, either by chance or by people being creative. </p>
<p>We know from experiments (like <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2014.0488">this one</a>) that people like to adopt new ways of representing things if they seem better, or more efficient.</p>
<p>Over many thousands of years, there would have been lots of opportunities to create new ways of talking, try them out, adapt them, keep the good ones, and steal better ones from your neighbours. </p>
<p>In the space of a few short years, deaf Nicaraguan school children created their own language. Over hundreds of thousands of years, the same process created the thousands of spoken languages that exist in the world today.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-who-made-the-alphabet-song-77297">Curious Kids: Who made the alphabet song?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au</em></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p><em>Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109190/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Ellison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the space of a few short years, deaf Nicaraguan school children created their own language. This example may give us a clue about how spoken language developed over thousands of years.Mark Ellison, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012082018-08-10T10:24:59Z2018-08-10T10:24:59ZWhy apes can’t talk: our study suggests they’ve got the voice but not the brains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231340/original/file-20180809-30473-z1b6ji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>We all know that <a href="https://www.bl.uk/the-language-of-birds/articles/alex-the-african-grey-parrot">parrots can talk</a>. Some people may have even seen <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%252812%252901086-X">elephants</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_(seal)">seals</a>, or <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/285/1871/20172171">whales</a> mimicking speech sounds. So why can’t our closest primate relatives speak like us? Our new research suggests they have the right vocal anatomy but not the brainpower to use it.</p>
<p>Scientists have been interested in understanding this phenomenon for centuries. Some have argued that non-human primates didn’t have the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/509092?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">right-shaped body parts</a> to make the same sounds as we do, and that human speech evolved after our speech organs changed. But comparative studies have shown that the form and function of the larynx and vocal tract is very similar <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661300014947">across most primates species</a>, including humans.</p>
<p>This suggests that the primate vocal tract is “<a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/12/e1600723">speech ready</a>” but that most species don’t have the neural control to make the complex sounds that comprise human speech. When reviewing the evidence in 1871, Charles Darwin <a href="http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=text">wrote</a> “the brain has no doubt been far more important”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Hjfw4A3Azg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The call of the indri lemur.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Along with <a href="https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/anthropology/faculty-and-staff/jbsmaers.php">Jeroen Smaers</a> from Stony Brook University in New York, I have been investigating the relationship between the number of different calls that each primate species can make and the architecture of their brains. For example, Golden pottos have only ever been recorded using two different sounds, while chimpanzees and bonobos <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626386/">use around 40</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00534/abstract">Our new study</a>, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, focused on two particular features of the brain. These were the cortical association areas that govern voluntary control over behaviour, and the brainstem nuclei that are involved in the neural control of muscles responsible for vocal production. <a href="https://nba.uth.tmc.edu/neuroscience/s4/chapter09.html">Cortical association areas</a> are found within the neocortex and are key to the higher order brain functions considered to be the foundation for the complex behaviour of primates.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231342/original/file-20180809-30464-2siad7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Call of the wild.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-langurs-have-fun-javan-langur-151161137?src=umGdCZsRuUdswyVTiTvnGg-1-7">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The results indicate a positive correlation between the relative size of the cortical association areas and the size of the vocal repertoire of primates. In simple terms, primates with bigger cortical association areas tended to make more sounds. But, interestingly, a primate’s vocal repertoire was not linked to the overall size of its brain, just the relative size of these specific areas.</p>
<p>We also found that apes have particularly large cortical association areas, as well as a bigger hypoglossal nucleus than other primates. The hypoglossal nucleus is associated with the cranial nerve that controls the muscles of the tongue. This suggests that our closest primate relatives may have finer and more voluntary control over their tongues than other primate species.</p>
<p>By understanding the nature of the relationship between vocal complexity and brain architecture, we hope to identify some of the key elements that underlie the evolution of complex vocal communication in our ancestors, ultimately leading to speech.</p>
<h2>Evolution of speech</h2>
<p>The origins of speech is a topic that has long been debated. The <a href="http://www.slp-paris.com/">Société de Linguistique de Paris</a> famously banned any further enquiry into the matter in its publication pages <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jole/article/1/1/1/2281881">in 1866</a>, as it was deemed to be far too unscientific. But much progress has been made in the last few decades thanks to a wide range of evidence, such as that from <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661300014947?via%3Dihub">studies of</a> communication in other species, fossils and, more recently, genetics.</p>
<p>Research has shown that some primate species, such as <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=7433999">vervet monkeys</a>, use “words” to label things (what we would call semantics in human language). <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/primate-communication-67560503">Some species</a> even combine calls into simple “sentences” (what we would think of as syntax). This can tell us a lot about the early evolution of language, and the elements of language that might have already been present in our common ancestors with these species some millions of years ago.</p>
<p>The fossil record can also provide insight. Speech itself clearly does not fossilise, so researchers have searched for proxy evidence in the skeletal remains of extinct human relatives. For example, some researchers have argued that the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223793/">position</a> and <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082261">shape</a> of the hyoid bone (the only bone in the vocal tract) can tell us something about the origins of speech.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231341/original/file-20180809-30455-10dh2m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Whose not got the brain power for speech?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/shouting-vervet-monkey-looking-sideways-green-146273519?src=kjVYjZBtI2Np64EJpBnxlw-1-36">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, other have argued that the <a href="https://bit.ly/2vVgRKs">diameter of the thoracic canal</a> (which connects the thorax to the nervous system), or the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC15600/">hypoglossal canal</a> (through which the nerves travel to the tongue), can tell us something about breathing, or speech production. And the size and shape of the tiny bones in the middle ear may be able tell us something <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618212004752">about speech perception</a>. But, in general, the fossil record is simply too limited to draw any strong conclusions. </p>
<p>Finally, comparing genetics of humans and other species has provided insight into the origins of speech. One much-discussed gene, that seems to be relevant for speech, is the FOXP2 gene. If this gene mutates it leads to difficulties with learning and producing complex mouth movements, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg1747">wide-ranging linguistic dificiencies</a>.</p>
<p>It was long thought that the DNA sequence changes in the human FOXP2 gene were a unique trait, related to our unique ability to use speech. But more recent studies have shown that these mutations are also present in some extinct human relatives, and the changes in this gene (and, perhaps language itself) may be much more ancient than <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867418308511?via%3Dihub">previously thought</a>.</p>
<p>Technological developments, such as further ancient DNA sequencing of extinct species, and increased knowledge of the neurobiology of language, are certain to provide further giant leaps. But the future of this contentious and complex field will likely depend on large-scale, multi-disciplinary collaboration. Comparative studies like ours, comparing traits across a range of species, was the primary tool used by Darwin. No doubt such studies will continue to provide important insights into the evolution of this incredible aspect of our behaviour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob C Dunn receives funding from the Royal Society. He is also affiliated with the University of Cambridge. </span></em></p>Our research supports the idea that human speech abilities comes down to our brain power.Jacob Dunn, Senior Lecturer in Zoology, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/974922018-06-28T14:26:56Z2018-06-28T14:26:56ZPeople experiencing suicidal thoughts need the compassionate ear of a caring listener<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225348/original/file-20180628-117436-o1tmn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sad-young-man-silhouette-worried-sunset-659772565?src=yfdSgE9DT1QPzCqcUNB0rw-3-9">Shutterstock/lopolo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The World Health Organisation estimates that <a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/">800,000 people die by suicide each year</a>. That is one person dying by suicide every 40 seconds. The true scale of the frequency of suicide attempts is unknown, as many people who survive a suicide attempt never discuss it with health professionals. Although there are no figures available regarding how frequently those who attempt suicide are discovered by other people, anecdotal reports I have heard over the years suggest that this is far from rare. </p>
<p><a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/50792/1/50792.pdf">Research suggests</a> that up to 75% of people who die by suicide have tried to talk to someone in the months leading up to their death. It is likely that many people who are suicidal display some warning signs about how they are feeling – although not everyone knows what to look out for or what to do if they do spot the signs.</p>
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<p>One course of action if you are concerned about someone, or wondering if they are having suicidal thoughts, is to take the direct approach and just ask them, “Are you having thoughts about suicide?” or “Have you been thinking about taking your own life?” If they say yes, then you can ask them if they have made plans about how they would take their own life. If someone is having suicidal thoughts, then they need medical attention. If they have made specific plans, then this is an emergency situation. </p>
<h2>Call 999 immediately</h2>
<p>It’s obvious but the first thing you should do is to call the emergency services. The police and paramedics are experienced at dealing with situations like this and may be able to save someone’s life.</p>
<p>The next step is to start a polite dialogue. If things have already escalated to the point where they are close to taking their life – if, for example, they are on the edge of a bridge – saying things like “please come down” or “please come away from the edge” is a good way to start. Shouting orders at someone is not useful. It is fine for you to ask the person to move to a place of safety. But ask in a way that conveys care and does not convey annoyance. If they refuse to move to somewhere safe, keep talking and ask them again a little later when they have started to calm down. Of course, someone doesn’t have to be standing on the edge of a bridge to feel suicidal.</p>
<h2>Listen and be patient</h2>
<p>Just being a caring fellow human being can make a huge difference. You don’t have to pretend that you are a counsellor. A genuinely caring response from a person might be sufficient for the person who is having suicidal thoughts to reconsider. </p>
<p>It is OK to ask what has led them to this point. Suicidal feelings arise from prolonged periods of distress. Maybe something in particular happened to them that has left them distraught or overwhelmed. Whatever their answer, don’t judge them. </p>
<p>Simply listening to the person is probably one of the most powerful things you can do. Listening carefully, without interrupting, judging or offering advice and showing care and concern may be all they need to start to feel differently. Even when you are listening carefully and showing your care and concern, it can take a while for someone’s feelings to change and for the intensity of their emotions to subside. Be patient. </p>
<h2>Acknowledge and encourage hope</h2>
<p>You can be sure that the person in front of you is experiencing terrible emotional pain and has temporarily lost all sense of hope. If you have never felt suicidal, it can be hard to understand how that person might feel. Even so, try to acknowledge their pain by saying things like: “Things must have got really hard for you to feel like this is the only way out.” </p>
<p>It is likely that all a suicidal person can see ahead of them is pain and misery. One way to help encourage a little hope is to say: “I know it be hard to believe, but how you are feeling right now will change.” If you have felt suicidal in the past, and feel comfortable in sharing that information, you could say: “I have felt the same way too and I know from experience things can and do get better.” </p>
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<h2>Avoid guilt-tripping</h2>
<p>It is a common misconception that people who take their own lives are selfish. When someone is so distressed that they want to die, they have usually convinced themselves that actually everyone else would be better off if they were dead. Telling a suicidal person that their death will upset their loved ones may well intensify any feelings of guilt and can make the person feel worse. Similarly, telling someone that they “have so much to live for” can leave the person feeling guilty or can set up a situation where you are arguing with them. Telling someone that feeling suicidal is wrong or sinful is also unhelpful.</p>
<h2>Take care of yourself</h2>
<p>It is normal to be very upset by finding someone who is about to take their own life. You are bound to feel shaken up and will probably be preoccupied by thinking about it for several days. It is important that you take good care of yourself and speak to someone you trust and who cares about you and what happened. </p>
<p><em>The Zero Suicide Alliance have produced a short training video on suicide prevention, which can be accessed <a href="https://www.zerosuicidealliance.com/training/">here</a>. The Samaritans can be contacted in the UK on 116 123. Papyrus is contactable on 0800 068 41 41 or by texting 07786 209 697 or emailing pat@papyrus-uk.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found <a href="http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97492/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Widdowson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How to talk to people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts.Mark Widdowson, Senior Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/926622018-03-04T19:23:30Z2018-03-04T19:23:30ZHow landline phones made us happy and connected<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208614/original/file-20180302-65519-1xazpij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Phone calls create an opportunity for genuine exchange that written communication lacks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/glenbledsoe/6245440290/in/photolist-avTvP1-fuLweA-ZXXv8f-fuwdJp-fuwdri-fuLgNQ-anhHjr-FbH6C-fuLoyb-fuwa9n-fuLriL-22cRBvV-fuvZ9z-fuw6PT-fuvY3P-rhQ4VQ-qobMNd-fuw1FP-qnXvif-fuw4s6-fuLtn9-c4c9pj-r51U4n-99h5NH-qZbRzh-qoqfi1-rk3fep-qjKHSW-rg8dCg-4g2xZU-4aTdK8-fuw5iX-qjXfuz-fuwcFB-fuw8Bi-83PeP9-fuwc9M-fuLfB5-qnYYXS-rmPHq2-qYGr62-rohdWt-fuLjNd-re1eCQ-rgBD8E-r1NNzt-qZuy6m-nvpta9-bBUoku-nCqgLt">Flickr/PhotoAtelier</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Smartphones and the internet have revolutionised society, commerce, and politics, reshaping how we work and play, and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain">how our brains are wired</a>. They have even revolutionised <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2010/09/blogs-and-bullets-new-media-contentious-politics">how revolutions are made</a>.</p>
<p>For enthusiasts, these technologies enhance freedom and democratise the flow of information, putting more power in the hands of people to generate political change. In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, high school <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/21/florida-students-have-turned-social-media-into-a-weapon-for-good">students have used social media</a> to provoke a public debate about guns in the United States. However, detractors counter that social media and the internet foster “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/unicef-tells-slacktivists-give-money-not-facebook-likes/275429/">slactivism</a>”: weak, low-effort commitments that do little more than make users feel better. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-distance-technology-is-rewriting-the-rulebook-for-human-interaction-38693">Virtual distance: technology is rewriting the rulebook for human interaction</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s difficult to evaluate today’s communication technologies unless we understand how people communicated in the past. <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/JINH_a_01196">My own research</a> looks back at how political activists used the phone in the years before the mobile phone revolution, using the records of activist groups and interviews to find out how phone talk shaped what they did and how well they did it. </p>
<p>The results higlight how important phone calls were in fostering a sense of community, intimacy and connection. This suggests that we have lost as much as we have gained with our high-tech gizmos.</p>
<h2>The landline’s role in political protest</h2>
<p>Before Facebook, the internet and mobile phones, political movements used traditional technologies to recruit like-minded people, raise money, organise events and advocate for change. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208605/original/file-20180302-65529-1blsbbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Montgomery+Bus+Boycott&title=Special:Search&profile=images&fulltext=1&searchToken=5a5740kx5bbqpzwn7ph5jesta#/media/File:Rosaparks.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>Activist groups called people on the phone, as well as printing, mailing and – by the late 1980s – faxing information. In the second half of the 20th century, the phone was essential to political activism, and it helped to create lasting movements in which people felt emotionally bonded.</p>
<p>The phone was crucial for sharing information quickly. In the US in the 1950s and 1960s, when most Americans had telephones, the civil rights movement relied heavily on the telephone. Thousands of participants in the Montgomery bus boycott of the mid-1950s, for example, found ride shares by using phone trees. </p>
<p>Phone trees, still in use <a href="https://www.aauw.org/resource/how-to-build-a-phone-tree/">today</a>, are based on lists of people who call other people: ten people each call ten people, who then each call ten people. Before email, the phone tree was one of the quickest and most efficient ways to disseminate information. A well-organised tree could quickly trigger thousands of phone calls to elected officials or turn thousands of people out for demonstrations.</p>
<p>In 1961, Wide Area Telephone Service (<a href="http://www.crmvet.org/docs/wats/watshome.htm">WATS</a>) lines were introduced, allowing unlimited long-distance calls for a fixed fee. They saved the lives of some activists by giving grassroots workers who could not afford expensive long-distance calls a way to call headquarters to report dangerous situations. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208618/original/file-20180302-65541-17ccwut.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The San Jose Chicano rights marches in California in the 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjoselibrary/2532526966/in/photostream/">Flickr/San José Public Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>By the 1980s, 1-800 calling cards had become common. Activists could call anyone from any phone while leaving the charges to be paid by headquarters. The number of calls made by activist groups exploded. </p>
<p>As new movements for environmental protection, nuclear disarmament, feminism, Chicano rights, Native American rights, gay rights, and conservative causes such as school prayer gathered steam in the 1970s and 1980s, the landline phone remained central. </p>
<h2>The power of the human voice</h2>
<p>In 1986 Americans placed 1.97 billion calls a day – eight calls for every woman, man and child. They were having about seven times as many telephone conversations as they had had in 1950, and the number was still rising. One human rights staffer told me of his work in the mid-1980s: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All the work was done by phone. If I wasn’t in a meeting, I was on the phone.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those calls were about much more than sharing information. Calling on a landline phone was a labour-intensive form of communication, but it provided immediate personal contact, an opportunity for genuine exchange, and an emotional depth that written communication lacked.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-using-a-period-in-a-text-message-make-you-sound-insincere-or-angry-61792">Why does using a period in a text message make you sound insincere or angry?</a>
</strong>
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<hr>
<p>Calls were able to knit far-flung people into deeply felt communities because the phone transmits the capacities of the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265049164_Emotional_Communication_in_the_Human_Voice">human voice</a>. </p>
<p>The voice is one of our most powerful instruments, designed not only to communicate but also to build intimacy. Our voices convey <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/human-sounds-convey-emotions-better-words-do-257683">emotion</a> so effectively that we can identify emotions in speech even when the words themselves are muffled by walls. The voice indicates whether you are sincere – or whether you are drunk.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208631/original/file-20180302-65516-inqabr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Landline phones went through numerous iterations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/powellburns/12310107205/in/photolist-jKNvZF-SX7nau-5BYs7X-5AByeQ-xoaBx-swVTP-T1JizH-5zhjCN-5z8Fwo-5zd2gK-m34X4V-6bMfye-5zhinw-8WEb8k-eawwV-84Ft3-aPVor2-7kMekb-Mcn2P-97DZmh-5ABxCh-5sjRDy-DvQPtj-5sfurc-YL543f-dn8GVi-5sfuwD-6xe2Xo-5ABxpw-5zhjF7-5ABykW-5zhjHQ-S71KQa-4QWfAg-fW1HB-bVr7VW-5zosYD-8Ps9oY-2U5vm-2F318-7zwucq-9kWKNh-uwDuz-7rBQJd-5zhj2W-5zhjM5-5AxifB-5ABxY9-5zd2W2-5zhj4Y">Flickr/Powell Burns</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The powers of the human voice help to explain why talking on the phone can foster feelings of connection. <a href="https://www.amazon.de/Telefon-Gesellschaft-Beitr%C3%A4ge-Soziologie-Telefonkommunikation/dp/3891660863">Research</a> on the telephone in the 1980s showed that a call made people feel wanted, needed, included, and involved. </p>
<p>This is why a recent Harvard Business Review <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-face-to-face-request-is-34-times-more-successful-than-an-email">study</a> found that face-to-face requests were 34 times more successful than emails.</p>
<h2>Better technology doesn’t equal better communication</h2>
<p>Critics of digital media say that it corrodes human relationships. The generation that has grown up on smart phones, which have become devices for avoiding talk, lack empathy and struggle to form friendships based on trust, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/jonathan-franzen-reviews-sherry-turkle-reclaiming-conversation.html">one study</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/25/reading-the-comments-likes-haters-web-joseph-m-reagle-jr-review">In online communities</a>, people tend toward narcissism and often dramatically fail to care about the feelings of others. Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian whose anonymous Facebook page in 2011 helped topple a dictatorship, <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_let_s_design_social_media_that_drives_real_change">concluded</a> that social media facilitated “the spread of misinformation, rumours, echo chambers, and hate speech. The environment was purely toxic.” Empathy vanished, he says.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-smartphone-affected-an-entire-generation-of-kids-82477">How the smartphone affected an entire generation of kids</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Landline calls helped to instil <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3122271/">positive emotions</a>: feelings of connection, pride, gratitude, a sense of elevation and happiness. </p>
<p>Psychologists tell us that whether we are extroverts or introverts, we need human contact and feel more alive after connecting with other people. Phone calls created those connections. They made people more optimistic and resilient and broadened their mindsets. For activists, talking revealed connections they would otherwise have missed, and deepened their personal commitment to the cause and to one another.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208632/original/file-20180302-65507-10jzni7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Garfield phone was around in the 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/echoesofstars/4224560038/in/photolist-2aUFat-7yBo7a-9fvN8d-qWRzLH-7riYnU-2aUWa4-4rus7m-5mbzoP-T1JiW4-7KR9Li-7rf3Ce-5yvot9-7riYw3-Wz8yVE-6JdJwX-cW5c1-8ZY1cH-XJ974m-RLMGZ2-cn6EXC-fEc7r8-J5AQo-7rf3vz-CCSr5Q-bRs8bH-9UGMq-bpSaQT-6HUXLx-bMVSKF-SX7nsy-6Y6mWe-bAhCdo-4fQwxA-5DqT3y-4QcwER-WuZZVS-eNGjmv-SbpufN-9cTQJh-57DrbJ-Ai2y8a-XW9Qer-P1NZ68-AkEGzM-vcyEEX-acVQFw-6RZ4Z9-59b4iP-4DRMdw-ijdz2">Flickr/echoesofstars</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>The landline phone, of course, was not a flawless medium – static, missed calls, busy signals, dropped connections, prank calls and phone threats guaranteed frustration. You can bond over the phone, but you can also argue. </p>
<p>But the rise of smart phones – which Americans check <a href="http://time.com/4147614/smartphone-usage-us-2015/">8 billion</a> times a day – has not meant that we communicate better. More communication can mean that we hear each other less. Among American millennials, the number of voice calls they make is falling as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/07/generation-mute-phone-call-instant-messaging">texting</a> soars. And that means we may be losing a powerful part of what connects us to each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara Keys receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The internet has revolutionised communication, but voice calls are declining in some demographics. And that means we may be losing out on a powerful part of what connects us to each other.Barbara Keys, Associate Professor of US and International History, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782902017-05-25T09:35:13Z2017-05-25T09:35:13ZHow to talk to children about terrorism<p>Distressing events like the recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester affect us all in different ways. While adults often have enough life experience to be able to take a long-term perspective towards such disasters, children can face different challenges. </p>
<p>When a child has directly experienced extremely distressing events, or witnessed them through the news and social media, it is entirely normal for them to <a href="http://hub.salford.ac.uk/salfordpsych/2015/10/14/brain-behaviour-the-children-of-911/">experience much higher levels of distress than usual</a>. </p>
<p>Depending upon the impact of the trauma, the age of the child, and the supportive relationships they have prior to the traumatic event, their distress may be shown in <a href="http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress-children.aspx">all sorts of ways</a>. This can include aches and pains, sleeplessness, nightmares, bed-wetting, becoming very snappy or withdrawn, or not wanting to be separated from their parent(s). </p>
<p>But there are lots of strategies that can help young people who are struggling after traumatic events. </p>
<h2>Ask questions</h2>
<p>Although the natural response is often to want to protect and shield children from the reality of terrorism, it is not a helpful goal long-term. It is also just about impossible to achieve – young people today are exposed to anxiety provoking information like never before. </p>
<p>So rather than shielding children from inevitable stressors, we need to focus on arming them with balanced information, compassion, hope and the chance to develop their resilience. </p>
<p>Incomplete stories and uncertainties can add to children’s worries, but a common worry for adults is how much to say and what gaps to fill in. In such instances, asking open questions about what a child has heard or understood can be helpful. </p>
<p>“How” and “what” questions, such as “how are you feeling about what you saw or heard?” or “what have your friends said about what happened?” can help in gaining insight into the story that the child is trying to establish and understand. </p>
<h2>Point out the heroes</h2>
<p>Showing children how people are actively trying to help and support people in need is a great way to frame horror with heroes. While older children will be able to process and understand many of the details and implications of tragedy that surround traumatic attacks and events, younger children just don’t have the life experience or developmental mechanisms to process such details. </p>
<p>Remind children that real life heros don’t wear capes. Instead, point out that the heroes in this story are the people in paramedic uniforms or theatre scrubs. They are the passersby, <a href="https://theconversation.com/manchester-arena-attack-amid-the-horror-the-strength-of-an-incredible-city-took-hold-78202">the people who offered help</a>, taxi rides, cups of tea and a bed for the night when people were stranded after the attack.</p>
<p>Not only does this give a new focus to the story but it also highlights familiar cultural narratives – of heros and villains or goodies and baddies – that children can connect with. Such approaches have also been <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article-abstract/38/3/625/2239795/Childhood-idols-shifting-from-superheroes-to?redirectedFrom=fulltext">shown to enhance children’s confidence</a>, sense of bravery, ability to problem solve and develop their moral compass. </p>
<h2>Use drawings to help</h2>
<p>If children are able to name and express what they are feeling, they are more likely to be able to talk about their thoughts and feelings and experience the benefits of connecting emotionally with others. </p>
<p>Don’t assume children know they can share their feelings. Always offer explicit permission for all emotions, especially emotions they may feel concerned about voicing, such as anger and sadness. </p>
<p>One way to do this might be to get out the pens and pencils and physically <a href="https://www.trauma-informedpractice.com/">draw out emotions</a> as characters, or consider how they feel in the body. For instance, “anxious” might feel like a hot head, sweaty hands and fast heart. </p>
<h2>Keep things simple</h2>
<p>Adults tend to use particular words around trauma, such as “awful”, “horrific”, or “terrible”. But these words don’t translate with much meaning for children. </p>
<p>If possible, it is helpful to break these terms down and use language that holds more meaning for children and connect with emotions they may be feeling or noticing in others, such as sad, worrying, frightening, kind or brave. </p>
<p>You can also try to reduce some of the anxious uncertainty by giving those responsible a name and explaining that they are a small group of people who make bad choices. This not only gives the perpetrators an identity for the child – which helps contain the idea of faceless “baddies” – but also helps to disqualify some of the unhelpful stories they may here from others. </p>
<h2>Make time for hugs</h2>
<p>Children only feel as safe as they are led to believe they are by the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02673843.2001.9747890">adults around them</a>. So being able to reassure young people that they are safe, loved and cared for can make all the difference. </p>
<p><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1049731514559422">Research</a> has shown that loving environments at home are hugely protective to the emotional well-being of children. Teenagers in particular benefit enormously if they have <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/124/2/e235.short">positive friendships that support them emotionally</a>. </p>
<p>Relationships actually operate on a physiological level in the body, as well as an emotional one. Cuddles and emotional connection, sooth and calm down a <a href="http://s207773256.websitehome.co.uk/downloads/training_materials/1.%20Workbook_2010.pdf">child’s threat system</a> by releasing feel-good hormones such as oxytocin – also known as the “cuddle” or “love” hormone. </p>
<p><em>You can find more information about how to talk to children after a traumatic event <a href="https://view.publitas.com/the-conversation/talking-with-children-about-traumatic-events-supplementary-file/">here</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Parry works for Manchester Metropolitan University who may wish to share the publication of this article to promote knowledge exchange through their press office, in agreement with The Conversation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jez Oldfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Children’s imaginations around events can be even more frightening than reality.Sarah Parry, Senior Lecturer in Clinical and Counselling Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityJez Oldfield, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.