STREET DOGS

From Kate Murphy in The New York Times:

You’re not listening! Let me finish! That’s not what I said!

These are among the most common refrains in close relationships. Here’s something ironic about interpersonal communication: the closer we feel toward someone, the less likely we are to listen carefully to them. It’s called the closeness-communication bias and, over time, it can strain, and even end, relationships.

Once you know people well enough to feel close, there’s an unconscious tendency to tune them out because you think you know what they are going to say. It’s kind of like when you’ve travelled a route several times and no longer notice the scenery.

The closeness-communication bias is at work when romantic partners feel they don’t know each other anymore. It can occur even when two people spend all their time together and have many of the same experiences.

Social science researchers have demonstrated the closenesscommunications bias in experimental setups where they paired subjects first with friends or spouses and then with strangers. In each scenario, the researchers asked subjects to interpret what their partners were saying. While the subjects predicted they would understand, and be understood by, those with whom they had close relationships, they often understood them no better than strangers, and often worse.

“Accurately understanding another person often requires a second thought, to think, ‘wait a minute, is this really what this person meant?’ and to check it,” says Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “We just don’t do that as much with those we are close to because we assume we know what they are saying and that they know what we are saying.”