Minimal social interactions and life satisfaction: the role of greeting, thanking, and conversing

Warning The system is temporarily closed to updates for reporting purpose.

Aşçıgil, Esra and Günaydın, Gül and Selçuk, Emre and Sandstrom, Gillian M. and Aydın, Erdal (2023) Minimal social interactions and life satisfaction: the role of greeting, thanking, and conversing. Social Psychological and Personality Science . ISSN 1948-5506 (Print) 1948-5514 (Online) Published Online First https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/19485506231209793

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the subjective well-being benefits of minimal social interactions (i.e., interactions with weak ties and strangers). However, the empirical work to date has primarily focused on minimal social interactions that involve conversations and relied on Western samples. In this research, we examined not only conversations but also momentary interactions (i.e., greeting and thanking) in a large, nationally representative, non-WEIRD sample from Turkey (N = 3,266). We used an instrumental variable approach to provide evidence for the direction of the association between minimal social interactions and life satisfaction. We also investigated the robustness of this approach by replicating one of our key findings in a very large, English-speaking, convenience sample (N = 60,141). Across the two samples, we found that having conversations with strangers and weak ties, as well as simply greeting and thanking weak ties, predicted greater life satisfaction.
Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: instrumental variable regression; life satisfaction; minimal social interactions; subjective well-being
Divisions: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences > Academic programs > Economics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences > Academic programs > Psychology
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Depositing User: Gül Günaydın
Date Deposited: 06 Feb 2024 15:51
Last Modified: 06 Feb 2024 15:51
URI: https://research.sabanciuniv.edu/id/eprint/48715

Actions (login required)

View Item
View Item