Although people derive substantial benefit from social connection, they often refrain from talking to strangers because they have pessimistic expectations about how such conversations will go (e.g., they believe they will be rejected or not know what to say). Previous research has attempted but failed to get people to realize that their concerns about talking to strangers are overblown. To reduce people's fears, we developed an intervention in which participants played a week-long scavenger hunt game that involved repeatedly finding, approaching, and talking to strangers. Compared to controls, this minimal, easily replicable treatment made people less pessimistic about the possibility of rejection and more optimistic about their conversational ability—and these benefits persisted for at least a week after the study ended. Daily reports revealed that people's expectations grew more positive and accurate by the day, emphasizing the importance of repeated experience in improving people's attitudes towards talking with strangers.

尽管人们从社交联系中获得了实质性的好处，但他们经常避免与陌生人交谈，因为他们对这种对话的结果抱有悲观的期望（例如，他们认为自己会被拒绝或不知道该说什么）。以前的研究曾尝试过但未能让人们意识到他们对与陌生人交谈的担忧被夸大了。为了减少人们的恐惧，我们开发了一种干预措施，参与者在其中进行为期一周的寻宝游戏，其中包括反复寻找、接近和与陌生人交谈。与对照组相比，这种最小的、易于复制的治疗使人们对被拒绝的可能性不那么悲观，对他们的对话能力更加乐观——这些好处在研究结束后至少持续了一周。