WASHINGTON — Many people aim for life moments they can describe as “epic,” but new research shows sharing extraordinary experiences can come at a social cost.
“Having epic experiences can make it hard to relate to other people,” says psychological scientist Gus Cooney, of Harvard University.
Cooney’s co-authored research, “The Unforeseen Costs of Extraordinary Experience”, is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
“When we think about extraordinary experiences we mostly think about how enjoyable they are in the moment, but extraordinary experiences also make us different — they make us stand out, sometimes in a bad way,” says Cooney.
Cooney says many of the participants in the study thought that having an extraordinary experience would make them the star of their conversations. But they were wrong.
“Good conversations are all about finding common grounds,” says Cooney.
“When social interactions go well, it’s usually because of our similarities, not our differences.”
Cooney says epic topics don’t generally make for engagement, because only the person speaking or typing has a frame of reference.
“Often a great social exchange starts with a simple, ordinary experience that everybody can relate to,” says Cooney.
Cooney and co-authors Daniel Gilbert of Harvard and Timothy Wilson of University of Virginia had 68 participants come to the lab in groups of four.
In each group, on participant watched a highly-rated “4-star” video of a street magician performing for a crowd, while the other three participants watched a “2-star” animated video.
All the participants were aware of each other’s video assignments. After watching, they sat around a table and had a 5-minute unstructured conversation.
The participants who watched the “4-star” videos reported feeling worse after the group discussion, because they felt more excluded.
Does this mean you shouldn’t aim for ‘epic’?
Cooney says most people don’t anticipate the social costs of having an experience that separates them from the group.
“All experiences must come to an end, and we bring them back to life by telling other people about them,” says Cooney.
Even though participants thoroughly enjoyed doing things that were superior to their peers, making the epic experiences relatable was difficult.
“We find it easy to talk about ordinary experiences that we all share, but it’s much more difficult to talk about our extraordinary experiences that other people can’t relate to,” says Cooney.
“The extraordinary can leave us feeling very alone.”
Despite the findings that social engagement may not live up to expectations, Cooney disputes that suggestion that people avoid striving for “epic” moments.
“We don’t want the takeaway to be that extraordinary experiences like going to the moon or meeting the president aren’t worth having,” says Cooney.
“Don’t shy away from unique and awesome experiences, but look before you leap,” says Cooney. “Consider the social costs before you take the plunge.”
