We document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to

Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2022). The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Jul 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000402

Abstract: People are fundamentally social beings and enjoy connecting with others. Sometimes, people reach out to others—whether simply to check-in on how others are doing with brief messages or to show that they are thinking of others by sending small gifts to them. Yet, despite the importance and enjoyment of social connection, do people accurately understand how much other people value being reached out to by someone in their social circle? Across a series of preregistered experiments, we document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to. We find evidence compatible with an account wherein one reason this underestimation of appreciation occurs is because responders (vs. initiators) are more focused on their feelings of surprise at being reached out to. A focus on feelings of surprise in turn predicts greater appreciation. We further identify process-consistent moderators of the underestimation of reach-out appreciation, finding that it is magnified when the reach-out context is more surprising: when it occurs within a surprising (vs. unsurprising) context for the recipient and when it occurs between more socially distant (vs. socially close) others. Altogether, this research thus identifies when and why we underestimate how much other people appreciate us reaching out to them, implicating a heightened focus on feelings of surprise as one underlying explanation.

Author's perspective

Reach out to those you've lost touch with – they will appreciate it more than you think

What is it about?

We wondered why people lose touch with each other and fail to reconnect by reaching out. We thought that one reason might be that people underestimate how much others appreciate their reach-outs. We conducted a series of experiments testing our prediction that people would underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out to. In some of our experiments, we approached people on college campuses and asked them to write a note to a classmate with whom they hadn't been in contact in awhile. We then asked them how much they thought their classmate would appreciate being reached out to. We then delivered this note to the person they reached out to and asked them how much they appreciated being reached out to. We also conducted similar experiments with non-student samples and with reach-outs consisting of small gifts, instead of just notes. We kept finding that people underestimated how much their reach-outs were appreciated. We also found that one reason this underestimation of appreciation occurs is that people do not think enough about how positively surprised others feel upon being reached out to. The role of surprise is important. We found that the one situation in which people do not underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out is when the reach-out occurs in an unsurprising context. For example, if someone is expecting you to reach-out to them, then you are pretty well calibrated to how much they will actually appreciate you reaching out to them. Thus, it's really these unexpected reach-outs that people appreciate much more than we expect.

Why is it important?

Many people have lost touch with others in their lives, whether it be friends from high school or college or co-workers they used to see at the water cooler before they went remote. Despite wanting to reconnect, many people are hesitant about doing so. This research suggests that their hesitations may be misplaced, as others are likely to appreciate being reached out to more than people think. Given that there is so much research suggesting that maintaining our social connections with others is beneficial for mental and physical health, we hope that that these findings will encourage more people to reach-out to those with whom they have lost touch.