Why do you converse?

[motorollin]

I have become interested in the reasons why people engage in superfluous conversation. I don't mean communicating with others with some intent, such as sharing or requesting information, rather "small-talk". This type of communication is unique to humans, and I'm interested in hearing about the reasons why people do it. I'm not specifically interested in what is actually discussed unless this is pertinent to the reasons for the conversation.

Discuss!

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moto

[motorollin]

I agree, but what purpose does it serve for *you*? Why do you choose to do it rather than doing something else?

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moto

[motorollin]

@bloodline
Sounds like what you're saying is that the act of conversing is intrinsically reinforcing, probably due to layers of social conditioning on top of childhood behaviours. Would that be about right?

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moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
Yes, I would say so. I would say people enjoy most forms of intercourse.

Pffft... sorry... must maintain some semblance if intellectualism...

bloodline wrote:
If you didn't, then you'd probably live in a cave making interesting sculptures with your own faeces.

I agree. I really believe that language is the only thing which separates us from apes. Never mind opposable thumbs. With language, we can work out how to do without them.

bloodline wrote:
I enjoy talking with someone, it helps me feel closer to them... which staves off the intrinsic loneliness of life! It's is quite possible to enjoy someone's company without speaking, but then there are plenty of other interactions that people can do.

So you converse merely for the pleasure of it? What if there were some other behaviour available to you which was more rewarding? Would you do that instead?

bloodline wrote:
I am suggesting that small talk is what big brained apes do... where the smaller brained ones pick fleas off each other. It's just intellectual "social grooming".

Hmm, as a tool to select a suitable mate perhaps?

bloodline wrote:
Hmmm... it's hard to talk about conditioning here... since you would have to examine a child that has never had any human interaction.

Genie.
Would be interesting to see how she reacts to attempts at conversation now (she is still alive AFAIK).

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moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
But it is hard to know if language might be dependent upon the evolution of opposable thumbs, for some reason  :-)

Hmmm true. Thinking about that should keep me occupied for a while!

bloodline wrote:
I can think of many behaviours more rewarding, but none are socially acceptable in many cases.

So we converse at the expense of more pleasurable activities because we are constrained by society to do so...

bloodline wrote:
Maybe that would go some way to explain my single status.

I don't know - you seem quite articulate to me, so either you're an exception to the rule, or your theory doesn't work :-)

bloodline wrote:
I think you may find answers if you wiki "pit of dispair" :-(

I'm utterly speechless after reading that. Harlow should be posthumously discredited. Absolutely disgusting.

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moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
The problem with something as complex as human evolution, it's hard to know the sequence of everything... language doesn't fossilise so well....

Well the creation of cave paintings would require symbolic thought and thus constitutes a form of language, and IIRC the hominids which created them were pre-speech. Grasping some tool to draw on the cave wall would probably require an opposable thumb, so my guess would be that the opposable thumb allowed drawing which cultivated symbolic thought, which then became the predominant form of language. Speech developed subsequently as a more efficient and flexible means of communication.

bloodline wrote:
I sit in a coffee shop and a girl opens a conversation... not really saying much just talking... I think she's rather attractive, and engage her in conversation... in reality I'd rather be pleasuring her in a far more intimate way... We may never get that far, but the small chat we did have would be much more fun than not engaging her at all.

Sounds like you're using language to coerce women in to some kind of seedy rendezvous. Not a bad use of skill of language if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective ;-)

bloodline wrote:
Well, perhaps it only helps to find a mate... I may not be physically attractive, have undesirable personality traits and the timing could be wrong.

Who says?

bloodline wrote:
But without the small talk I might never have got as far as I did :-)

Well I agree it would be pretty unusual to pull without even talking to your intended partner. Not that I have much experience in that area :roll:

bloodline wrote:
Fortunately experiments like that are not allowed any more. All I can hope is that we can learn from the study, so the animals did not suffer in vain...

Yeah, like how to totally screw up monkey :madashell:

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moto

[motorollin]

@Karlos
I think conversation can be quite effective as a form of therapy, though of course it depends who it's with and what you're talking about :-) It's easy to get stuck in a rut of not communicating though. Sometimes I feel really bad it's like my mouth is boarded up, but when I'm forced to communicate I actually start to feel a bit better.

@bloodline
I really wish I understood what you're on about :lol: Can you explain it in layman's terms?

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moto

[motorollin]

Karlos wrote:
Hybrid's remix of "Everything in it's right place"...

*vomits*
Turning that song in to a dance track is a sin. In fact, I don't see why anybody would want to remix it in the first place. It's also a really lazy remix, since he seems to have just layered stuff on top of the original track rather than attempting any kind of rearrangement.

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moto

[motorollin]

HenryCase wrote:
In the interests of balance I thought I would post here. Whilst I agree that conversation can be enjoyable, I find myself unable to fully enjoy it. The small talk side of conversation, whilst it does serve a purpose, can be something people feel trapped by, not confident in expressing anything deeper. This in turn reduces the perceived value of conversation, discouraging people from breaking free of small talk, and meaning important facets of the person you are speaking to become lost.

I may be an isolated case, but I thought my opinions were worth sharing anyway.

I wasn't asking only about "small talk", but also about meaningful conversation. Interesting points though! I agree that "small talk" can be inhibiting, but it can also be a good starting point for conversation until people find something more personal in common about which to talk.

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moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
 :oops: I've just noticed a rather blatant Freudian slip that I made early in my hijacking of this thread :-)

I can't believe I missed it :inquisitive: You going to tell us or make us trawl through you and Karlos rambling on about numbers? :-P

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moto

[motorollin]

Nope, still can't find it :lol: You'll have to quote it since going through those posts word by word is making my eyes go funny.

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moto

[motorollin]

@Karlos
That song has a very special place in my heart. Any remix would be a travesty in my eyes :-)

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moto

[motorollin]

HenryCase wrote:
Perhaps "small talk" needs a clearer definition. Is "small talk" meaningless conversation or all non-practical conversation?

Oops, I appear to have contradicted myself. Ok, I'm going to have to get a bit more technical. Roth & Spekman describe communicative intentions, which can be loosely defined as verbal actions such as requesting, rejecting, drawing attention, answering etc. I'm not really interested in these behaviours since they are usually designed to achieve some specific purpose, like asking "Where's the dog?" or telling someone "Stop that". I'm interested more in the conversation which occurs for no pre-defined purpose other than for the sake of talking. This could be defined as small-talk I suppose.

Hope that clears up my earlier contradiction :-)

HenryCase wrote:
What if that 'find something more personal' point didn't arrive? Would the "small talk" journey still be worthwhile if it didn't have a deeper conversation conclusion?

Well there's obviously no right or wrong answer to that. Personally, if I don't have some goal in mind when speaking to somebody and if I don't find anything to talk to them about other than mundane chit-chat like the weather then I usually attempt to politely end the interaction as rapidly as possible.

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moto

[motorollin]

HenryCase wrote:
So it's not a lack of confidence in small talk, but I find as I can completely rely on idle chit chat to get me through social situations I hardly ever get to discuss matters which mean more to me, and lack confidence in opening up.

Forgive me for being a little presumptuous, but it sounds to me like you may be using small-talk as a defence mechanism. Small-talk is inconsequential so is easy if you practice it enough, but really opening up is much harder if you lack the confidence to do it.

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moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
Never mind... I accidentally corrupted an well known French phrase, while discussing Audio Units... :-)

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Just found it - brilliant! Most Freudian indeed...

bloodline wrote:
Anyway, don't you just hate it when a Band ruins an otherwise good song... it's just a travesty:

Ahh you're alright there - just don't do a bad cover of Everything In Its Right Place ;-)

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moto