@philosophyminis: Quite a lot has been said about the importance of relationships, of friendships, and of family. And yet not much has been said about the importance of strangers to our well-being. A successful stranger interaction can have a profound effect on our day-to-day happiness. This is something that Ben Raine taught me in this week’s Mini Philosophy interview, where we talked about the neuroscience of connection. Friends and family are no doubt important, but both involve a complicated network of unspoken rules. How we talk, behave, and meet our close connections is governed by a set of mutual expectations. Strangers don’t have to be kind. They don’t know who we are, and they don’t have to accept us. And so, when they talk to us and smile at us, or even help us, it can feel special. In some ways, it can feel more special than those who we are bound to in relationships. This is what Raine had to say about it: ‘There’s a bunch of psychological research where they have people interact with strangers, you know, on a train, in a waiting room, in a taxi. And people feel much better after interacting. But they also tend to underestimate, like the value of these interactions. They think they’re not going to be worth anything or make them feel any better. And they also overestimate how likely they are to be rejected. They think everyone’s going to reject their conversation advances. And in these studies, nobody ever got rejected. 0%.’ We all fear rejection, and we all fear being denied. We want to be seen, even if it’s for a second and by a stranger. But in the kind and generous eyes of a stranger, we can see the kind and generous nature of all human beings.

Jonny Thomson

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Thursday 02 October 2025 14:15:00 GMT