https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210930101411.htm

"Connecting with others in meaningful ways tends to make people happier, and yet people also seem reluctant to engage in deeper and more meaningful conversation," said Nicholas Epley, PhD, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is a co-author of the study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "This struck us as an interesting social paradox: If connecting with others in deep and meaningful ways increases well-being, then why aren't people doing it more often in daily life?"

To answer that question, Epley and his colleagues designed a series of twelve experiments with more than 1,800 total participants. The researchers asked pairs of people -- mainly strangers -- to discuss either relatively deep or shallow topics. In some experiments, people received shallow or deep questions to discuss. Shallow questions included typical small-talk topics, such as, "What is the best TV show you've seen in the last month? Tell your partner about it" or "What do you think about the weather today?" while deep questions elicited more personal and intimate information, such as, "Can you describe a time you cried in front of another person?" or "If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, your future, or anything else, what would you want to know?" In other experiments, people generated their own deep and shallow conversation topics.