In August 2000, global superstar Madonna released the single “Music” from her soon to be hit album. Other than the brilliant lyrics “Do you like to Boogie woogie”, you might remember that one of the lines in the chorus was “Music makes the people come together.” In this post, I will discuss the social psychological research, which suggests that she was more right then even she must have thought.
We all know the awkward feeling when a conversation is suddenly disrupted by a brief silence. These moments can be pretty unsettling. Because people are generally so well-trained in having smooth conversations, any disruption of this flow indicates that something is wrong, either on an interpersonal level or on the level of consensus in a group. The question we aim to answer in this paper is: Why do we feel comfortable in conversations that have flow, and why do we get nervous and distressed when a conversation is interrupted by unexpected silences?
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