Why people actually like you more than you think

You say "you too" when someone wishes you good luck—and then replay it in the shower at 2 AM, convinced you made it weird. Here is what psychologists found is actually happening inside the other person's head. Every morning, the same man sits across from you on the train, stuck on a crossword clue. You know the answer. You want to say it. You never do. Why does talking to strangers feel so dangerous—and why are we almost always wrong about how much people like us? 🔔 Subscribe to The Mind in Ink for weekly deep dives into why your brain does what it does:    / @themindinink   --------------------------------------------------- ⏳ CHAPTERS --------------------------------------------------- 0:00 The 8-Letter Clue You Never Say 0:32 The Chicago Train Experiment 1:54 What Everyone Around You Is Secretly Thinking 3:06 Why Small Talk Feels Riskier Than It Is 4:23 The "You Too" Mistake (And Why Goodbye Is So Hard) 5:24 The 2 AM Replay vs. The Liking Gap 6:53 What Happens the Next Morning --------------------------------------------------- 📚 RESEARCH & STUDIES CITED --------------------------------------------------- Epley, N., & Schroeder, J. (2014). Mistakenly seeking solitude. JEP: General, 143(5), 1980–1999. Schroeder, J., Lyons, D., & Epley, N. (2022). Hello, stranger? JEP: General, 151(5), 1141–1153. Kardas, M., Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2022). Overly shallow? Miscalibrated expectations create a barrier to deeper conversation. JPSP, 122(3), 367–398. Atir, S., Wald, K. A., & Epley, N. (2022). Talking with strangers is surprisingly informative. PNAS, 119(34). Mastroianni, A. M., et al. (2021). Do conversations end when people want them to? PNAS, 118(10). Savitsky, K., Epley, N., & Gilovich, T. (2001). Do others judge us as harshly as we think? JPSP, 81(1), 44–56. Boothby, E. J., et al. (2018). The liking gap in conversations. Psychological Science, 29(11), 1742–1756. Note: Numbers shown on screen are the papers' own figures. Studies represent averages, mostly conducted across US/UK samples. --------------------------------------------------- 🎨 CREDITS --------------------------------------------------- Voice: Orpheus TTS (built with Llama) Piano: Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC-BY 3.0) Instruments: GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins Animation: Drawn in code / chalk style by The Mind in Ink #Overthinking #SocialAnxiety #Psychology