Something so trivial as small talk can play a determinant role in initial conversations with strangers.
Small talk can shape how one’s relationships with people evolve, but opinions on the importance of it vary, especially among different cultures.
“You don’t just know someone deeply,” sophomore Pamela Martinez said. “Relationships are a process and small talk is the first step.”
Regardless of culture, humans thrive on personal relationships and social exchanges. At the root of these are conversations. All conversations, in their simplest form, begin with an exchange, whether it be about weekend plans, about how cute an outfit is or how someone’s day is going. This phenomenon is known as small talk.
The Importance of Small Talk
People engage in small talk all the time. Whether it be with a server at a restaurant, one’s hairdresser or ride-sharing service driver, small talk is a fact of life.
However, not all cultures practice small talk.
People from North and Latin America tend to consider small talk a beneficial exchange, whereas parts of Europe and Asia consider it a disadvantage, often valuing depth over casual pleasantries. In some cultures, personal relationships take longer to develop and small talk can be perceived as forced or inappropriate, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Wangari Njathi, professor of Integrated Marketing Communication, is originally from Nairobi, Kenya.
She said she advocates for small talk. As long as there is mutual respect, small talk can create harmony, resulting in different kinds of humans from different places in the world being able to live together. This makes people feel more comfortable in unfamiliar settings.
“It helps us live together harmoniously because imagine being in a very strange and unfamiliar setting and you don’t know how to strike a conversation,” Njathi said.
All cultures have a different way of approaching small talk, and therefore its importance also varies.
“Because I come from a collectivist culture, small talk could be anything,” Njathi said. “People tend to be more personal back in Africa.”
Students Explore Cultural Approaches to Small Talk
Students described Pepperdine’s culture of small talk as “pleasant,” “warm” and “friendly.”
But the community is composed of more than 80 nationalities, all with different traditions and a different outlook on small talk. It is not surprising that words like “unnecessary” and “superficial” also came up.
Mexicans lie at one extreme of the spectrum, Martinez said. Among Mexicans there is no room for cold formalities because everyone is an amigo, a nickname commonly used to refer to strangers, which means “friend” in Spanish.
“Small talk is the most basic form of communication back home,” Martinez said. “It’s our way of making a friendly effort to be inviting and welcoming to all.”
Similarly, sophomore Bella Montgomery, who grew up in Newport Beach, said she related to the important role that small talk has played in her life thanks to the small community in her neighborhood.
“We are a small community where everyone knows each other and small talk is common practice,” Montgomery said. “I like to think of it like a quick catch up.”
However, Aanyia Ahuja, a sophomore from Singapore, said people in her home country tend to be more reserved toward strangers, and stray away from engaging in small talk.
“Singaporeans are less keen on talking to strangers when they are out in public,” Ahuja said. “They like to keep to themselves.”
Very differently from all the other cultures mentioned, Northern Europeans have an extremely reserved approach to small talk.
Emi Schirrmeister, a junior international student from Germany, said she experienced culture shock when she first started living in the United States to attend her boarding school in Santa Barbara, California. She has noticed that when she goes to a restaurant in the U.S., it is a very different experience in comparison to Germany.
U.S. waiters introduce themselves politely and try to make conversation. In Germany, it is a very different experience — the waiter comes in, sometimes without greeting the customer, and asks what they can get for them, without a positive tone, Schirrmeister said.
Aksel Berg, a sophomore from Denmark, said people in his home country place “honesty over everything else.” Their aversion to small talk is rooted in their transparent nature, and reluctance to engage in what they believe to be insincere and superficial exchanges.
“We’re almost too transparent,” Berg said. “Mainly to our close friends.”
The made up phrase “Hi. How are you?,” which is usually followed by the pre-set response “Good and you?,” is a good way to explain the disadvantages of small talk, Berg said. What if someone was having a bad day, and said so? Then what would one do and how would one help? Berg explained that many Danish people believe small talk to be insincere, as it would be hard to fully engage with a stranger’s problems.
Students Debate the Value of Small Talk
Njathi and students said they stressed the value of small talk. Students agreed that small talk fosters social connectedness. Simple exchanges help break the ice and allow people to lower their walls and make way for deeper, more meaningful conversations.
Montgomery said she learned this when she went through the sorority recruitment process at Pepperdine.
“When I rushed, small talk was a big part of the process,” Montgomery said. “I got the chance to meet so many new girls, and reach out to the ones I connected with the most.”
Montgomery is now a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and said she found some of her best friends thanks to the bonds that she first made with the girls during recruitment.
Small talk also serves as a tool for networking, whether in a professional or academic setting, Montgomery said. A nice greeting or a quick exchange can create quick links to people, open doors to new opportunities and build rapport.
“During the summer, I got an internship at Gloss Moderne, a vegan cosmetics brand with headquarters in Newport,” Montgomery said. “The office is in the same building my dad works at, and I met the owner one day.”
For months, she would run into the owner and engage in small talk, Montgomery said. When she officially introduced herself and showed interest for the brand, she was able to get a summer internship that eventually turned into a stable position in the company.
During her first semester at Pepperdine, senior Charisma Greenfield came to class three minutes early and engaged in small talk with her professor, Réka Anna Lassu, professor of Organizational Behavior. By the end of the semester, Lassu offered her an internship as a management research assistant in the Pepperdine Business Division. In this position, she is also the marketer for the Western Academy of Management and publishes for McGraw Hill. She still works for the company now.
“I feel like in certain contexts, it can be a waste of time,” Greenfield said. “But I think that it opens up a lot of opportunities for you. Because a lot of times, you might not even realize it, but small talking can be networking.”
Small talk also supports community building. Casual exchanges help establish familiarity among communities, making interactions feel more personal whether it be in classrooms or dorms, Ahuja said.
“I used to play on the Singaporean national soccer team,” Ahuja said. “Yet when I was with locals, I felt no sense of community at all.”
She said this posed certain challenges for her as a team member, given that she had attended an American school all her life, where she was exposed to a culture that highly values small talk.
“My relationships with my school friends were always so much stronger,” Ahuja said.
Both Berg and Schirrmeister said they had a harder time adjusting to the openness of people in Malibu. But they have also engaged in small talk more, and Berg said it has made it “easier to meet new people.”
Students also said small talk has limitations, as it can feel shallow or inauthentic at times, especially if one prefers or is used to meaningful conversations, Berg said.
Small talk can also lead to cultural misunderstandings, especially in multicultural settings like college, where everyone is used to different social norms.
Schirrmeister said she struggled with the American tendency to hand out compliments.
“I remember my first week, I was really upset about how I thought everything was so superficial,” Schirrmeister said. “Because random people I’ve never talked to before all of a sudden started complimenting me.”
For cultures that highly value personal space and privacy, much like the Germans and Danish, small talk exchanges may seem intrusive.
Schirrmeister lost her best friend in March, and she has noticed that when people quickly ask her how she is doing, she still replies with good.
This is something she has struggled to come to terms with in regard to small talk, even though over the past few years, she has started to enjoy it once in a while.
“Do I just talk about my deepest feelings [to] this person that I don’t know that well?” Schirrmeister said. “I feel like this whole small talk thing is surrounded a lot around the politeness and the gesture of it, but I don’t think that everyone’s truly honest.”
Anežka Lišková contributed to this story.
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Contact: Karla Suzuki via @karsuzuki or karla.suzuki@pepperdine.edu
