You know where your colleague went on vacation and what your neighbor’s dog is called. You couldn’t say what either of them worries about, or what they were like at 15. When they talk, you nod, and the next question doesn’t come. Curiosity about people can feel like something you had as a child and lost along the way.
This guide is for getting it back in ordinary conversations. It covers why curiosity fades, what one study found about how much we learn from others, five habits to practice, and ten questions to start with. You can use the Thesis deck, the free online table, or one word written on a napkin.
The short answer
Curiosity about people grows when you expect to learn something. In one set of experiments, that expectation ran low. The habits below work on two things: what you expect from a conversation, and where the first question comes from. The answer to the second is one detail the other person said a moment ago.
Why curiosity about people fades
The first reason is a wrong forecast. Before a conversation, it’s hard to guess what you’ll get out of it. The topic is unknown, the person is unknown, and the outcome looks small. So the effort of asking seems larger than the reward.
Research by Shira Atir, Kristina Wald and Nicholas Epley tested that forecast in seven experiments. In the first, 206 visitors to a conservatory in Chicago talked for about ten minutes with someone they didn’t know. Before the talk, they predicted how much they’d learn. Afterward, they rated how much they did learn. They learned more than they expected, and it didn’t matter whether their prompts were interesting or mundane. In a second experiment, people predicted learning at 4.66 on a 1–9 scale and reported 6.12 afterward. Telling them to try to learn made no difference (Atir et al. 2022).
The authors trace the gap to uncertainty. In one experiment, people talked with a friend, spouse or relative and also with a stranger. They didn’t significantly underestimate what they’d learn from the person they knew. With strangers, they did. In another, the gap was larger when the topic was open than when it was set in advance. People also underestimated how much they’d enjoy the talk, and in pretests, people who expected to learn more said they were more likely to start a conversation (Atir et al. 2022).
The second reason is habit. Conversations with people we see often can settle into the same few topics: work, plans, the weather, the news. The talk is pleasant and nothing in it asks for a question. Curiosity needs a small opening, and routine talk can close those openings before anyone notices.
Five habits that bring curiosity back
These habits work in any order. Pick one for a week before adding the next.
Expect to learn one thing. Before a conversation, decide that you’ll leave with one fact you didn’t know about the other person. A small fact is enough: a town, a first job, a food they hated as a child. In the study above, the forecast ran low, so a small target is a way to test it.
Pick up one detail. Listen for a word in their last sentence that has a story behind it: a name, a place, a year, a “used to”. Ask about that word. “You said you used to cook. What did you cook?” A question built from their own words can be easier to answer than a question from a list.
Ask a follow-up before you add your own story. When someone finishes a story, the urge is to answer with a similar one. Hold yours for one question. Karen Huang and colleagues found that people who asked more questions, especially follow-up questions, were better liked by their partners. People in the studies didn’t expect asking questions to increase liking (Huang et al. 2017). More on this in follow-up questions.
Wait after the answer. A pause of a few seconds after someone answers leaves room for the second half of the answer. Sometimes people add the part they almost didn’t say. If you fill the pause, that part has no room.
Ask how it happened. “What do you do?” gets a job title. “How did you end up doing that?” gets a story with turns in it. Stories carry the details that make the next question easy.
Ten questions to practice with
These questions are open, and each one asks for a story. Use one at a time, then follow the answer instead of moving to the next question.
- What did you want to be when you were ten?
- What’s something you know a lot about that rarely comes up?
- Who taught you the most without meaning to?
- What’s a place you’ve lived that still feels like yours?
- What did your family argue about at dinner?
- What’s a skill you picked up and then dropped?
- What were you curious about as a teenager?
- What changed your mind about something in the last few years?
- What’s a small thing that makes a day good for you?
- What question do you wish people asked you more often?
The last question is useful on its own. The answer tells you where the other person wants the conversation to go.
Practice with one word
A single word gives curiosity a starting point when no topic comes to mind. The Thesis rules build this in. Step five reads: “The others ask what they’re curious about, gently, without judging.” The asking is part of the turn, so nobody has to invent a reason to ask.
Curiosity has a Sewing machine on its other side. Choose the idea when you want to talk about what pulls people in: a hobby, a subject, a question they couldn’t let go of. Choose the Sewing machine when a story is easier. Someone remembers a grandmother’s machine, a school project, a costume made the night before a party. The thing side brings out details, and details are what the next question needs.
The die adds a second angle. Its six faces are MEMORIES · BODY · PEOPLE · VALUES · CHILDHOOD · FUTURE, and the only instruction is “Look at the word from that side.” The same word can give a different answer each time the die is rolled, so the listener has something new to ask about.
When the answer ends, the rule card offers three short questions that fit any word: What did that feel like? Who else was there? Has it always meant that to you? Use one of them before adding your own story. “A short answer is a full answer. You can always ask for more.” The second sentence is the one curiosity lives in.
Two words that open people up
Two other cards in the deck lead toward the parts of a person that routine talk skips.
Friendship has a Ball on its other side. Asking about someone’s friendships is a way to learn who they are with other people: who they called first, who they lost touch with, who they played with on a street as children. The Ball side can bring up a childhood game and the friend who was in it.
Kindness has a Book on its other side. Kindness stories can be about someone else: a teacher, a stranger, a neighbor. That makes the word easy to answer and easy to follow up. The Book side can lead to the book someone gave them, read to them, or never returned.
What to do this week
Pick one person you see often and know little about. In your next conversation, ask one question from the list above and one follow-up from the rule card. Before you add your own story, wait a few seconds. Afterward, write down one thing you learned. A week of that is a week of evidence that people have more to tell than the forecast said.
If you play, end the way every game of Thesis ends: each player names one thing they discovered about someone at the table today.
See the rules and the box, or open the free online table. The cards above have their own pages: Curiosity, Friendship and Kindness. For playing with a few close people, see Thesis for friends. For more on the studies behind the deck, see the research. For why the first minutes of a deeper talk feel strange, see why deep conversations feel awkward.