Gillian Sandstrom, Associate Professor in the Psychology of Kindness at the University of Sussex, has some evidence-based tips.
09 April 2026
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Almost 30 years ago now, Martin Seligman argued that psychology had become too heavily focused on understanding mental illness. His provocation contributed to the emergence of positive psychology, which focuses instead on mental health, understanding the factors that help people live happy, meaningful lives. A similar rebalancing is starting to emerge for social health.
Report after report reveals just how common and widespread loneliness is. Research on loneliness has proliferated, and rightly so: rigorous meta-analyses find evidence of its negative consequences for emotional, psychological, and even physical health (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2023). But research is also revealing the factors that help people feel connected, providing a buffer against loneliness.
This work is gaining momentum. A recent theory paper argued for a broader conceptualisation of what it means to belong, outlining multiple paths to belonging (Hirsch & Clark, 2019). Public conversation is following suit, with the emergence of books like Kasley Killam's The Art and Science of Connection,
David Robson's
The Laws of Connection and Andy Merolla and Jeffrey Hall's The Social Biome.
In the spirit of this work, I propose ten small ways to tend to your social health. I'm an introvert, so these are introvert-friendly ideas that work for extraverts too. They're small because change is hard, and because my research finds value in small actions: the minimal social interactions we have with strangers and acquaintances, and the everyday acts of kindness that we do for each other.
Shift how you think about your social lifeGive yourself a bit more credit
Although we tend to think we're above average in most ways (e.g., better drivers, more honest), this isn't true for our social skills. Researchers asked people to rate how good they are at almost 50 activities. Besides playing a new sport, the only activity on which people thought they were worse than average was having a casual conversation at a social event (Welker et al., 2023).
Research on the '
liking gap' provides another example of how we discredit our abilities. After two people meet for the first time, each person tends to think that they liked their conversation partner more than their partner liked them (Boothby et al., 2018). The negative voice in our heads contributes to this illusion. The more we think our conversation partner noticed the less-than-perfect parts of our chat, the more we underestimate how much they liked us.
I've named the negative voice in my head. I call him Sid, because of his insidious whispers. Maybe one day I'll silence Sid altogether, but for now I try to ignore him and take small steps (e.g., start a conversation, send a message) even when I feel a bit anxious.Notice and manage your social comparisons
One common way that we evaluate our own abilities – social and otherwise – is by comparing ourselves to others. Most of us think that we spend more time alone than the average person does, have far fewer friends and acquaintances, have a much narrower social network, and belong to many fewer social circles (Deri et al., 2017; Whillans et al, 2017). Although this is true for a small number of us, most of us fall near the average (that's the definition of the average, after all).
Next time you find yourself coming up short compared to others, try asking yourself:Who are you comparing yourself to? We tend to compare ourselves to people who have especially rich social lives. That's about as sensible as feeling bad about your tennis game because you can't play as well as Carlos Alcaraz.
Does your perception match reality? People often talk (and post on social media) about their fun, social activities, but rarely about the mundane, solitary ones. (I did, however, post once on social media about how pleased I was to be sitting on my couch with a cup of tea, a book, and a cat, recovering from a social event earlier in the day.)
Take into account your personal preferences for sociality
Loneliness results from a discrepancy between the level of social connection we want and the level we have. Introverts prefer fewer (and different kinds of) interactions than extraverts (Zelenski et al., 2013), so it doesn't make sense for us introverts to compare our social lives to those of our extraverted friends – we don't want their busy social lives and there's nothing wrong with that. There's no need to feel 'less than', because introverts measure up to extraverts in important ways: We enjoy social interactions just as much and are just as socially skilled (Lieberman & Rosenthal, 2001).
Engage in minimal social interactionsStay in touch
When life gets busy, it's easy to lose touch with people who are important to us. I'm sure I'm not alone in having been happy to receive a message from a friend but then not responding, because I felt like I didn't have enough time to craft a thoughtful response. Time flies, and then I worry that I've waited too long. In research that I've done with Lara Aknin, we find that
people we've lost touch with start to feel more like strangers, and the more they feel like strangers, the less willing we are to reach out to them (Aknin & Sandstrom, 2024).
It's helpful to know that we underestimate how much people appreciate it when we reach out to them (Liu et al., 2023). Now, when someone comes to mind and I wonder how they're doing, I'll just write a sentence or two and send off a message right away. Regardless of whether I hear back (which I often do), it makes me feel good. (I still have unanswered messages in my inbox waiting for more time to reply to, but at least there's some progress.)Nurture a weak tie
Close relationships play a central role in our feelings of connection, but there is also value in other types of relationships. In fact, recent research finds that people who are more satisfied with their lives tend to interact with a wider diversity of conversation partners: close friends and family, but also neighbours and colleagues and even strangers (Collins et al., 2022).
A lady who worked at a hot dog stand opened my eyes to the importance of minimal social interactions. We never spoke (and I never bought a hot dog), but she smiled and waved whenever I passed. Her acknowledgement put a bounce in my step and helped me feel a sense of belonging at a challenging time of my life. And I realised I had other minimal relationships that felt meaningful… with Barry at the pet store (who remembered my cat's name), the friendly receptionist at the gym, and even my globe-trotting dentist.
I wanted to know whether others benefitted in the same way, so I ran a study that asked people to use a pair of mechanical tally counters to count every social interaction that they had with strong ties (i.e., close others) and weak ties (i.e., acquaintances). I found that people who have more daily interactions with weak ties tend to be happier and feel more connected than people who have fewer. Also, on days when people have more interactions with weak ties than they usually do, they tend to be happier and feel more connected.Talk to a stranger
Like my dad before me, I have become an
irrepressible stranger-talker. Most afternoons, I put my laptop to sleep, get up from my desk, and go for a walk in my local green space. I do it for my physical health (because humans weren't designed to sit at a desk all day), but also for my mental and social health. I carry dog treats in my pocket so that I can make furry friends and so that I can start conversations with strangers (dogs are an easy conversation starter).
We tend to feel more connected after talking to a stranger – whether we are the one who starts the conversation or the one responding to a stranger's overture (Sandstrom & Dunn, 2014). This is true even if you're an introvert like me. Many of us are bit nervous about talking to people we don't know, or don't know well (see #1), but we worry more than we need to (Sandstrom & Boothby, 2014) and it gets easier with practice (Sandstrom et al., 2022).
Tweak how you show up during your social interactionsOpen up a bit more
We build and strengthen social relationships by not only spending time with people, but spending time with them in conversations that make both of us feel understood, validated, and cared for (Hall, 2019). This responsiveness often emerges when we share our thoughts and feelings with someone, and they respond by really listening to us.
We often worry about opening up to others, even people we're close to. We think that our
vulnerability will make us seem weak (Bruk et al., 2018). Turn the tables, though, and the story is different: When we imagine someone else being vulnerable, we see it as admirable and courageous.
We don't have to share our deepest, darkest secrets (though, when we do
share secrets, people are more considerate and less disapproving than we expect: Kardas et al., 2024). When I talk to one friend on a weekly basis, I predictably start with 'How are you?' She always pauses, reflects on her feelings, and answers with specifics – something that makes me feel a lot closer than if she simply said 'Fine. How are you?'Listen a bit more
Relationships are built on conversations, and conversations are a balance of talking and listening. We show that we are listening through nonverbal behaviours (e.g. maintaining eye contact, nodding in agreement or encouragement) and verbal behaviours (e.g. asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, making callbacks to what was said earlier).
It comes as no surprise that feeling like we're being listened to helps us feel more connected to the listener. More surprisingly, research finds that when we engage in deeper listening, we feel more connected to the person doing the talking. In a recent study, when people engaged in small talk or deep talk with a stranger, the more they asked follow-up questions, the more connected both conversation partners felt (West et al., 2025).Do something kind
People who took part in
The Kindness Test – the largest-ever public science project on kindness – reported the most recent time they had done something kind for another person. When we asked how they had felt after carrying out the act, people said they had felt happy and proud, but most of all they had felt connected.
In an experimental test of this, researchers asked a group of people to carry out acts of kindness every day for two weeks. Over the course of the study, people who had carried out acts of kindness ended up having more social interactions (vs. a control group), and the people who were lonelier at the start of the study had become less lonely by the end (Archer Lee et al., 2024).Look for kindness in others
In the Kindness Test, we found that people who carry out more acts of kindness report being less lonely, but so do people who simply notice others carrying out more acts of kindness.
People are kinder than we think. In one research study, people underestimated how willing others were to do them a favour (take a photo of them) (Zhao & Epley, 2022). This was true when they asked a stranger to take the photo, but also when they asked a friend!
In a recent study, students demonstrated an 'empathy gap': they underestimated how kind their fellow students were (Pei et al., 2025). And the gap was larger for students who were lonelier, suggesting that when we're feeling lonely, we might fail to notice the kindness that is all around us.
Small tweaks add up
Many of us spend time thinking about how to optimise our physical health: diet, sleep, exercise. We could stand to put a bit more thought into how to optimise our social health. Making small changes to the way we think about our social lives, engaging in more minimal social interactions, and making small tweaks to the way we interact with others can add up to help us feel more connected.
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For tips on what to do if you feel lonely, please see
these resources from the Campaign to End Loneliness.
Gillian Sandstrom (
@drgilliansandstrom) is an associate professor in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex, and author of
Once Upon a Stranger: The Science of How "Small" Talk Can Add Up To a Big Life (Yellow Kite: Hardback, ebook & Audio).
References
Aknin, L. B. & Sandstrom, G. M. (2024). People are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends. Communications Psychology, 2(1), 34.
Archer Lee, Y., Guo, Y., Li, G., & Chen, F. S. (2024). Prosocial behavior as an antidote to social disconnection: The effects of an acts of kindness intervention on daily social contact and loneliness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 25(4), 39.
Boothby, E. J., Cooney, G., Sandstrom, G. M., & Clark, M. S. (2018). The liking gap in conversations: Do people like us more than we think? Psychological Science, 29(11), 1742-1756.
Bruk, A., Scholl, S. G., & Bless, H. (2018). Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(2), 192.
Collins, H. K., Hagerty, S. F., Quoidbach, J., Norton, M. I., & Brooks, A. W. (2022). Relational diversity in social portfolios predicts well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(43), e2120668119.
Deri, S., Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2017). Home alone: Why people believe others' social lives are richer than their own. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(6), 858-877.
Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(4), 1278-1296.
Hirsch, J. L., & Clark, M. S. (2019). Multiple paths to belonging that we should study together. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(2), 238-255.
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227-237.
Kardas, M., Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2024). Let it go: How exaggerating the reputational costs of revealing negative information encourages secrecy in relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 126(6), 1052.
Lieberman, M. D., & Rosenthal, R. (2001). Why introverts can't always tell who likes them: multitasking and nonverbal decoding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(2), 294-310.
Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2023). The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(4), 754.
Pei, Rui, Samantha J. Grayson, Ruth E. Appel, Serena Soh, Sydney B. Garcia, Annabel Bouwer, Emily Huang, Matthew O. Jackson, Gabriella M. Harari, and Jamil Zaki (2025). Bridging the empathy perception gap fosters social connection. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-14.
Sandstrom, G. M., & Boothby, E. J. (2021). Why do people avoid talking to strangers? A mini meta-analysis of predicted fears and actual experiences talking to a stranger. Self and Identity, 20(1), 47-71.
Sandstrom, G. M., Boothby, E. J., & Cooney, G. (2022). Talking to strangers: A week-long intervention reduces psychological barriers to social connection. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102, 104356.
Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Is efficiency overrated? Minimal social interactions lead to belonging and positive affect. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(4), 437-442.
Wang, F., Gao, Y., Han, Z., Yu, Y., Long, Z., Jiang, X., ... & Zhao, Y. (2023). A systematic review and meta-analysis of 90 cohort studies of social isolation, loneliness and mortality. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(8), 1307-1319.
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West, T. N., Huston, S., Chandler, K. R., Zhou, J., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2025). High-quality listening behaviors linked to social connection between strangers. Communications Psychology, 3(1), 165.
Whillans, A. V., Christie, C. D., Cheung, S., Jordan, A. H., & Chen, F. S. (2017). From misperception to social connection: Correlates and consequences of overestimating others' social connectedness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(12), 1696-1711.
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Zhao, X., & Epley, N. (2022). Surprisingly happy to have helped: Underestimating prosociality creates a misplaced barrier to asking for help. Psychological Science, 33(10), 1708-1731.
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