Vanessa Van EdwardsScience of People, Science Of People · Behavioral Researcher, Founder, Author, Harvard Instructor

The Science of People An Experiment in Great Conversations

7 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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Vanessa Van Edwards of Science of People describes an experiment conducted across three events with 500 speed-networking participants to test how different conversation-starting questions affect the quality of interactions. Participants were given six starter questions: three basic "level‑1" questions (e.g., "How are you?" and "What do you do?") and three hypothesized deeper "level‑2/3" questions (e.g., "What was the highlight of your day?", "What personal passion project are you working on?", "Do you have anything exciting coming up?"). The study measured conversational engagement using observable behavioral cues (gesture, volume, leaning, eyebrow raises, smiling) and a 1‑to‑5 rating scale (1 = horrible, 5 = best conversation of the month). Results showed the level‑1 questions received the lowest ratings and produced muted, disengaged behavior, while the bridge questions elicited higher ratings, increased animation, and discussion of values and motivations. The question "What's your story?" produced mixed outcomes, acting as a bridge from level‑2 to level‑3 but polarizing participants. The video concludes that asking questions that prompt people to share positive experiences or personal projects creates more engaging, memorable conversations.

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At Science of People, we did a little experiment. We wanted to know if the right questions could create great conversations. Here's what we did. Across 3 different events, we gathered 500 speed networkers to test out these conversation starters. 3 of these questions were sort of basic level 1 questions, and 3 of these questions we had a guess could be level 2 or even level 3 questions. We wanted to look for excitement patterns. So when people are having really good conversation, they're animated, they're using gestures we talked about, they're leaning in, they're using eyebrow raises, they're smiling. When people are in good conversation, their volume goes up. In bad conversation, it's very muted. People kind of talk like this, a little bit lower. There's a lot of sighing and kind of looking down, not a lot of animation. But most importantly, we also tracked ratings, 1 being that was horrible, I never want to have that conversation again, to 5 being that was the best conversation I've had all month, I think I've met my new best friend. These were the questions that got the lowest ratings, the worst connections: how are you and what do you do, awkward silences and running out of things to say. The very first question is what was the highlight of your day, what personal passion project are you working on, have anything exciting coming up in your life. They are asking the brain for something good. They begin to talk about their values, their motivations, their projects. So these are what I call bridge questions. There was a question that kept ruining our data. Some people loved the question and some people hated this question. What's your story? This is an interesting question because it's a bridge question from level 2 to level 3.