{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "id": "micro-conversation-belonging-affect-boundary-2014",
  "canonical_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/evidence/micro-conversation-belonging-affect-boundary-2014/",
  "json_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/evidence/micro-conversation-belonging-affect-boundary-2014/index.json",
  "decision": "propose-protocol",
  "decision_label": "Protocol candidate",
  "reviewed_at": "2026-09-11",
  "reviewed_by": "Brali Evidence Reviewer",
  "source": {
    "title": "Is Efficiency Overrated?: Minimal Social Interactions Lead to Belonging and Positive Affect",
    "url": "https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613502990",
    "type": "primary-study",
    "doi": "10.1177/1948550613502990",
    "citation_text": "Sandstrom GM, Dunn EW. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2014;5(4):437-442.",
    "study_design": "Randomized real-world field experiment at a busy urban coffee shop. Participants were assigned to make an already-required cashier interaction either social or maximally efficient; a research assistant blind to condition collected immediate outcomes after the purchase.",
    "population": "60 adult coffee-shop customers recruited in person from a busy urban shopping district, spanning multiple adult age groups.",
    "intervention_or_exposure": "A brief social service interaction involving smiling, eye contact and conversation versus an efficient transaction with unnecessary conversation avoided.",
    "outcomes": [
      "Immediate positive affect",
      "Immediate negative affect",
      "Satisfaction with the service experience",
      "Sense of belonging"
    ]
  },
  "supported_claim": "In a low-pressure context where interaction is already occurring and the other person is able to engage, adding a brief genuine social exchange can improve immediate affect, satisfaction and belonging relative to treating the exchange as purely efficient. Brali can offer this as a context-sensitive social micro-practice, not a loneliness or mental-health intervention.",
  "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [
    "Brief stranger conversations treat loneliness or social anxiety.",
    "Everyone benefits from talking to strangers.",
    "Service workers should be expected to provide conversation.",
    "The effect generalizes to rushed, unsafe, high-pressure, culturally inappropriate or unwanted interactions.",
    "One brief interaction produces durable relationship or wellbeing changes."
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Small single-site sample of 60 participants.",
    "Immediate self-reported outcomes rather than long-term behavior or wellbeing.",
    "The context was a coffee shop where friendly customer interaction was normal.",
    "Participants could infer the social purpose of the manipulation, creating possible demand characteristics.",
    "The authors explicitly warn that other service contexts may not support the same kind of interaction."
  ],
  "target_hack_ids": [
    "genuine-micro-conversation"
  ],
  "target_protocol_ids": [
    "brali:genuine-micro-conversation"
  ],
  "risk_flags": [],
  "notes": "Publish with an explicit willingness/context gate. The action is an optional extension of an existing exchange, not a quota of strangers or a treatment claim."
}