Researchers from Simon Fraser University and the University of Sussex have uncovered a surprising trend: people are as hesitant to reach out to old friends as they are to start a conversation with a stranger. Despite the clear benefits of social connections, many individuals refrain from rekindling past relationships, even when they have the desire and means to do so. This study, published in Communications Psychology, sheds light on the psychological barriers preventing people from reconnecting.
Extensive scientific literature has demonstrated that people with robust social networks report higher levels of life satisfaction and overall happiness. Despite this, there is a growing concern that modern life, characterized by its fast pace and digital communication, has led to increased feelings of isolation and a decline in the number of close personal connections. This paradox intrigued researchers, Lara Aknin and Gillian Sandstrom, who sought to delve deeper into the reasons why people hesitate to rekindle old friendships, even when they recognize the value of these relationships.
Both Aknin and Sandstrom had personally experienced the benefits of reconnecting after a period of disconnection. This personal insight provided a compelling impetus to explore whether others faced similar barriers and how these could be overcome. They noted that while it takes significant time and effort to build new friendships, reconnecting with old friends could potentially offer a more efficient pathway to meaningful social connections. Given the widespread availability of communication tools and platforms, the reluctance to reach out to old friends seemed counterintuitive and worthy of investigation.
“We live in a time when people are more and more disconnected, and have fewer close friends than they used to in years past,” explained Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in the psychology of kindness and director of the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness. “And this is despite the multitude of modern-day communication channels available to us. With research finding that it takes more than 200 hours of contact to turn a new acquaintance into a close friend, we wanted to find out if and why people were overlooking another pathway to meaningful connection: reviving pre-existing close friendships.”
The researchers were particularly interested in understanding the psychological barriers that prevent people from taking the seemingly simple step of reconnecting with an old friend. They hypothesized that fears of rejection, awkwardness, and guilt might be significant factors. To investigate this, they conducted seven studies involving nearly 2,500 participants.
Study 1: High Prevalence of Lost Friendships and Reluctance to Reconnect
In the first study, the researchers aimed to gauge how many people had lost touch with a friend they still cared about and their willingness to reconnect. They recruited 441 undergraduate students from a Canadian university who participated in exchange for course credit. Out of these, 401 participants had lost touch with a friend and proceeded with the study. The participants answered an online survey, which included questions about their willingness to reach out to an old friend and the barriers they perceived in doing so.
They were asked to rate their willingness to reach out both in general and “right now,” along with the perceived responses from their old friend if they were to reconnect. Participants also identified various barriers to reaching out and reasons that might compel them to do so. This study revealed that while most people had lost touch with a friend, they were generally neutral or negative about reconnecting, citing barriers such as fear of rejection and awkwardness.
The researchers found a high prevalence of lost friendships among the participants. A significant majority (90%) reported having lost touch with a friend they still cared about. Despite this, their willingness to reconnect was surprisingly low. Participants rated their willingness to reach out both in the future and immediately, with many expressing neutral or negative feelings towards the idea.
This reluctance was rooted in various psychological barriers, including fears of rejection and awkwardness, and feelings of guilt for not staying in touch. Participants believed that their friends would respond positively if contacted, yet these barriers significantly hampered their willingness to take action.
Study 2: Willingness to Reconnect versus Initiating Contact
Building on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 explored whether people were more willing to reconnect if the old friend initiated the contact. The researchers recruited 266 young adults from the United Kingdom and the United States through Prolific, an online research platform. After screening out those who had never lost touch with a friend, 199 participants remained. These participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: thinking about reaching out to an old friend or thinking about hearing from an old friend. They rated their willingness to engage in both scenarios, both in the future and immediately.
The results showed that participants were significantly more willing to hear from an old friend than to reach out themselves. This indicates that while the desire to reconnect exists, the act of initiating contact is a substantial hurdle.
Study 3: Testing Actual Behavior and Interventions
To examine actual behavior, the researchers conducted Study 3 with 495 participants from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, recruited via Prolific. Participants were asked to think of an old friend they wanted to reconnect with, had contact information for, and thought would appreciate hearing from them. They were given two minutes to draft a “hello” message and were then randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a control group, a reflective prompt group, and an impulsive prompt group.
The control group was simply encouraged to send their message, the reflective group was prompted to think about how much they would appreciate receiving such a message, and the impulsive group was advised not to overthink and just send the message. Despite these interventions, only about one-third of participants sent the message, indicating that neither reflective nor impulsive prompts significantly increased the likelihood of reaching out.
Study 4: Addressing Barriers with Limited Success
Study 4 aimed to refine the interventions by addressing specific barriers identified in earlier studies. The researchers recruited 732 participants from the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada through Prolific. After filtering out ineligible participants, 604 completed the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a message condition where they drafted a note to their old friend, a message plus encouragement condition that included additional encouragement about the benefits of reaching out, and a control condition where they wrote about a typical day before being encouraged to reach out.
Despite these targeted efforts, the rate of reaching out remained similar to previous studies, with just over one third (37%) of participants sending their messages. This consistency across different conditions indicates that the reluctance to reconnect is deeply ingrained and not easily mitigated by direct interventions.
Study 5: Benchmarking Against Other Activities
In Study 5, the researchers compared participants’ willingness to reach out to an old friend against other everyday activities to understand the relative reluctance. They recruited 303 participants from a university campus in Canada, who participated in exchange for candy. Participants rated their willingness to engage in eight activities, including reaching out to an old friend, talking to a stranger, and picking up litter.
The researchers found that participants were no more willing to reach out to an old friend than to perform these other tasks, including talking to a stranger. This comparison highlights the significant psychological weight of reconnecting with old friends, aligning it with activities often perceived as unpleasant or anxiety-inducing.
Study 6: Familiarity Predicts Willingness to Reconnect
Study 6 examined whether the degree of familiarity with an old friend influenced the willingness to reach out. The researchers recruited 505 participants from the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada via Prolific, eventually narrowing the sample to 319 participants who met the criteria. Participants named three to five people they had not been in touch with for a while and rated their familiarity with and willingness to reach out to each person.
The results showed a clear correlation: participants were more willing to reach out to friends who felt more familiar and less like strangers. This finding supports the hypothesis that one major barrier to reconnecting is the perception that the old friend has become a stranger, which dampens the willingness to reestablish contact.
Study 7: Practicing Social Connection Reduces Reluctance
The final study tested an intervention inspired by strategies to reduce anxiety about talking to strangers. The researchers recruited 348 participants from a university campus in the United Kingdom. After excluding ineligible participants, 194 remained. Participants were randomly assigned to either a practice condition, where they sent messages to current friends to warm up, or a control condition, where they browsed social media. Following this activity, all participants were encouraged to send a message to an old friend.
This warm-up activity significantly increased the likelihood of participants reaching out to an old friend, with 53% of participants in the practice condition sending a message compared to 31% in the control condition. This suggests that easing into the behavior by practicing in a less intimidating context can effectively reduce the psychological barriers to reconnecting with old friends.
“Given that participants were as hesitant to reach out to a stranger as someone they had previously been close with, we drew inspiration from previous research I had conducted on talking to strangers, which found that practice made progress,” Sandstrom explained. “When people were given time to practice in a situation that felt more comfortable, namely by sending messages to current friends, they were much more likely to make the leap to messaging someone they had lost touch with.”
The findings highlight the need for innovative strategies to help individuals overcome their hesitation and tap into the well-being benefits of rekindling old friendships. But the study, like all research, has limitations.
The Western-centric sample may limit the generalizability of the findings to other cultural contexts where social norms and values about friendship and reconnection might differ. Additionally, the study predominantly considered friendships that faded naturally, without exploring the complexities of relationships that ended on negative terms.
Future research could explore more nuanced and targeted interventions to encourage reconnecting with old friends. While the practice-based approach showed promise, there remains a need for deeper understanding of how to effectively overcome the specific psychological barriers identified, such as fear of rejection and feelings of guilt.
“Relationships can fade for a variety of reasons,” the researchers concluded. “The present work demonstrates that the majority of people are reluctant to reach out to old friends, even when they are personally interested in doing so, believe their friend wants to hear from them, and are provided with time to draft and send a hello message. Moreover, this reluctance may be stubborn and difficult to change.”
“One reason for this reluctance may be that old friends feel like strangers. Supporting this possibility, we find that people are no more willing to reach out to an old friend than they are to talk to a stranger, and that people are less willing to reach out to old friends who feel less familiar — more like strangers.”
“Fortunately, one study reveals that people are more willing to reach out to an old friend after they practice the behaviour. More research is needed to understand how best to encourage people to reach out, so that they can experience the health and happiness benefits that come with increased social connection.”
The study, “People are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends,” was published April 23, 2024.
