Most people dodge conversations with strangers and feel worse for it. Psychologist Gillian Sandstrom built a five-letter cue, QUICK, that makes starting one easier even for the shy.
On a Toronto subway, Gillian Sandstrom spotted a woman holding a cupcake and, for the first time in her life, started a conversation with a stranger purely for fun. The chat wandered until she learned that people can ride ostriches. She was hooked. That one exchange pushed a shy, tongue-tied kid toward a career studying what happens when we talk to people we don’t know, and toward a five-letter cue she now teaches anyone who freezes at the thought.
Don’t walk the other way
When behavioural scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked Chicago commuters to strike up a conversation on the morning train, most expected the ride to get worse for it, yet the people told to talk reported a happier commute than those who kept to themselves or rode as usual.
After a first conversation, people tend to underestimate how much the other person enjoyed it. Researchers documented this in a 2018 paper in Psychological Science and named it the liking gap. They traced it partly to how harshly we grade our own performance: your inner critic replays the one clumsy line while the person across from you remembers the whole exchange and rates it warmly. They watched the gap hold as strangers got acquainted in a lab, as first-year students sized up new dorm mates, and as members of the public got to know each other over a personal-development workshop.
They later pooled 7 studies covering 2,304 people in a mini meta-analysis. The verdict was that the worries that hold us back are overblown, and people who try are almost never rebuffed. Dig into what people dread and two fears surface:
The second fear shrank the more often someone had talked to strangers in the past, which hints that the cure is reps rather than a personality change. The same paper found something useful for the nervous, that handing people a few conversation tips made them expect a warmer chat. Which is where QUICK earns its place.
What does QUICK stand for?
Sandstrom built the cue by combing through hundreds of her own conversations with strangers and sorting them into 3 openings. She had been logging those exchanges and posting them online under the tag #Talking2Strangers, partly to show herself, and anyone watching, how many openings an ordinary day hands you. Spelled out in a 2026 interview with UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, the letters break down like this.
QU is for questions
Her go-to opener is two words long: “Whatcha doing?” She has asked it of a man photographing a fence and a cluster of people huddled over a piece of equipment in a park. The question signals curiosity and skips the weather-and-weekend small talk most of us dread. If you want a few more in your pocket, ask someone with binoculars what they are hoping to spot, or whether there is a story behind a tattoo.
IC is for in common
You always share something with a stranger, if only because you are standing in the same place at the same moment. The weather is the obvious one. So is the queue you are both stuck in. At a theatre, ask the person beside you why they wanted to see the show. At a park, nod at the dog in the knitted sweater. The shared moment does the work of an introduction.
K is for kindness
A compliment lands well. So does pointing a lost tourist in the right direction or giving up your seat. Kindness asks nothing of the other person and rarely backfires, which makes it the safest of the three doors when you can’t summon a question or spot a common thread.
Why five letters beat a clever script
The strength of QUICK is what it leaves out. There is no opening line to memorise, no script to fumble. When your mind goes blank in the checkout queue, five letters are easier to hold onto than a paragraph of advice. Each one points at the situation in front of you rather than at some witty line you were supposed to prepare. Sandstrom’s own examples come from walks and train platforms, not green rooms, because the cue is built for the moment you find yourself standing in.
It also lowers the stakes. A question can be answered in a word. A comment about the rain commits you to nothing. If the other person isn’t in the mood, the exchange ends in seconds and no harm is done. The format gives the shy a way in without demanding they become someone else.
The chat helps them as much as you
Talking to a stranger does the other person a favour, not only you. The mini meta-analysis points out that a conversation hands your partner the same mood lift and sense of connection you get, which makes a few friendly words a small act of kindness aimed outward.
Sandstrom showed this years earlier with a coffee cup. In a study she ran with Elizabeth Dunn, customers told to smile, make eye contact, and chat with their barista left in a better mood and feeling more like they belonged than those told to keep the transaction efficient. The lift traced back to that sense of belonging. The barista you treat like a person, the neighbour you greet by name, these loose connections that researchers call weak ties feed our wellbeing more than their slightness suggests. Aim a conversation at someone who looks like they could use one, a person sitting alone or hovering at the edge of a group, and the kindness counts double.
How to try it this week
Pick somewhere low-stakes, a coffee queue or a dog park. Set yourself a small target, one conversation, maybe two, and let QUICK carry you in. Lead with a question about what someone is doing, point to a moment you both share, or offer a word of kindness. Reach for whichever letter the moment hands you, a question when curiosity strikes, a shared gripe about the wait when you are both stuck, a compliment when nothing else comes.
The exit worries people as much as the opening. Most chats with strangers end on their own when one of you reaches the front of the line or the dog trots off. You rarely need an exit line. Treat each attempt as a trial run rather than a test, and keep a loose count of how often the conversation went better than you braced for. After a week the tally tends to make the case on its own.
The bottom line
The research points one way: we are wired to brace for a rejection that almost never comes, and to undervalue chats that reliably lift our mood and someone else’s. QUICK won’t turn you into an extrovert, and it isn’t built to. It hands you a cue small enough to recall when your nerve fails, so the next time you catch yourself ready to walk the other way, you have somewhere else to aim your attention. Test it on one stranger this week and watch which prediction comes true.
Frequently asked questions
QUICK is a cue for starting conversations with strangers, created by psychologist Gillian Sandstrom. The letters stand for QUestions, In Common, and Kindness. You open with a question, point to something you both share, or offer a kind word or gesture.
Yes, and by more than most people predict. In studies of Chicago and London commuters by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, people told to talk to a stranger reported a happier trip than those who sat in silence, the opposite of what they expected beforehand.
Ask what they are doing, in a curious tone. Sandstrom’s most-used opener is simply “Whatcha doing?” It works because it skips small talk and invites a real answer. If a question feels like too much, comment on something you both share, like the weather or a long line.
Rarely. Research on the liking gap by Erica Boothby and colleagues found people leave conversations underestimating how much the other person enjoyed them. A separate coffee-shop study found strangers on the receiving end of a friendly chat felt happier and more connected, so a short exchange tends to help them too.
Yes. Sandstrom describes herself as a shy kid who found talking to strangers nerve-wracking. The point of QUICK is that it asks nothing flashy of you. A one-word question or a passing comment keeps the stakes low, and the conversation can end in seconds if either of you would rather move on.
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