The Elements of Meaningful Conversation: Fewer Mirror Questions, More Follow-Ups
By Alison Wood Brooks for HBD Working Knowledge
The following is an excerpt from Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, written by Alison Wood Brooks and published on Jan. 21, 2025.
When my fellow researchers and I analyzed 15-minute get-to-know-you conversations among 398 strangers, we found that four dominant question types emerged: introductory, mirror, topic-switching, and follow-up.
So how do we distinguish these question types? Introductory questions are what they sound like—“What’s your name?” “How are you?” or “What’s new?” They come near the beginning of our conversations and are the entry points to small talk. They help the speakers orient themselves to each other and the current moment. They’re at the base of the topic pyramid. These common, habitual questions can be useful, but the goal, as with small talk, is to move past them quickly. As I’m about to.
Mirror questions reciprocate a question that’s just been asked, as in “I’m good. How are you?” They’re not always insincere, but they’re often used more out of politeness norms than out of sincere curiosity—and it’s hard to tell the difference when you’re on the receiving end.
Like introductory questions, they tend to be dictated by the norms of conversation. You asked me something, so I feel like I should ask it in return. Since they don’t necessarily reflect authentic curiosity and care, responders shouldn’t linger on their answers—and askers may want to figure out a better way of reciprocating, rather than just repeating, verbatim, a question someone has already asked.
Research provides us with concrete reasons to move on quickly from introductory and mirror questions. Remember the finding that asking more questions increases likability? Before you ask rapid-fire introductory or mirror questions to boost your conversational “likes,” hold on a second: it turns out this doesn’t apply to all questions.
The boost in likability isn’t triggered by mirror questions or introductory questions. That might not mean much when it comes to introductory questions, which are necessary and important (just like small talk). But asking more mirror questions doesn’t increase likability, either. All the more reason, then, to ask them rarely, in those moments when we truly want to hear the answers, not just out of politeness or convenience.
And yet mirror questions persist deeper into a conversation than we might expect. In our study tracking question types over time, we found that while introductory questions tapered off quickly, mirror questions, despite their limited benefits, decayed more slowly and continued to be asked at a moderate rate throughout the conversation. That’s because mirror questions are easy. They keep the conversation flowing with little effort or creativity.
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