Psychology and Behavior

The Elements of Meaningful Conversation: Fewer Mirror Questions, More Follow-Ups

Conversation can be complex, messy, and difficult, but even small improvements in how we communicate can improve our relationships in work and life, says Alison Wood Brooks in her book, Talk. In this excerpt, Brooks explains how people must move beyond "mirror questions" to have better discussions.

Cover of Alison Wood Brooks' book, Talk.

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.

Since they don’t necessarily reflect authentic curiosity and care, responders shouldn’t linger on their answers.

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.

When you aren’t sure what to say next, mirror questions are low-hanging improvisational fruit.

When you aren’t sure what to say next, mirror questions are low-hanging improvisational fruit. They’re useful in a pinch. They’re also okay when you really want to hear a partner’s response, closer to the top of the topic pyramid (“What about your relationship with your mother?”). But you shouldn’t rely on them too much, or for too long, or without adding some interesting new twist. We have other, better tools in our question-asking arsenal.

Ready for a new topic? Topic-switching questions initiate a noticeably new topic, and in doing so, they end the previous one. In the last chapter, we talked a lot about when and how to switch topics—asking topic-switching questions is the most common way people switch.

Here’s an example from one of my studies. A pair of strangers is getting to know each other. To start, the first speaker asks an introductory question: “How was your day?” To which the partner responds, “Work was a little bit stressful, but otherwise it was good.” It’s a standard setup for a mirror question (“How was your day?”), but instead this speaker jags to a new topic: “Did you see that the new rover landed on Mars today for NASA?” By not taking the bait for a mirror question and instead using a topic-switching question, this speaker climbs the topic pyramid rather than floundering at the base.

Coming up with topic-switching questions is an excellent skill to practice. Once we think of a topic, our brains can get really good at formulating questions to raise it. For example, meatballs: “Do you like meatballs?” “Do you ever cook meatballs?” “Does your family have a good meatball recipe?” “Have you ever tasted meatballs you didn’t like?” “Is it weird that I’ve come up with so many questions about meatballs?”

Whenever you’re brainstorming topics—either before the conversation or in the middle of it—you can lean into questions as an easy way to frame a new topic to reinvigorate the conversation.

While topic-switching questions are our friends, follow-up questions are superheroes.

When my fellow researcher Mike Yeomans and I measured topic-switching questions over time, we found that people asked more toward the beginning of the conversation, then fewer and fewer as they settled into topics that seemed interesting. It makes sense. But it’s also likely a missed opportunity—as we’ve seen, many people could stand to switch topics more frequently. Topic-switching questions are the most reliable way to do so.

While topic-switching questions are our friends, follow-up questions are superheroes. Follow-up questions are the opposite of topic-switching questions: they keep us on the present subject, probing deeper on something a partner has previously said. They help us explore a topic once we’re there together or have been there together in the past. While discussing meatballs, a partner might ask a follow-up question like “Did your grandmother have a lot of special recipes?” “Do you know how to cook all her recipes?” or “What’s your favorite of your nonna’s recipes?”

Follow-ups help us delve deeply into a topic, sometimes quite quickly. In our studies (the ones that showed that more questions led to higher liking), when we prompted people to ask more questions, the extra questions they came up with were mainly follow-up questions. This is key—it meant that the rewards of asking more questions were driven almost entirely by asking more follow-up questions.

These questions offer affirmation: “I heard you say that you like meatballs. Can you tell me more?” They unlock deeper learning: “Why do you love meatballs? Whose do you love most? When was the last time you had really good ones?” They are inherently personal and validating—they make people feel heard because they show that they’ve actually been heard.

Excerpted from Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Alison Wood Brooks. Copyright © 2025 by Alison Wood Brooks. Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Excerpted with permission. All rights reserved.

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