【推荐2】For nearly ten years, I have spent my Monday evenings attending rehearsals for my amateur choir (合唱队). By the end of the rehearsal, I usually feel energized. The singing does me good. So do the people.     1     We exchange brief chats, smiles and jokes — but that is enough for me to come away feeling a little better about the world.

There is no choir practice now. I miss it. In lockdown, I do not feel short on emotional support, but I do feel short of friendly faces and casual conversations.     2    

In 1973, Mark Granovetter, a sociology professor at Stanford University, published a paper entitled “The Strength of Weak Ties.” Until then, scholars had assumed that an individual’s well-being depended mainly on the quality of their relationships with their close friends and family. Granovetter showed that quantity mattered, too.     3     His central insight was that weak ties are more important to us than strong ones. As Granovetter pointed out, we depend on acquaintances (相识的人) whom we see infrequently to bring us news of opportunities.

This was the idea behind Jobs’s building. It has a large central hall through which employees from different departments have to pass several times a day. Jobs wanted colleagues to bump into each other and chat. He believed in the power of these seemingly random conversations to fire up creativity.

    4     Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex, investigated the extent to which people get happiness from weak-tie relationships. She found that on days when a person had a greater number of casual interactions with weak ties — say, a neighbor, a member of yoga class — they experienced more happiness and a greater sense of belonging.

For these reasons, we should continue to find ways to cultivate weak-tie relationships, during lockdown and beyond.     5     The goal is to let others know that you are thinking of them without asking for a great deal of time, energy or attention.

【推荐3】We usually interpret someone looking us straight in the eye during an interaction as a sign of trustworthiness.     1    This is at least the case in the Western world.

But research is increasingly challenging this standard view.     2     In a competitive environment where a negotiation is taking place, looking at another person directly in the eye can be a sign of competition and unkindness, rather than kindness.

While folk wisdom tells us eye contact is a sign of honesty and trustworthiness, these findings were not a surprise. Animals have direct eye contact not before engaging in kind behaviors but rather immediately before an attack.     3     We humans seem to be carrying on this tradition by looking our opponent directly in the eye before we "attack".

What does this mean for the work place? In a competitive business environment, when taking part in negotiations or a business deal, for example, be aware that people who look you directly in the eye may not be as friendly as you think.     4     In many Asian cultures, for example, looking a person of higher status in the eye is a sign of disrespect, while looking away signals respect.

    5     And this must be fully understood. This means they most likely don't apply to social environments, such as spending time with friends, family or loved ones. In these cases, direct eye contact, often referred to as a "gaze", can still be a sign of intimacy（亲密）and kindness.