The Psychology Behind Why We Discuss the Weather as Small Talk

You might be waiting for a bus or waiting for a coffee. Maybe you’ve just bumped into a neighbor, or an old colleague you’re struggling to find conversational common ground with. But no matter wherever or whenever you might need small talk, chances are one of the very first things (if not the only thing) that you end up talking about is the weather. 

In fact, while a staggering 98% of us apparently admit to engaging in small talk at least once a week, almost two-thirds of us claim that the weather is our go-to conversation starter. But why do we like to talk about it so much? Well, to get to the bottom of that, we first need to get to the bottom of why we use small talk at all. 

The Science of Small Talk

From a psychological perspective, many researchers’ opinions of small talk have shifted in recent years. 

A handful of studies in the early 2000s appeared controversially to show that small talk actually has a net negative impact on our mood and social lives, and we tend to respond far better to, and feel more fulfilled by, more meaningful conversations than trite discussions of bland and fairly throwaway topics like the weather.

More recently, though, research has suggested that comparing casual small talk to meaningful conversation like this was a misguided approach, as airing and discussing deep and important issues is not small talk’s social purpose. 

Instead, small talk essentially only works as a kind of social and conversational lubricant, simply oiling the gears of our friendly interactions with the people around us, and laying the groundwork for more involved conversations (should we have the time or the inclination to have one).

Viewing small talk not as an alternative to meaningful conversation, but rather as an alternative to having no conversation at all, therefore proves how useful, how necessary, and how welcome it can be in establishing friendly relationships and collegiality, eradicating awkward silences, and breaking down social barriers to quickly turn uneasy strangers into casual acquaintances. 

Outside of the words we’re actually saying, too, small talk also acts as a means of sharing all of the other minor social cues—like facial expressions and tone of voice—that allow us to subconsciously communicate to the people around us how we wish to be received and perceived by them. On a purely human level, too, we’re all of us subconsciously looking for approval and acceptance, and to forge bonds with other members of our group. A simple, friendly conversation can work to do precisely that. 

All told, then, small talk is a remarkably useful communicative tool. But why does it so frequently deviate to the weather?

Weather or Not

With the purpose of small talk not being deep conversation, but rather just a means of conveying social cues, we ultimately don’t want to start talking in small-talk situations about anything too complex, too personal, or meaningful. The weather fits this conversational gap perfectly, for a handful of different reasons. 

On the one hand, the weather is a shared universal experience; understandably, the person you’re talking to in person is going to be experiencing exactly the same weather conditions as you. As a result, it’s a subject over which you can bond right away and begin to make the kind of immediate connection that small talk relies on. 

The weather is conversationally neutral, too. It isn’t personal or prying, and unlike more controversial or variable topics that people tend to have different tastes and differences of opinion over—politics, music, sport, and the like—it is unlikely to lead to any clashing disagreements.

In other words, a nice sunny day is a universally nice sunny day, and conversely, a gray, rainy, and windy day is few people’s idea of a pleasant experience. We know that, naturally, and so we use that knowledge to build bonds with the people we’re talking to. 

So small talk helps to break down communicative barriers, and talking about the weather is a natural small-talk conversation starter because we naturally know that it is something our conversation partner will have noticed and experienced themselves; our opinion of it is likely to be shared by them; and it is so bland a topic that it is unlikely to spark any disagreement.

As throwaway and as trivial as our conversations about it might be, ultimately, our casual chats about what it’s like outside serve a far deeper and more useful purpose than we might think.