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If you were to take one step to improve your health, what would it be: change what you eat, be more active or invest more time in your friendships?

Most people know that diet and exercise have huge impacts on well-being. Fewer realise that social connection is just as important. A slew of studies has shown that feeling supported and loved can help protect you from common conditions, including diabetes, Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, stroke and heart attack. And the benefits don鈥檛 end there. In the workplace, good relationships are linked with greater creativity and job satisfaction 鈥� and a lower risk of burnout.

The obvious upshot is that we should put more effort into building strong and meaningful relationships. But many people find the idea of supercharging their social lives daunting. Up to now, science hasn鈥檛 been of much practical help because research was focused on environmental factors linked with loneliness, such as increasing urbanisation and reliance on technology. That might help explain why people seeking the secrets of better connection often turn to self-help gurus, whose advice is based on anecdote rather than data. But now there is a better way to think about this problem.

In recent years, researchers have made great strides in revealing the psychological barriers that undermine our attempts to build good relationships, and in discovering ways to overcome them. As I explain in my new book, The Laws of Connection: 13 social strategies that will change your life, most of us are needlessly pessimistic about our capacity to build bridges with those around us, and it is often surprisingly simple to cultivate better habits.

One early insight in this new field of research goes to the heart of how psychological biases can sabotage our social lives. Like many of the best scientific findings, it was inspired by a personal experience. One day, a few years ago, psychologist was talking to a new acquaintance while her partner and collaborator stood nearby. She enjoyed the chat and warmed to the other person, but she worried that she had made a bad impression. To Cooney鈥檚 ears, however, the conversation had gone swimmingly. Discussing this afterwards, Boothby and Cooney, both at the University of Pennsylvania, wondered whether most of us tend to underestimate how well we have come across when we engage with someone new. So they decided to .

To do that, they got pairs of people to chat for 5 minutes. Then, each person had to rate their agreement with a series of statements concerning their perceptions of their partner on a scale of 1 to 7. The statements were things like 鈥淚 generally liked the other participant鈥� and 鈥淚 could see myself becoming friends with the other participant鈥�. They also rated similar statements about the other person鈥檚 perceptions of them, such as 鈥渢he other participant generally liked me鈥� and 鈥渢he other participant could see themself becoming friends with me鈥�.

As Boothby and Cooney had suspected, most people were overly pessimistic about their ability to connect. They believed that their partner liked them less than they liked their partner when, in fact, their warm feelings tended to be reciprocated. Boothby and Cooney dubbed this psychological bias the 鈥渓iking gap鈥�, and the experiments they followed up with showed that it can linger way beyond first impressions. In one survey of undergraduates, for example, students continued to underestimate how much their roommates liked them for up to eight months after they met.

The source of our social self-doubt isn鈥檛 entirely clear. Studies by at Utrecht University in the Netherlands suggest that it often , when we start understanding the concept of politeness and the idea that people might be hiding their true feelings. Whatever its cause, the liking gap might discourage us from following up on a pleasant conversation with a text or an email, or from Moreover, our reserved behaviour may confirm the other person鈥檚 perception that we don鈥檛 like them as much as they like us, eroding their social confidence.

Since the liking gap was discovered, the list of psychological barriers to social connection has grown substantially. Most of these biases do their damage by undermining the foundation upon which all close relationships are based 鈥� what researchers call 鈥渟hared reality鈥�. This is the sense that we experience the world in the same way as another person.

Shared reality

The power of shared reality can be seen in an experiment carried out by at the University of Navarra in Spain. Working with Boothby and others, she placed around 200 participants into pairs and got them to discuss the events depicted in a series of ambiguous film clips. After 12 minutes, they were asked to rate their agreement with a series of statements designed to measure their sense of shared reality, such as 鈥渨e saw the world in the same way鈥� and 鈥渨e often anticipated what the other was about to say鈥�. Rossignac-Milon found that these scores could the higher the score, the more they trusted the other person鈥檚 judgement and wanted to continue the discussion. In other words, the more they felt they had 鈥渃licked鈥�.

Multiple studies have replicated this finding. Whether we are considering close friends, romantic partners or passing acquaintances, the sense of shared reality predicts how close we will feel to someone. However, flawed social intuitions, such as those demonstrated by the liking gap, can lead us to act in ways that erode this sense of shared reality.

For instance, a natural tendency for egocentric thinking can prevent us from effectively signalling our attention to others. When in conversation, we tend to rely too much on body language and so-called paralinguistic signals, such as murmuring assent, to show that we have heard the speaker and agree with them. We assume that these cues will be read in the way we intend them to be understood. However, it is easy to fake such responses while your mind is wandering elsewhere, , and this can weaken their sense of shared reality. For this reason, it is much better to demonstrate your attention explicitly in words. Try paraphrasing what someone has just expressed 鈥� because that is very hard to do if you haven鈥檛 been listening. And if you agree with their viewpoint, be sure to express that validation verbally, rather than simply nodding.

You might also consider whether your conversations tackle the right type of subject matter to allow a shared reality to develop. Due to our natural reserve, many of us stick to superficial topics that skate over the more important issues in life. Research shows that when we share our intimate thoughts and feelings, this can Yet most of us are reluctant to do this, as a team led by found in a .

Participants were placed in pairs and given a set of conversation prompts designed to promote greater connection, such as 鈥渇or what in your life do you feel most grateful?鈥� and 鈥渋f a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, your future or anything else, what would you want to know?鈥� Beforehand, people worried that the conversation would be extremely awkward compared with standard small talk about someone鈥檚 background or what they did on a public holiday. They were also concerned that their partner would have little interest in hearing their intimate thoughts and feelings. In reality, the encounter wasn鈥檛 nearly as uncomfortable as they feared. Participants found themselves caring more about the content of the conversation and feeling closer to the other person than they had expected. In other words, the creation of a shared reality was much easier than they had anticipated.

A related psychological barrier sabotaging our ability to connect through communication is called the 鈥渂eautiful mess effect鈥�. Imagine that you are preoccupied by a failure at work, for instance. Most of us assume that if we share such worries by speaking with colleagues, say, they will see our confessions as weakness. In fact, and recognise the courage in speaking up, according to research by at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and her colleagues. If we had a little more faith in the empathy of others, we may be surprised by the support we would receive.

The gratitude gap

Similarly, most people hold back when it comes to fearing that such compliments will sound ingratiating and unctuous, but the kind words are mostly welcomed 鈥� and the people giving and receiving them end up feeling much happier after the interaction. This bias, which I call the gratitude gap, prevents our acquaintances from knowing which again undermines shared reality. Perhaps more surprisingly, so does our reluctance to share our own strengths and achievements. We fear that we will seem boastful, but . When the other person discovers your good news from another source, your previous modesty seems paternalistic and insulting, as if you don鈥檛 trust them to cope with the jealousy that your success might provoke. The truth is that people are much more likely to feel confelicity 鈥� vicarious happiness 鈥� than we expect. It is simply another form of shared reality that can strengthen our bonds.

The mere awareness of these biases can put you on the path to correcting them. In many cases, however, you must also make a conscious decision to change your behaviour. One proven way to do this is with , which take the form of statements that set out a concrete plan of action. For example, imagine that you have decided to make more effort to meet new people 鈥� an excellent starting point for anyone who wishes to supercharge their social life. You might have the vague goal of 鈥渢alking to strangers鈥�, but you also need some specific strategies dictating when, where and how you will do that. Your implementation plan could be as simple as 鈥渨hen I am queuing for lunch, I will exchange a few words with the person next to me鈥� or 鈥渘ext time I am at the supermarket, I will offer to help someone carry their shopping to the car鈥�.

Practice makes friendships

You might feel some nerves the first time you put this into practice. You will probably overestimate how awkward the interaction will be and underestimate how much you will enjoy the exchange. But as at the University of Sussex, UK, has shown. Working with Boothby and Cooney, she set participants a week-long 鈥渟cavenger hunt鈥�, which involved finding different kinds of people 鈥� such as someone with a tattoo or someone who looks artistic 鈥� and then striking up a conversation with them. By the end of the fifth day, the participants had much more positive attitudes about talking to strangers: they anticipated less rejection and awkwardness and felt more confident in their conversational ability.

Needless to say, you should respect other鈥檚 wishes to be left in solitude if they show no interest in a conversation. Fortunately, though, the research suggests this is . Most people welcome the chance to converse with others in their community, they are just too shy to make the first move themselves.

Of course, some of us are shyer than others. But you need not fear that your personality will prevent you from tapping into the new science of social connection. (see 鈥�Why friends are good for your health鈥�, below) : introverts tend to be especially prone to those negative predictions about how much they will enjoy socialising. Once they have taken the plunge, however, they find just as much pleasure in their interactions as extroverts.

Having immersed myself in this research for more than three years while writing my book, I am convinced that we all have the potential to find greater connection, along with all the . The social life you crave is closer than you think.

David Robson is a writer based in London. His new book The Laws of Connection will be published in June