Bob Novella

I feel so bad.

I feel so bad for that guy.

Yeah.

I know.

Sorry, Likert.

All right.

So...

But there's a big but here, because a lot of people were saying that they felt closer, especially the more scared they were.

But if they did a deeper dive, if they asked a lot of questions to assess the status of these people's relationship, the needle barely moved.

Yeah.

So they were saying one thing, but in reality, there really wasn't really changing, you know, how they felt about these people.

But there's two ways, though, to look at this.

When they looked at people that were really close, like their closest companion, when they looked at those two, say these two people that were fairly close to begin with, fear again was a predictor.

If they felt the more fear, the closer they felt.

When they really examined it, when they examined their pre-closeness to the post-closeness assessment, if you will, the change was basically zero, just like not measurable.

And that kind of makes sense, right?

That the closer you are in a relationship, it would take more to move that needle and

It was just essentially, you know, immeasurable.

Any change would be so small that you couldn't measure it.

But when they looked at people that weren't necessarily close, say the two people in the group that aren't like, you know, their best friends, say, when they examined those people, and yet again, of course, fear was a good indicator and, you know, physical contact, well, but the measured increase in closeness was statistically significant in that case, but it was still very small from 4.61 to 4.81 on that seven point Likert scale.