When Do People Talk About and Why?

People talk about things that occur over various time horizons into the past, present, and future. They talk about the television show they are currently watching, the groceries they bought yesterday, and the restaurant they are going to tomorrow. But, when are people more likely to talk about, and why? That is, how does the likelihood people talk about something vary based on its temporal position from the present, and how does this pattern inform us about the drivers of interpersonal communication? We suggest two key factors shape when people talk about. The first is accessibility. People are more likely to talk about things that are accessible (Berger and Schwartz 2011). Temporally distant events are less accessible than temporally close events (D’Argembeau and Van der Linden 2004). In the context of when people talk about, that suggests that (1) individuals should share more about the present than the past and future, (2) that temporally close events should be shared more frequently than temporally distant events, (3) that people should talk more about the future later in the week when they get closer to the weekend, and (4) that people should talk more about the past 24 hours later in a given day. Second, arousal impacts sharing (Berger 2011; Berger and Milkman 2012) and emotional arousal should also shape when people talk about. Past research has found the future to be more emotionally intense than the past (D’Argembeau and Van der Linden 2004; Van Boven and Ashworth 2007), more positive (Newby-Clark and Ross 2003), and less constrained (Van Boven, Kane, and McGraw 2008). Consequently, while people may talk about the near past than near future (because it is more accessible), they may talk about the distant future rather than distant past (because it is more emotionally intense).