"How was your vacation?" It's the question travelers look forward to most after landing—the excuse to momentarily pause from digging through a backed-up email inbox and relive an amazing trip by bragging to every co-worker within earshot. It's even more fun when the trip was to somewhere particularly exciting and uncharted.
The study examined something called “the novelty penalty,” and the results were the opposite of what both speakers and listeners predicted. It turned out that while we enjoy telling stories about new experiences, listeners don't appreciate novelty, preferring instead to hear familiar stories about things they have experienced themselves. But a new study by scientific journal Psychological Science may make you rethink telling your most amazing travel tales.