Dealing With a BoreDull party chatter doesn’t...

Dealing With a Bore

Dull party chatter doesn’t have to be an inevitable part of your holiday agenda. When you’re eye to eye with a party bore, there are a number of strategies, psychologists say.

--Option 1: “Concentrate on trying to make the conversation more interesting,” suggested Gary Emery, a psychologist and director of the Los Angeles Center for Cognitive Therapy.

--Option 2: Change the topic. “First acknowledge the other person’s interest and expertise in the topic under discussion,” said Jerry Jellison, a professor of psychology at USC. “Then say, ‘At this time, I’m ready for a change of topic.’ ” Asking a question about an unrelated subject is a good way to reroute the conversation, he noted.

--Option 3: Bow out graciously. One effective exit line, said Jellison: “There are other people I want to talk to, and I’d better do it now before the party is over.”

Don’t use that traditional parting line, “I think I’ll get another drink,” both Emery and Jellison warned. Bores get thirsty, too.

Myths, Older Drivers

Older drivers aren’t the roadway hazards many people believe, found a General Motors researcher who studied the effects of age on driver involvement in crashes and drivers’ threat to pedestrians. “On a per-mile basis, older drivers are a bit more risky,” said Leonard Evans, a research scientist at the GM Research Laboratory in Warren, Mich., who published his findings in the current issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. “But that’s compensated by the fact that they drive a lot less.”

Passengers looking for the safest seat should sit center rear, Evans found in other research published this month in the American Journal of Public Health. That position was associated with the lowest risk of death in his analysis of fatality records from 1975 to 1985.