Text Your Friends. It Matters More Than You Think.

Calling, texting or emailing a friend just to say “hello” might seem like an insignificant gesture — a chore, even, that isn’t worth the effort. Or maybe you worry an unexpected check-in wouldn’t be welcome, as busy as we all tend to be.

But new research suggests that casually reaching out to people in our social circles means more than we realize.

“Even sending a brief message reaching out to check in on someone, just to say ‘Hi,’ that you are thinking of them, and to ask how they’re doing, can be appreciated more than people think,” said Peggy Liu, Ben L. Fryrear Chair in Marketing and an associate professor of business administration with the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business.

Dr. Liu is the lead author of a new study — published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on Monday — that found people tend to underestimate how much friends like hearing from them.

She and her team ran a series of 13 experiments, involving more than 5,900 participants, to get a sense of how good people are at guessing how much friends value being reached out to, and what kinds of interactions are the most powerful.

In some of the experiments, participants reached out to someone they considered to be a friend; in others, they got in touch with someone they were friendly with but considered a weak tie.