Why Some People Just Get You: The Psychology of Shared Reality
- Noush Navazani
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
When Two Minds Meet: The Psychology of Shared Reality
Have you ever met someone and felt that they simply “get it”?
You start explaining something, and they already know what you mean. You notice the same small details. You react to something at almost exactly the same moment. Sometimes, they even finish the thought you were about to express.
We often describe this as “being on the same wavelength.”
But psychology suggests there may actually be something more interesting happening.
Researchers call it shared reality.
What Is Shared Reality?
Shared reality is not simply about having things in common.
Two people can like the same music, have similar personalities, come from similar backgrounds, or share the same interests without necessarily experiencing a deep psychological connection.
Shared reality is different.
It describes the feeling that another person does not simply understand you, but somehow sees and experiences the world in a similar way to you.
Psychologists Maya Rossignac-Milon and colleagues describe what they call “generalized shared reality” as the experience of sharing inner states — such as thoughts, feelings and beliefs — with another person about the world around you. Their research examined this phenomenon across nine studies involving romantic partners as well as people meeting for the first time.
In simple terms, it is the difference between:
“We are similar people.”
and
“We seem to see things in the same way.”
That distinction may be more important than it first appears.
Why Does It Feel So Good When Someone “Gets” Us?
Human beings do not only seek connection. We also seek some sense that our understanding of the world makes sense.
Imagine watching something happen and wondering whether you interpreted it correctly.
Then someone beside you says exactly what you were thinking.
Something interesting happens.
You may feel closer to that person, but you may also feel more confident in your own perception.
Their reaction seems to confirm yours.
Shared reality can therefore serve two psychological functions at the same time: it can help us feel connected to another person, and it can help us feel more certain about how we understand the world.
This may partly explain why certain conversations feel unusually satisfying.
We are not simply exchanging information.
For a moment, we feel that another mind is standing in roughly the same place as ours.
The Psychology of “Clicking”
We often say that we “clicked” with someone, particularly when a connection develops surprisingly quickly.
The research on shared reality offers an interesting explanation for that experience.
In one of the studies, strangers were paired together and asked to discuss ambiguous images. Researchers then examined both what participants reported feeling and how they actually interacted.
People who experienced greater shared reality also reported greater feelings of connection, rapport and closeness, and a stronger desire to interact with the other person again. 2020-51514-001(1).pdf
Perhaps even more interesting were the behaviours researchers observed during these conversations.
People experiencing shared reality were more likely to communicate things such as “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” express shared feelings or agreement, say similar things almost simultaneously, or build upon and complete one another’s ideas. 2020-51514-001(1).pdf
These tiny moments may look insignificant.
Psychologically, however, they can communicate something powerful:
“You are not experiencing this alone.”
When Two People Begin to Create “Our Reality”
There is another layer to this.
Over time, close relationships accumulate experiences that belong specifically to those two people.
An inside joke.
A look across the room that needs no explanation.
A particular meaning attached to a song.
A holiday memory nobody else fully understands.
A phrase that would sound meaningless to everyone else but immediately makes sense to the two of you.
In the research, these kinds of dyad-specific references appeared to matter. When the researchers experimentally challenged couples’ sense that they experienced the world similarly, couples who already had high levels of shared reality became more likely to refer to experiences and meanings that were specific to their relationship. 2020-51514-001(1).pdf
It is almost as though the relationship has gradually built a small psychological world of its own.
And when that world feels threatened, people may try to restore it.
What Happens When Shared Reality Is Threatened?
One of the most fascinating parts of the research involved romantic couples.
Researchers gave couples false feedback suggesting either that they experienced the sensory world quite similarly or that their experiences were less similar.
For couples who already had a strong sense of shared reality, being told that they were less aligned triggered something interesting.
During the interaction that followed, they made greater efforts to re-establish their shared reality. They developed joint perspectives, used more relationship-specific references and became more engaged in reaching decisions together. 2020-51514-001(1).pdf
Importantly, they did not simply become more affectionate or generally positive.
Their behaviour appeared specifically directed towards restoring the sense of “us seeing this together.” 2020-51514-001(1).pdf
That tells us something important about relationships.
Once a shared psychological world becomes meaningful to us, we may become motivated to protect it.
But Shared Reality Is Not the Same as Agreement
This distinction matters.
A healthy relationship does not require two people to agree about everything.
In fact, constantly agreeing with another person can sometimes come from conflict avoidance, people-pleasing, dependency or fear of rejection rather than genuine psychological connection.
Shared reality is more subtle.
You can disagree with someone and still feel deeply understood by them.
The important experience is not necessarily:
“You think exactly what I think.”
It may be:
“You understand how I arrived here.”
That is a very different kind of closeness.
Perhaps This Is Why Some Relationships Feel Different
There are people we have known for years but still feel strangely unseen around.
And occasionally, there are people we have known for a surprisingly short time who seem immediately familiar.
Time alone does not create psychological intimacy.
Neither does similarity.
Sometimes what makes a relationship feel unusually meaningful is the experience that another person can enter our psychological world — understand what we notice, recognise what matters to us and help us make sense of what we experience.
Perhaps that is one reason being “understood” can sometimes feel even more intimate than being loved.
Because love tells us:
“You matter to me.”
But shared reality can communicate something slightly different:
“I see something of the world the way you see it too.”
And maybe the question worth asking about the people closest to us is not only:
“How much do we love each other?”
But also:
“When I look at the world with you, do I feel less alone in what I see?”
References
Rossignac-Milon, M., Bolger, N., Zee, K. S., Boothby, E. J., & Higgins, E. T. (2021). Merged minds: Generalized shared reality in dyadic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(4), 882–911.
Higgins, E. T., Rossignac-Milon, M., & Echterhoff, G. (2021). Shared reality: From sharing-is-believing to merging minds. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 30(2), 103–110.
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