Run Game People

Arthur Aron and the 36 questions that build closeness

5 min read

The "36 questions to fall in love" come from a 1997 psychology study led by Arthur Aron. In it, pairs of strangers took turns answering questions that got more personal over about 45 minutes, and afterward they reported feeling closer than pairs who made small talk. The study measured a temporary feeling of closeness between strangers in a lab. It didn't show that anyone fell in love.

Who Arthur Aron is

Aron, born in 1945, is a social psychologist at Stony Brook University in New York. According to Wikipedia, he has a PhD from the University of Toronto (1970) and has spent his career studying how friendships and intimacy form. He developed the self-expansion model, which proposes that one reason people form close relationships is that it expands their sense of self. His wife, Elaine Aron, the author of The Highly Sensitive Person, is a co-author of the 1997 paper.

The 1997 study

The paper is "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings," by Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine Aron, Robert Vallone and Renee Bator, in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (volume 23, issue 4, pages 363 to 377).

According to its abstract, which is the part of the paper this post draws on:

The abstract doesn't give sample sizes, and the full text wasn't available to read. Greater Good notes that the original study included no demographic information, so treat it as a lab procedure tested on the people who took part, not as a statement about everyone.

What the questions look like

The popular list has 36 questions in three sets of 12, each set more personal than the last. In the usual description (for example, UC Berkeley's Greater Good in Action):

The guidance is to split the session into thirds, take turns answering each question, and alternate who goes first so the sharing stays balanced. Greater Good puts the full session at 45 minutes. This post doesn't reproduce the full list. It's easy to find from the sources below.

How it became famous

In January 2015, New York Times writer Mandy Len Catron published an essay titled "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This," tying the questions to love and to her own experience. The popular version differs from the study in what it claims. Viren Swami, summarizing the research for Anglia Ruskin University, says Aron and colleagues cautioned that the procedure doesn't create feelings of loyalty, dependence or commitment between strangers, and that it doesn't produce respect or passion either.

What came after

Researchers have used the procedure, often called the "Fast Friends" procedure, in many settings. According to Swami's summary and the Greater Good page, later studies used it with university students, mixed-group pairs (with some studies looking at prejudice), and an adapted version for children and parents. One lab's description of its expanded version has three sessions over about two weeks: two sessions of three 12-question sets, then a cooperative game, adapted from the 1997 procedure. Greater Good lists no sample sizes for these studies, and says people with low social motivation may benefit less. It also says taking turns appears to matter: one study it cites found that turn-taking increased liking and closeness.

Using it with someone you're getting to know

The study was a lab exercise between two people who had signed up for it. Everything below is advice for using the idea outside the lab, not a research finding.

If you're newer to open-ended conversation, how to keep a conversation going and conversation threading are shorter places to start.

What to take from Arthur Aron

  1. Escalate gradually. Start with low-stakes topics and let each answer set the next level.
  2. Take turns. Answer the question you ask, and alternate who goes first.
  3. Pick two questions from the sets (such as the dream dinner guest or a perfect day) and use them this week with a friend.
  4. Ask permission and offer a skip every time.
  5. Treat closeness and compatibility as separate. Note what you learned about the other person, not just how it felt.
  6. Try it on friends first before using it on a date, to see what pace feels right.

Sources