Aron, 69, who handed out the question cards for the on-camera experiment, hopes the segment captures the poignancy of the pairs revealing their deepest hopes, dreams and worries. The questions come in three sets of 12 and grow increasingly intense, though participants need not divulge more than they're comfortable revealing.
"When I came in towards the end of each set of questions, there were people crying and talking so openly. It was amazing," he said. "They all seemed really moved by it."
Aron and fellow researchers used the two-couples approach last year in a study on how "self-disclosure" can rekindle romance in long-term couples.
"The theory is, when you’re first in a romantic relationship, there’s an intense excitement, but then you grow used to each other," Aron said. "If you do something new and challenging, that reminds you of how exciting it can be with your partner, it makes your relationship better."
Arthur and Elaine Aron working together during their younger years (photo courtesy of Arthur Aron)
Originally formulated for a 1997 study called The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness," the 36 questions, or variations thereof, have been used in hundreds of studies, including several by UC Berkeley psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, who studies cross-race friendships, among other things.
Aron uses the questions regularly in his lectures and freshman classes, pairing up students randomly or experimenting with cross-race friendships to better understand prejudice. The questions have even been used to improve understanding between police officers and community members in cities where tensions run high.
Whether this sense of closeness can last in a real-world setting is not guaranteed. While some connections that began in a lab endure, others run their course, just as in real life.
Interestingly, when Arthur and Elaine Aron first looked into how to manipulate a sense of closeness in a lab setting, they were not looking at the romantic implications.
"We had not created the 36 questions to help you fall in love," wrote Elaine Aron, a psychologist and author of The Highly Sensitive Person (Broadway Books, 1996), in a Psychology Today blog post.
"To do a good job of that, we would have needed to do a study with people who, above all, came into it really wanting to fall in love, and we were not in that business," she wrote. "More important, we would need to follow up over time to know if the relationships lasted, an expensive process, and funding research on love is not easy."
Nonetheless, that 'Summer of Love' feeling that inspired Aron to study the underlying mechanisms of intimacy continues as he works on numerous studies and projects, many of which require the 36-question approach.
Set 1
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a 'perfect' day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
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