Arthur Aron - The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

importance for generating closeness of each of the conditions implemented in the procedure: whether the tasks involve self-disclosure and other intimacy-associated behaviors (Study 1); whether partners are matched for not disagreeing on important attitudinal issues and whether subjects expect their partners to like them (Study 2); and whether becoming close is an explicit goal (Study 3). In addition, to illustrate the potential of the procedure, we have applied it in a preliminary way to theoretical issues difficult to address with the usual correlational methods in the areas of adult attachment (Studies 1 and 2) and introversion/ extraversion (Study 3).

STUDY 1

Study 1 focused on the importance for generating closeness of the nature of the tasks we have incorporated into the procedure (escalating, reciprocal, personalistic self-disclosure, and intimacy-associated behaviors). That is, in this study we manipulated the nature of the tasks as an independent variable.

In addition, we attempted to illustrate the usefulness of the procedure for addressing theoretical issues, focusing on adult attachment (Hazan 8c Shaver, 1987). For this aspect of the research, we combined data from Studies 1 and 2 to have a sufficient N for the kinds of analyses needed (we describe results of these analyses with Study 2). Thus, in both Studies 1 and 2, we matched subjects into specific attachment-style combinations and included some additional postinteraction measures. The focus was on differences among attachment styles in closeness achieved and in change from before to after the interaction in reported attachment style. We selected these issues because they show key advantages of using the closeness-generating procedure; previous work on these issues has been correlational in that who pairs with whom and whether the subject is in a relationship at all at the time of the study are entrenched confounding variables in that research. (Of course, even using our paradigm, subjects' own initial attachment style remains a nonmanipulated variable.)

Method

The experiment was conducted during a regular class session of a large psychology course, 5 weeks into the term. The study was announced 2 weeks in advance, and those willing to participate (nearly all present) completed initial questionnaires at that time. When students arrived on the day of the experiment, they were placed into the predetermined pairings and seated together at a moderate distance from other pairs. Each pair then carried out a series of self-disclosure and relationship- building tasks over a 45-min period. Finally, subjects were separated and individually completed postinteraction questionnaires.

Announcement and recruitment of subjects. The announcement explained that on a particular day the class would be devoted to a demonstration of experimental methods that would also be part of an ongoing research program on "interpersonal closeness." The main part of the announcement was as follows:

You will be paired with another person in this class whom you don't know. (We will match you, based on the questionnaire [you are about to complete], with someone we think will like you and whom you will like.) During the first hour of class on this day you and the person we have paired you with will do a series of activities (such as talking about particular topics) designed to help you get close.

Students were not required to participate, and no record was made available to the instructor of who did and did not. About 80% of the students enrolled in the class completed the initial questionnaire; of these, about 90% came on the day of the study and took part. (These percentages were approximately the same in all three studies.)

Initial questionnaire. The initial questionnaire included a consent form, a brief written description of the project (restating the oral announcement), demographic items, an item asking subjects to list all other students they know in the class, 17 attitude questions, and an attachment-style measure. The attitude questions assessed attitudes and behaviors disagreement about which would make a person undesirable as a relationship partner (e.g., "Students should dress in conventional ways" and "I smoke"). The items were created based on results of an open-ended questionnaire on this theme administered to a separate sample at the same university. For each item, subjects indicated both their agreement- disagreement and how important-unimportant the issue was to them, using separate 7-point Likert-type scales. The attachment-style measure was a version of Hazan and Shaver's (1987) forced-choice attachment-style question, modified by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) for their fourfold classification. Subjects read a paragraph describing each style and then (a) selected the style most applicable to themselves and (b) rated how much each style applied to them on a 7-point scale.

Matching procedure and subjects. The matching procedure involved several steps and was quite elaborate and complex. The result was the random assignment of individuals to pairs and of pairs to conditions within constraints of sex and attachment style, all counterbalanced across conditions, attachment-style pairings, and cross- sex versus all-women pairings. In addition, subjects who knew each other, as indicated by having listed the other's first name on the initial questionnaire, were not matched. Also, subjects who disagreed on any item that either had rated as very important were not matched. (See Study 2 for more details on the matching for non- disagreement.) As in most psychology courses at this university, about 70% of the students were women. Thus we decided to use only cross-sex and all-women pairings (our preliminary studies had found no differences between all-women and all-men pairings2 but had found differences between cross-sex and same-sex pairings). We randomly assigned the women into two groups: One group, corresponding to the number of men, were put into cross-sex pairs (n = 33); the remaining were put into all-women pairs (n= 17).

Experimental procedure. After subjects were paired and seated, they were instructed to open the envelope with which they had been provided and begin. Each envelope contained an instruction sheet and three sets of slips. It was emphasized that 'This is a study of interpersonal closeness, and your task, which we think will be quite enjoyable, is simply to get close to your partner, with whom you've been matched." The instructions also explained the procedure they should follow in which, for each slip, one of them (in alternating order) reads it aloud, both carry out the activity, and then they go on to the next slip. (The full text of our standard instructions for this procedure is given in the appendix.)

After reading the instructions, they were to begin at once with the first Set I slip. After 15 min, the experimenter told the subjects to stop, put away the Set I slips, and begin Set II; after another 15 min, to begin Set III; and after a final 15 min, to stop, quickly move to another location in the room as far away as possible from their partners, and then complete the postinteraction questionnaire.

Tasks and experimental manipulation. Subjects were given one of two types of tasks. The closeness-condition tasks were based on the procedure developed in our preliminary research (Aron, Aron, Melinat, & Vallone, 1991). These tasks called for self-disclosure or other intimacy-associated behaviors; the intensity of these tasks gradually increased, both within sets and over the three sets. (We used three sets of slips so that even pairs that went very slowly through the tasks would do at least some of the fairly intense Set

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