Arthur Aron - The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

III tasks.) The small-talk- condition tasks involved minimal disclosure or focus on partner or relationship. The full set of tasks for each condition is given in the appendix.

Dependent measure: closeness. The postinteraction questionnaire included Aron et al.'s (1992) Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) Scale and Berscheid et al.'s (1989) Subjective Closeness Index (SCI). The IOS Scale consists of seven pairs of circles labeled Self and Other (in this study, Partner) that overlap to various degrees, creating a 7-point, interval scale. Subjects select the pair that best describes their relationship. The IOS Scale has shown high levels of test-re test and alternate-form reliability (.85 and .92, respectively, for friendships) and convergent and discriminant validity with appropriately related measures; it also predicts relational maintenance over 3 months—all as well as or better than several more elaborate, standard measures of closeness that Aron et al. also tested. The SCI consists of two items in which the subject rates on a 7-point scale his or her degree of closeness to another person (in this study, his or her partner). On one item the relationship is compared with all of one's other relationships; on the other item, the relationship is compared with what the subject knows about the closeness of other people's relationships. We included the SCI because it seems to tap very directly the feeling aspect of closeness (its loading on this latent variable in the Aron et al. confirmatory analysis was .99).

Further, the SCI is a short scale that provided a complement to the IOS Scale.

In the three studies reported in this article, the correlations between the two measures ranged from .69 to .83, with a median of .77. Thus, to simplify reporting of results and to maximize reliability, we combined the two measures into a single composite. In all three studies, standard deviations were very close for the two measures, so that we simply averaged raw scores. Treating this composite as a scale with two subparts (IOS and SCI) yielded a median alpha (over the three studies) of .88. Also, as would be expected from the high correlations, in all analyses in which there was a significant effect for the composite, both IOS and SCI individually showed the same pattern of results. Both of these scales correspond closely to the feeling of closeness as we have described it in the introduction.

Additional measures on postinteraction questionnaire. Both Studies 1 and 2 added two measures for the attachment- style analyses: (a) a version of the IOS Scale completed for "HOW YOU WISH your relationship with your partner had been at the end of the experiment" (to assess discrepancy between obtained and desired IOS Scale closeness) and (b) the same attachment-style scales as on the initial questionnaire (to assess change in reported attachment style).

Results and Discussion

Means on the closeness composite were 4.06 for the closeness condition and 3.25 for the small-talk condition. This difference corresponds to an effect size (d) of .88 standard deviations (.8 is considered large in relation to typical effect sizes in the psychological literature; Cohen, 1988). This difference was also clearly significant. We evaluated significance in the context of a 2 (Task) X 2 (Cross-sex vs. All-women) x 4 (Attachment- style Pairing) ANOVA with the pair as the unit of analysis (a conservative procedure; Kenny, 1988). The effect for task condition (closeness vs. small talk) was ^(1, 37) = 5.68, p< .05. There were no significant or near-significant interactions of task condition with any other variable; nor did the main effect for cross-sex versus all-women reach or approach significance. (Attachment-style findings are presented at the end of the Study 2 Results and Discussion section in the context of the larger, combined samples of Studies 1 and 2.) Also, in the analysis of the cross-sex pairs only, there were no significant or near- significant within-pair main effects for sex or any sex interactions involving task condition.

These data support the importance of task type in developing closeness through our procedure. The contents of the tasks—whether they required self-disclosure and other intimacy-associated behaviors—made a considerable difference. Thus any effect of this procedure is not simply a matter of putting two people together in any kind of structured interaction for 45 min.

STUDY2

This study focused on the importance for generating closeness of two additional aspects of our procedure: (a) matching within a pair for nondisagreement on attitudes and (b) leading subjects to expect mutual liking between self and partner. That is, we manipulated these two variables as crossed experimental factors. In addition, subjects were paired by attachment style as in Study

1 so that data from the two studies could be combined for an illustration of the application of our procedure to attachment issues.

Method

Procedures were the same as in the Study 1 closeness condition, except for this study's two manipulated variables and two additional items on the postinteraction questionnaire. There were 52 cross-sex and 19 all-women pairs. The study was conducted 8 weeks into the term.

Experimental manipulations. All potential pairings (that is, within Attachment-style Combination x Cross-sex vs. All-women categories) were made so that half did not disagree on any important issue (the procedure used for all subjects in Study 1) and half clearly did disagree on one or more important issues. Crossed with this division, subjects were randomly assigned to expect or not expect mutual liking.

The disagreement/nondisagreement manipulation used the 17 attitude items on the initial questionnaire. Those pairs in the disagreement condition had either (a) one strong disagreement (one rated the item a 1 or

1 and the other a 6 or 7 on the 7-point scale) on an issue rated as highly important (5 or higher on this 7-point scale), (b) two strong disagreements on issues rated as moderately important (4 or higher), or (c) three moderate disagreements (the two people's ratings are on opposite sides of the midpoint, or one is at the midpoint and the other is a 1 or 7) on issues of very high importance (6 or higher). Those pairs in the nondisagreement condition were matched so that there were no disagreements of any of the kinds listed above (this is the same rule as used for all subjects in Study 1).

Regarding the manipulation of expectation of mutual liking, in this study nothing was said on the initial questionnaire or in any oral instructions of any expectation that the pair would like each other or that any special matching had occurred. However, in the expectation-of- mutual-liking condition the instruction sheet included an explicit and prominent section noting that the pair had been carefully matched:

We have taken great care in matching partners. Based on our experience in previous research we expect that you and your partner will like one another—that is, you have been matched with someone we expect you will like and who will like you.

In the no-expectation-of-mutual-liking condition, this section instead read as follows:

Partners in this study have been put together in ways that pair different categories of individuals. We are investigating the effect of different kinds of pairings. We have no special reason in your case to assume that you and your partner will like each other.

Additional items on the postinteraction questionnaire. In this study only, we included a version of Byrne's

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