Arthur Aron - The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

(1971) two-item Interpersonal Judgment Scale (IJS), which asked, "How much would you like to work with your partner on a project?" and "How much do you like your partner?" We included the IJS in this study because the disagreement/nondisagreement manipulation seemed directly relevant to issues Byrne and others have explored with this measure.

Results and Discussion: Instruction Conditions (Attitude Disagreement and Expected Mutual Liking)

Overall mean closeness was 4.02, a figure comparable to that obtained for the closeness-condition subjects in Study 1. There were no significant or near-significant differences on the closeness composite or the IJS for either of the instruction condition variables (disagreement vs. nondisagreement or expectation of mutual liking vs. no expectation of mutual liking) or their interaction; in all cases, Fs < 1. (There were also no significant or near-significant interactions of the instruction condition variables with cross-sex vs. all-women pairing or with the attachment-style pairings.)

Overall, these data suggest that matching in terms of not disagreeing on important attitudes or leading subjects to believe that they and their partners will like each other probably has little impact on the overall closeness subjects achieve through this procedure, or even on their mutual attraction. There was about 90% power in this study for achieving significant effects (or interactions) for the two manipulated variables if in fact there were a large effect of this kind (d= .8). Indeed, the power is about 90% for finding at least a near-significant (p < .10) medium-sized effect (d= .5). Thus it seems unlikely that we would have obtained the present results if in fact there is more than a small effect for either of these variables.

In light of extensive research showing the importance of similarity (e.g., Byrne, 1971) and expected liking (Aron et al., 1989) in attraction, it is surprising we did not find any effects for these variables on either closeness or attraction. Perhaps the self-disclosure and relation- ship-building process has such an impact that agreement or expectation of liking is not relevant (Aron & Aron, 1986). Or perhaps this result is due to the specific conditions of the study: In terms of disagreement/non- disagreement, the tasks employed may not bring up topics that allowed subjects to discover any attitude dissimilarity; and in terms of expectation of mutual liking, the general expectation of closeness as a purpose/result of the study may already imply mutual liking, so that the explicit mention of expecting them to like each other made little difference. It is also possible that any attitude similarity effect was minimized in this study because subjects were aware that their partners were in the same class (and may have actually noticed them in the classroom), so that they expected they were similar, thus reducing the range on this variable. However, Byrne (1971) regularly found attitude similarity effects using a somewhat similar situation (subjects in most of his studies believed that they were evaluating partners from another psychology class at the same university).

Results and Discussion: Illustration of Application to Theoretical Issues (Closeness of Attachment-Style Pairings)— Combined Data From Studies 1 and 2

These analyses included pairs from Study 1 in the closeness condition and all pairs from Study 2, for a total of 97 pairs—37 secure, 11 avoidant/dismissive, 23 avoidant/fearful, and 26 with a preoccupied partner.3 Three results stood out. First, the avoidant/dismissive pairs reported less closeness than other pairings (Ms = 4.10 for secure pairs; 3.59, avoidant/dismissive; 4.09, avoidant/fearful; 4.07, preoccupied with other; contrast p < .05). Correlational research (e.g., Hazan 8c Shaver, 1987) has found that having an avoidant attachment style is associated with reporting poorer quality relationships. Our findings support an underlying causal direction for this association from attachment style to poorer relationship quality, illustrating the potential of the present method for sorting out causality.4 (Of some theoretical interest in its own right is the finding that the avoidant-poor-relationship link may be limited to avoidant/dismissive individuals; most previous research has used the three-category typology in which the two types of avoidant individuals are not distinguished.)

The second main result was that the discrepancy between actual and desired IOS Scale closeness was greatest for those pairs with a preoccupied partner (Ms = -.70 for secure pairs; -.45, avoidant/dismissive; -.57, avoidant/fearful; -1.12, preoccupied with other; contrast p < .01). (The same significant pattern was observed considering only the scores on desired IOS Scale closeness, and there were no significant or near-significant differences between the score of the preoccupied partner vs. the nonpreoccupied partner.) Combined with the results for actual closeness, the overall pattern is one in which pairs with a preoccupied partner report about the same level of closeness as other pairs but are considerably less satisfied with that level of closeness. (This result is consistent with the attachment theory description of preoccupied individuals as wishing for more closeness than they are able to find; e.g., Hazan 8c Shaver, 1987.) Once again, these results illustrate the usefulness of the closeness-generating procedure; without it, it would be quite difficult to test this kind of issue.

The third main result was about change in reported attachment style from before to after the task. To simplify the analysis and maximize interpretability, we combined the change on the four attachment-style scales into two uncorrelated linear composites corresponding to Bartholomew and Horowitz's (1991) scheme: (a) model of self (increases in secure and avoidant/dismissive minus increases in preoccupied and avoidant/fearful) and (b) model of other (increases in secure and preoccupied minus increases in avoidant/dismissive and avoidant/ fearful). (Results using change on individual attachment styles were entirely consistent with the composite results.) Median test-re test correlation for pairs for model of self was .77 and for model of other, .76.

Overall, from before to after the task, there was little change in model of self (M change = -.10), with increased positive ratings for the avoidant/fearful and preoccupied pairings offsetting decreases for the other two groups—a pattern of differences that may simply reflect regression to the mean. However, there was a clear and significant overall increase on positivity of model of other (Af change = 1.11); F(l, 93) = 30.19, p < .01. (The amount of increase was significantly greater for avoidant/dismissive than for secure pairs as might be expected from regression to the mean. But all four groupings showed an increase of some degree, which would not be expected from regression to the mean.) This increase was significantly greater (p < .01) than the overall change for self-model, and this difference was not qualified by an interaction with attachment-style pairing. If one interprets these changes as actual modifications of one's mental model of other, these various findings are consistent with Hazan and Shaver's (1987) suggestion that relational experience can have an impact on attachment style. On the other hand, the entire tenor of attachment theory emphasizes that mental models are formed early and are not easily modified by later experience. Perhaps one way of understanding the present data is in terms of a temporary modification, a kind of tempering, of the degree of extremity of one's model of other from an experience with such an impact that it is counter to what one

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