Arthur Aron - The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

at all beyond the study, including several weeks later, is significant in indicating the power of the procedure. On the other hand, without a control group, it remains possible that there could have been this much closeness without the procedure.)

A fourth indication that the closeness produced in these studies is comparable in important ways to closeness in naturally occurring relationships is the parallel outcomes, when similar issues were tested, between our results and those obtained in previous research using naturally occurring pairs. For example, the difference in closeness between all-secure pairs and all-avoidant pairs in Studies 1 and 2 was just what would be expected from studies of secure versus avoidant individuals in naturally occurring relationships.

So are we producing real closeness? Yes and no. We think that the closeness produced in these studies is experienced as similar in many important ways to felt closeness in naturally occurring relationships that develop over time. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that the procedure produces loyalty, dependence, commitment, or other relationship aspects that might take longer to develop. Certainly, there is minimal shared history and minimal behavioral closeness in the ways measured by Berscheid et al. (1989). Thus the procedure is like other experimental paradigms such as mood- induction procedures, the minimal group paradigm, or methods for temporarily lowering self-esteem: It is useful as a means of creating a similar although not completely identical state, but under controlled conditions permitting experimental tests of causal hypotheses and theoretical issues. For these purposes the absolute level of the impact on the individual is less important than the relative level across experimental conditions.

Implications for Features of the Procedure and Its Application in Research

The procedure itself, in addition to putting pairs together to interact for 45 min, was initially developed to include four key elements: (a) gradually escalating reciprocal self-disclosure and intimacy-related behaviors, (b) matching by nondisagreement on important attitude issues, (c) expectations of mutual liking, and (d) making closeness an explicit task. In this series of studies, we systematically examined each of these elements and found that only the first, the nature of the tasks themselves (self-disclosure, etc., vs. small talk), made a significant overall difference. Also, Study 3 indicated that making closeness an explicit goal may be of importance for some subjects, such as introverts. Just how other aspects of these procedures have an impact on closeness (and how these may interact with personality or other variables) is a ripe subject for further research.

More generally, we have tried to demonstrate the practicality and flexibility of these procedures for examining hypotheses in the close-relationships and related research areas. In particular, the classroom version of the procedure we have used in these studies is relatively easy for most researchers to implement. The most time-consuming aspect of the original process was matching subjects on nondisagreement on critical attitudes, but the results of Study 2 suggest that neither the matching nor subjects' belief that they have been matched makes much difference in the closeness obtained. Indeed, if a planned study does not involve subject variables (i.e., it is manipulating only instructional, task, or situational variables), then a pretest/initial-questionnaire procedure can be eliminated entirely.

To demonstrate the practicality of this simplified approach, we conducted an additional study of222 subjects attending a large class at a different university. We gave no pretests at all but simply announced the planned study on the preceding class day (to allow students not to participate if they so chose—in fact, attendance on the day of the task was greater than usual). On the class day, we separated the students into two rooms (one for women, one for men) and randomly paired them on the spot, reassigning members of any pair who already knew each other. We then gave them envelopes containing the closeness tasks and the closeness-as-a-task instructions and proceeded in the usual way. The result was a mean closeness score of 4.02, a figure quite comparable to those in the previous studies that included pretests and matching.

One other practical boon of this particular research paradigm is that participants report enjoying it a great deal. This makes it easy to obtain access from instructors to carry out the procedure during a class session (which provides excellent opportunities for discussing research methods issues as well as relationship and personality material) and to obtain follow-up data or repeated participation. As a check on subjects' enjoyment of the procedure, in the study just described, which lacked the pretest/matching procedures, we included in the postin- teraction questionnaire an item about how much the subjects enjoyed their participation. The mean rating was 5.78, well above the midpoint on the scale, which ranged from 1 (Not Very Much) to 7 (Very Much). This item was highly correlated (r = .52) with the closeness composite. (In this course and in the other classes in which we used this procedure, instructors told us that it was frequently mentioned on student evaluations at the end of the term as a highlight of the course.)

Illustrative Theoretical Findings

Before turning to the specific results, we want to emphasize again that this aspect of our three studies was intended to illustrate the potential of the closeness- generating procedure. Any implications for the substantive theories are clearly highly preliminary and in many cases employed less-than-optimal procedures for opera- tionalizing the major theory-relevant variables.

Studies 1 and 2 focused on adult attachment style (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). There were three key results: (a) Avoidant/dismissive pairs reported less postinterac- tion closeness than any of the other pairings; (b) pairs with a preoccupied partner reported a greater discrepancy between actual and desired postinteraction closeness than any of the other pairings; and (c) for all pairing types, there was an overall change in reported attachment style from before to after the interaction in the direction of greater endorsement of styles consistent with a positive model of other. Each of these findings, if replicated in future research, would bear importantly on theoretical understanding in this area. Note that in each case, the findings bear directly on issues of causal directions that would be difficult to sort out with nonexperi- mental methods.

The illustrative theoretical issue of Study 3 was introversion/extraversion. The main finding was that when no special instructions about getting close were given, extraverted individuals reported achieving more closeness than did introverted individuals; but when closeness was made an explicit task of the procedure, the greater reported closeness for the extraverted individuals essentially disappeared. If this pattern is supported in future research, it would deepen our understanding of the dynamics of the interaction of personality and social behavior. Most important for the present purposes, this finding illustrates the potential of our procedure for yielding theoretically significant results by both systematically controlling pairings of individuals and systematically manipulating the circumstances of their interaction.

How Can This Closeness-Generating Paradigm Help Researchers ?

There are at least four ways that the present procedure might help researchers advance theory in the social

--">