How 36 Questions Can Help You Build Intimacy

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Valentine’s Day began as the Christian feast of St. Valentine in the eighth century and has been celebrated continuously in some way ever since. In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines were sold in the 1840s by Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, whose father ran a bookstore.

Valentine’s Day remains a celebration of love where people focus on connecting with romantic partners. If you plan to spend time with a special someone, you should know there is an evidence-based strategy for bringing you closer together.

Over the course of his career, Arthur Aron, a psychology professor at Stony Brook University, has developed a method to help people fall in love. He has come up with 36 questions that have been proven to generate closeness between two people in repeated experiments.

The idea is to sit down in a comfortable spot with a person with whom you’d like to become closer. Armed with this list of questions, you and the person take turns discussing your answers. The questions are divided into three sets that become increasingly more personal. In the original experiments, participants spent 15 minutes on each set of questions; if they didn’t finish, they would simply move on to the next set. But for the purposes of a Valentine’s Day date, you could take your time and answer all of them. Studies have found that spending just 45 minutes on these questions creates a closer bond between two people compared to those who engage in simple small talk.

Some of Aron's questions include:

• Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
• Would you like to be famous? In what way?
• Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
• What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
• When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
• 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?

Since Aron’s original studies, many other researchers have used the questions to address all sorts of interpersonal issues. For example, a study by German researchers used the questions to help distance-learning students feel more engaged with their classmates. They found that using the questions promoted social integration among the class and improved distance students’ attendance at the end-of-semester exam.

Another study conducted at Stony Brook University used the questions to reduce prejudice toward gay men and lesbians. In the study, researchers paired heterosexual undergraduate students with a research assistant acting as a gay or lesbian student. Participants assigned to use the questions significantly improved their attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, reported feelings of interpersonal closeness, and displayed more friendliness when their partner disclosed their sexual orientation.

Hungarian researchers have studied whether the questions can combat ethnic discrimination. The largest minority population in Hungary is the Romani, also known as Roma, who originate from northern India. These individuals regularly experience racism, discrimination, and social exclusion. The researchers conducted an experiment that used the 36 questions between Romani and non-Romani Hungarian citizens. People with “relatively negative” attitudes toward the Romani improved their attitudes after discussing the questions together for an hour.

The questions work because they promote mutual self-disclosure; each person has an opportunity to share their answers, Aron explained. It’s important that the questions are gradual; if you reveal too much, too quickly, the other person can become overwhelmed. But starting slowly and moving to more personal answers help make both participants comfortable.

The take-home message: If you’re heading out to a Valentine’s Day date, print out Arthur Aron’s 36 questions and take them along with you. Discussing them is an evidence-based way to become closer to another person.

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