Falling in love is no mean feat. It requires the perfect constellation of biochemical attraction, romantic compatibility, lifestyle alignment, shared values, and so on... or does it?

What if love could be generated between virtually any couple in as little as 45 minutes?

No (wo)man is an island, and studying humans in isolation will only ever provide limited information. William James wrote that we have as many ‘social selves’ as we have friends or acquaintances, and that we typically show different sides of our personalities depending on the people we’re spending time with.

This means that in behavioural science, research subjects who have pre-existing relationships to each other are very valuable. They allow scientists to develop a richer understanding of personality and human behaviour, and to simulate real-world context more accurately inside a lab.

Yet recruiting couples or groups of friends is harder than recruiting individuals, because it requires more people within a given demographic to agree to take part (and be free on the same dates).

As a result, any procedure that allowed researchers to manufacture these relationships in a lab context would be extremely useful. And in 1997, psychologists Arthur and Elaine N. Aron, a married couple, teamed up with three other researchers for exactly that purpose. 

They wanted to make being in a relationship “accessible to laboratory study,” and devised a series of processes to achieve that result.

‍To begin with, the researchers paired up individuals based on a series of questions about their views and personalities. No two people who already knew each other were paired up, and pairs were both mixed-sex and all-female (the research subjects were psychology students, who are disproportionately likely to be women). 

Over a series of experiments, pairs were made based on the following criteria:

• Whether they agreed or disagreed about an issue that both of them considered important
• Whether each person was an introvert or an extravert
• What kind of attachment style each person had

The researchers also varied the conditions under which the study was done, such as:

• Whether or not pairs were told that they were expected to get on well with each other
• Whether or not pairs were told that the experiment’s objective was to get close to each other
  
  

With one small exception*, none of these conditions or criteria made a significant difference to how close the subjects became to each other. In some ways, this contradicts existing literature on intimacy: for example, when OKCupid led paired individuals to believe that they were very compatible with each other (or vice versa), people behaved accordingly.

This could mean two things: either one of the studies was flawed, or the effect size of this closeness study was so great that choosing not to prime research subjects in favour of the desired outcome didn’t make a dent in its power.

There are good reasons to think that the second explanation here is the right one. After each experiment in the series, participants were asked to rate the closeness of their relationship with their experiment partner on a 1-7 scale. The average over all experiments was 3.82 out of 7; a finding replicated or improved by several follow-up studies with different samples. 

And when asked to compare the relationship with their experiment partner to the other deepest and most intimate relationships in their lives, participants put the one with their experiment partner in about the 30th percentile for closeness. This means that after 45 minutes of interaction, participants’ relationship with their experiment partner was closer than 30% of the other intimate relationships in their lives.

Even more impressively, in follow-up surveys it transpired that the majority of participants had stayed in touch with the stranger they’d met during the event – with 57% going on to have at least one further conversation after the event. More than a third (35%) had done an activity together, and 37% had chosen to sit together in class. Business Insider even reported that one pair ended up married.

Not only that: participants reported enjoying the research considerably, rating it an average of 5.78/7, and often mentioning it as a highlight of their course in end-of-term assessments.

So just how did the researchers create this phenomenon? 

The secret, it transpires, is pretty simple: if you want to get close to someone, you need to exchange increasingly personal information with them. Small talk doesn’t cut it: banal questions led only to closeness of 3.25/7 (vs 4.06/7 for the specially designed closeness questions). This corresponds to an effect size of .88 standard deviations, which is above that considered “large” in psychological literature.

In short: the kind of questions and answers you share with your conversational partner makes a big difference to how close you’ll be after spending time together.

By way of example, here are some of the “small talk” questions provided by the researchers. These questions were split up into three sets of 15 minutes, but there was no difference between each set.

• What’s the best book you’ve read in the last three months that your partner hasn’t read? Tell your partner about it.
• What is your favourite holiday? Why?
• Were you ever in a school play? What was your role? What was the plot of the play? Did anything funny ever happen when you were on stage? 
• Describe your mother’s best friend.
• If you could invent a new flavour of ice cream, what would it be? 
  

By contrast, here are the questions designed to foster close relationships. These, too, were split up into three sets of 15 minutes, but each set becomes progressively more personal as the relationship develops. We’ve written out these questions in full: perhaps you can try them on your next date…

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Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. 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?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
    
    

Set II

1. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
2. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
3. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
4. What do you value most in a friendship?
5. What is your most treasured memory?
6. What is your most terrible memory?
7. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
8. What does friendship mean to you?
9. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
10. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
11. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
12. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
    

Set III

1. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling .."
2. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share..."
3. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
4. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
5. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
6. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
7. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
8. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
9. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
10. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
11. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
12. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

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*Introverts tended to end up less close to their conversational partners than extraverts after the 45 minutes, unless they were told that the objective of the exercise was to become close. When this was mentioned, introverts performed just as well as extraverts.

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