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This One is For People Who Care About the World and Science.

The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

In 1997, psychologist Arthur Aron and his team published a study on 36 questions that can make people "fall in love." The questions were designed to foster interpersonal closeness when couples took turns asking and answering them over about an hour. Remarkably, two of the study participants ended up getting married to each other just six months later!

The 36 questions have since become a popular tool for creating intimacy between strangers or partners. The questions are broken up into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one.

Below, find the questions, and the popular newspaper piece, that kicked off the popularity of these questions, and the study.

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?

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