They match the questions under "Task Slips for Closeness-Generating Procedure" but don't include the "Task Slips for Small-Talk Condition in Study 1" questions.
I was so inspired by this article that I spent the day coding an app / game that beautifully guides you through the questions and includes a built in timer with a sound for the eye gazing.
I envision is being something that would be fun on a first date as a game.
Also - I've used eye gazing and several variations with profound results in my coaching work -- many of my clients have said that a ~3 minute session is easily the most profound experience of their lives.
There's no harm in trying it. At worst you'll get to know someone. I'd have no qualms working through this set with at least a dozen people I can think of off-hand (some of whom aren't available anyway, it doesn't matter, or where we flirt anyway.)
The questions are mostly quite interesting. I'd lie about #34 though as it's embarrassing that, like most people here, I have unbacked up stuff on a laptop, which would be an easy decision over other stuff (since there's so much and it's so easy to take) but gives the wrong impression about my priorities. So what - say someone isn't completely honest with you in some of the answers. still an interesting set of questions.
I'm also curious what happens if you just do this with an acquaintance of the same gender assuming neither of you two have any interest in that gender romantically. if you're a man, imagine just answering this stuff with a casual acquiantance (think of bros or colleagues) vaguely similar to you but not a gender you're attracted to, and looking into each other's eyes for 4 minutes. same if you're a woman with another woman acquaintance. [1]
It would be interesting to know what kind of bonding this elicits.
[1] I specifically chose to mention only a same-gendered examples - two guys who aren't into guys, or same with two girls - because the example of a purely gay person doing so with someone of the opposite gender is a bit different for a couple of reasons. some gay people will date or even marry someone of the opposite gender - e.g. a beard - plus social norms would push in that direction even if neither party is attracted. I'm more interested in the example of two acquaintances who are of the same gender but not gay doing this.)
I would definitely save my computer. But I don't think it should be embarrassing.
You already saved loved ones and pets, next your value may be your thoughts (saved in documents), work (value to the world), etc. There is a lot of good reasons to save that.
That is what the why is for, to add the actual personal reasons behind it. Which is the important part of the question.
As for doing this with a person of the same gender, i think we most likely know the answer - it won't lead to falling in love. Why ? because if it did, we would have seen many female best friends(who do similar stuff all the time), or or males that are found in even more bonding situations(like war) - who don't fall in love.
Though they may not "fall in love", they may still love each other. If love is only of the romantic flavor, than most of what it can be is missing IMO.
I'm pretty sure it would form a "brotherly" love, that sort of relationship that was platonic but intimate was very common between men in throughout history.
Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, especially letter #7, has similar sentiments.
"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. [...]"
The Art of Loving, while feeling a bit dated in some parts (especially Fromm's views on homosexuality), is on the whole a fantastic, short little book that I reread every few years or so. I always liked his definition of love: "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love."
Love has a circular definition? I find that interesting. It implies (to me) that more love grows from love. Maybe the experiment successfully lays the down a foundation to begin the circular love reinforcement.
This definition of love as a binary relation is interesting. Fromm, in a way, goes beyond it. From The Art of Loving:
If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. Yet most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not by the faculty. In fact, they even believe that it is proof of the intensity of their love when they do not love anybody except the "loved" person. This is the same fallacy which I have already mentioned above. Because one does not see that love is an activity, a power of the soul, one believes that all that is necessary to find is the right object - and that everything goes by itself afterward. This attitude can be compared to that of the man who wants to paint but who, instead of learning the art, claims that he just has to wait for the right object - and that he will paint beautifully when he finds it. If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to somebody else, "I love you," I must be able to say, "I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself."
If it works well, is it ethical for a teacher to let you do it as an exercise (simplest example: some of those doing the exercise may be in a relationship with someone not in the class)?
We didn't do the full procedure, just a subset of the questions. We were not forming intimate relationships, just developing a sense of closeness in a short amount of time and learning about what that involves (e.g. reciprocal personal self-disclosure). So I don't think it was harmful or unethical.
We did this in the Stanford salon: the procedure was for interpersonal intimacy, so some parts you can pluck out and try for friendships: we matched people pretty randomly-ish, and it was a fairly good result. This is the experimental protocol (https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~rascl/tools/secondFastFriendsQ...)
There seems to be a positive feedback sort of thing in this, because the pair who got the most out of it was two people who had been friends for a long time, who learned a lot about each other.
I remember reading about positive conceptualisation techniques in Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. This is nothing particularly special. What if you spent 90 minutes detailing one another's flaws? You'd come away with a similarly inaccurate negative impression of your partner.
What i don't get-why did something like this remains hidden from the general public for 20 years ? Why didn't the study authors worked on popularizing this ?
It's not about monetizing this. But people who know about this, don't they think it could really help lots of people ? and if so aren't they, especially in the fields of psychology, motivated by such things ? Because popularizing this might be the most valuable thing they could do in their professional lives.
Unless it is fundamentally wrong. In which case, it could be a major mistake. So you let it exist for a while and see if there is any counter-research or alternative explanations that have been overlooked.
The part about staring into someone's eyes is pretty well known. I remember hearing about it in the context of something that cults do to try to build a false sense of intimacy. IIRC, there's something about staring into someone's eyes, particularly at a distance of a foot or less, that we subconsciously associate with those closest to us which causes us to suspend our defense mechanisms.
AFAIK the rule is to use the title given in the article and not create your own click bait headline. IF the mods determine the articles title is click bait they can change it.
Time for all of us to come up with pre-canned answers.
"My greatest weakness is that I'm a workaholic perfectionist. I know I should spend more time doing stuff other than working and preparing for work, but it's just so important to do everything that is best for my company."
The whole point of my comment is that it was a joke. HN, at least officially, frowns on humorous remarks. But I've found that it's not always true.
I fully expect that I will be "spontaneously" bombarded with these questions on dates in the coming months. And they will lose all efficacy because people will prepare for them in the same way that they prepare for idiotic brain-teasers and HR questions.
This article is disgusting hogwash, suited for the emotional timbre of shallow New Yorkers who go to psychotherapists as a hobby. As the great philosopher Inigo Montoya put it, (Love) "you keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means."
This is sophistry. She was already attracted to him (here,
I use it in the sense primarily of "willing to go out on a date with him") before they started. I don't see any mention of "to build attraction, do this", and intimacy will smother their boundaries and their relationship without attraction.
The method the article is very similar in some dimensions to psychotherapy.It's very common that one side falls in love with other on the course of psychological therapy.For example "Some studies have reported that 95 percent of male therapists and 76 percent of female therapists admit that they felt sexual feelings toward their patients"[1].
So i wouldn't be so fast to rule this out.
As a counterpoint, in the original Aron study[2] the researchers describe circumstances that it works less well, for example, when people have an avoidant/dismissive personality.
> Let me acknowledge the ways our experiment already fails to line up with the study. First, we were in a bar, not a lab. Second, we weren’t strangers. Not only that, but I see now that one neither suggests nor agrees to try an experiment designed to create romantic love if one isn’t open to this happening.
Her story is just an illustration to the research paper she linked to.
Please stay away from commenting if you didn't read the article.
I did read the article, and that disclaimer, which she was correct to include, is inimical to the linkbaity title. OTOH, I may just be used to dealing with avoidant personalities, because I can't say I've had nearly the same results this woman has had.
Your simple dismissal seems naive. She gives you the boundaries of her "experiment" and is explicit about what she's already bringing to the table. It's an exposé on the experiment itself coupled with an interesting and touching personal experience.
https://gist.github.com/shmup/3bc1229f24486d746bf3