Which 36 questions do you ask friends you already know? A 45-minute run-of-show
Arthur Aron's 36 questions run three sets of 15 minutes. Here is a host's timetable for doing them with friends, plus what the 1997 study did and did not show.
In this article10 sections
Most people meet the 36 questions attached to a headline about falling in love. Mandy Len Catron’s January 2015 Modern Love essay in the New York Times carried the list into millions of feeds, and the framing stuck: ask these to a person you fancy, and see what happens.
The research behind the list was never about romance. Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone and Bator (1997, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings”) paired up strangers and asked whether a structured, escalating exchange could produce closeness in a single sitting. It could, at least compared with small talk. Which makes the list a decent plan for a Friday with people you already like, provided you run it as a host would run any evening.
What do the three sets actually ask?
The 36 questions come in three sets of 12, and each set asks for more self-disclosure than the last. The Berkeley Greater Good in Action version splits a 45-minute session into thirds: 15 minutes each, moving on when time is up whether or not you finished the set. Partners alternate who answers first.
A few examples, quoted briefly. Set I opens with “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” Question 11 asks you to tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible, in four minutes. Question 13 starts from a crystal ball that could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, or the future. Question 25 asks each of you to make three true “we” statements. Question 36 asks you to share a personal problem and have your partner reflect back how you seem to feel about it.
What is the run-of-show?
Plan for about an hour door to door, for four to six people.
| Clock | Segment | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 | Settle in, hand out sheets | Phones in a basket. Say what is coming in two sentences. |
| 0:10 | Round one: Set I, questions 1 to 12 | 15 minutes, pairs, timer on the table |
| 0:25 | Swap partners, Set II, questions 13 to 24 | 15 minutes, new pairs |
| 0:40 | Swap again, Set III, questions 25 to 36 | 15 minutes, new pairs |
| 0:55 | Sheets away, open talk | Share what surprised you, not what your partner said |
Two choices carry more weight than they look. Use a visible timer, because the set-by-set structure is part of the procedure and without it Set I swallows the night. And decide before anyone sits down that anything said stays with the pair, since question 36 only works when the answer is safe.
Why pairs, and why swap?
The original procedure was dyadic, two people at a time. Reading questions aloud to a table of six turns an exchange into a performance, and people give shorter, safer answers. If you have four friends, there are exactly three ways to pair off with no repeats, one per set. Six friends give you more options than you need.
For a different flavour of group evening, Priya Parker’s gathering principles cover how to set a purpose and a door policy, and the karaoke ice-breaker research is the louder cousin of this format.
What did the 1997 study show, and what did it leave out?
Study 1 found that pairs who worked through the escalating tasks reported more closeness afterwards than pairs given small-talk tasks. Studies 2 and 3 tried other routes to closeness and found no significant effect: matching partners on attitudes, telling them to expect mutual liking, and making closeness an explicit goal all failed to move the needle. Mind that last one when you send the group chat invite. “Come bond with us” is not the tested ingredient.
The sample was strangers, measured right after a single session. The authors themselves wrote that the procedure seems unlikely to produce loyalty, dependence, commitment, or other relationship qualities that take longer to develop (as quoted in secondary summaries; I did not read the paper’s full text). Nothing in the paper tests what happens when old friends do it, so treat the night as a good prompt, not a proven intervention.
What comes after the night?
One evening does not rebuild a friendship, and the 1997 authors did not claim it would. A recurring slot is the sturdier bet, which is the argument in standing plans as friendship rails. If you want the 36 questions to be the start of something, book the next date before people leave, and if you are looking for lower-effort follow-ups, this ranking of things to do with friends by planning effort sorts the options.
It also pairs with the idea in the exciting life formula that novelty needs a structure around it before it shows up on its own. A printed sheet, a timer and a basket for phones are that structure.
Friends who have sat through Set III with you are also the ones most likely to care when your 7 a.m. proof video from DontSnooze lands in their phone.
Frequently asked questions
How long does each question get?
About 75 seconds. Fifteen minutes divided by twelve questions is 1.25 minutes, and that has to cover both partners answering, so each person gets roughly 37 seconds per question. Question 11, the life story, is the exception: it is a four-minute question by design.
How do I rotate partners with an odd number of friends?
Split into one trio and the rest in pairs, and let the trio answer each question in turn so everyone speaks once before the next question. Six people can form fifteen different pairings, and a set of five rounds exists where nobody repeats a partner, so three of those rounds fit the night.
Do I need the four-minute eye contact part?
No. The list itself is just the 36 questions. The staring segment came into popular retellings through the 2015 essay, and it works poorly in a room of six. Skip it.
Where do I find the full list?
The Greater Good in Action page at UC Berkeley hosts a printable version with the three sets laid out, and the original questions appear in the appendix to the 1997 paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.