In <The big bang theory> , Sheldon and Penny did an experiment designed to see if you can make two people fall in love in a matter of hours. That experiment came from a paper written by Psychologist Arthur Aron and his team. The purpose of this experiment is to find a way to quickly establish a intimate relationship between two strangers. The participants ask each other a series of questions designed to promote intimacy. There are 36 progressive questions, from “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest” to “If you are going to die this evening without any opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone ? Why haven’t you told them?”.
Answering these questions is actually a kind of self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is a process of communication by which one person reveals information about himself or herself to another. One of the purpose of self-disclosure is to promote the intimacy between each others. In the development of a close relationship among peers, one key pattern is personalistic self-disclosure.
And self-disclosure is a reciprocal process. When someone tells you some privacy, it means he or she has truth in you. And you might begin to trust this person and share your personal things with him or her. After answering these questions, the two participants know more about each other and establish a more trustful and intimate relationship. To draw a conclusion, if you want to be intimate with someone, you can do some self-disclosure. It can help you to gain others’ truth.
For your information, here are those magical 36 questions.
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 old a 30-years-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 4 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?
13.If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, who would you want to know?
14.Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
15.What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
16.What do you value most in a friendship?
17.What is your most treasure memory?
18.What is your most terrible memory?
19.If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
20.What does friendship mean to you?
21.What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22.Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of 5 items.
23.How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people?
24.How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
25.Make 3 true “we” statement each. For instance “We are both in this room feeling…”
26.Complete this sentence:”I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”
27.If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
28.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.
29.Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
30.When did your last cry in front of anther person?By yourself?
31.Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
32.What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33.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?
34.Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saying your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be?Why?
35.Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing?Why?
36.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.
scarletthui 
It is really amazing if the answer is “yes” that we can fall in love with a stranger in 36 questions. But when finished reading your post, I primarily understand it may based on the self-disclosure, which means you have trust someone that you tell the private things to him. Ans there is not only this way by answering these questions one by one contribute to the constructing relationship, in fact once we made relationship with someone, we have do the self-disclosure mutually , that we both know things of each other.
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Self-disclosure, which appears during relationship being enhanced, is regarded as a distinct kind of sharing activities between people, especially between girls. However, in my opinion, the best way to strengthen a intimate tie is to listen carefully and try to hear what another one is not saying instead. It’s kind of like social inference, a key motive behind which is to gain sufficient understanding of other people to predict how they will behave and how we should interact with them. Due to change in public’s notion about friendship and advancement of online chatting, we can hardly establish a reasonable balance between work schedule and careful communication with friends. So to some extent, social inference becomes our tools to know about others in a relatively short time, while self-disclosure is another method to let ourselves understood directly(e.g. posting this comment).
What’s more is that, the plot about 36 progressive questions reminds me of something also related to social network. In TBBT season 7 episode 11, Amy claimed that if it weren’t for Sheldon, she didn’t think any of them would sit in the same room to celebrate Christmas. It was true. None of them would know Amy. Howard wouldn’t know Bernadette. Leonard wouldn’t be dating Penny. That is to say, without Sheldon, most of them wouldn’t have met! How awesome social network is!
Last but not least, I’m really into potatoes and tomatoes.:)
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It make sense that we tend to believe people who share secrets with us. I suppose that it depends whether one would like to share his secrets. Some people are restrained and don’t like to talk much about himself. But surely we would like to have a imitate relationship with guys who are more emotional and have a sense of empathetic concern.
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Actually Self-disclosure is a really important in psychology therapy. The efficacy of self-disclosure is widely debated by psychological researchers, and findings have yielded a variety of results, both positive and negative. A typical method of researching such ideas involves self-reports of both therapists and clients. Interestingly, the evaluations of therapists on the positive effects of their own disclosures is far less positive than that of clients’ self-reports. Clients are especially likely to assert that the disclosures of their therapists help in their recovery if the disclosures are perceived as more intimate in content.Clients report that disclosures are helpful when they encourage a positive relationship with the therapist, build trust in their therapists’ abilities and general person, create a feeling of being better understood, and make the therapist seem more human. Much of these results, however, are linked to how skilled the therapist is in disclosing.
Another interesting topic is disclosure of children. Children’s disclosures with their parents has been studied by many, especially recently, after the discoveries of disclosures’ positive relationships with children’s adjustment levels and psychological and physical health. Some go so far as to use the rate of self-disclosure between parents and children as a dominant measure of the strength of their relationship and its health.
Some researchers even found that adults who can’t form a long-term close relationship performed badly in childhood, generally speaking.
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I have watched this episode of TBBT, there is no doubt that using this questions can
strengthen the relationship between two people, it makes them feel more close. But I don’t think it can let two people fall in love with each other because love is an imagine things and it happens in different way in different couples. BTW, if it is really work,but the girl do not want to ask the questions with me, how can I let the girl love me 🙂
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I have to say the 36 questions are very interesting. But personally, I may not fall in love with a stranger in these 36 questions. Although these questions can show a people’s characters and privacy, I think it can only make me know he more and better, but fall in love with a person is not a easy thing. But it is true that if you are honest to others, others will trust you too.
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Indeed, falling in love with someone is difficult. Maybe we can treat these 36 questions as a tool to like people. I think we can always find something nice about a person through these 36 questions.
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I had to say your article is very interesting. I’m also fond of The Big Bang Theory .It is unexpected that you used it in the article. In my opinion, self-disclosure is the most important social interactions. How can two people fall in love due to the 36 progressive questions in dialogue ,the key lies in two people are willing to reveal their true inner thoughts. Social interaction, self-disclosure to make us more active and communicate more smoothly.
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This article reminds me of the TED talk I have watched before. The scientist who introduced these 36 questions talked about her idea of this theory. In fact, she fell in love with her boyfriend after they tried answering the 36 questions. From then on, every time she gave speech, people would ask whether they were still together or have broken up. But she explained that these 36 questions are just giving a chance for people to get closer. Besides, she insisted that falling in love was the easiest part, you can’t count on some questions to help you to retain your relationships. Maybe we really have no need to expect too much on 36 questions, but it is still interesting to use it if we want to make friends with someone~
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I think I would fall in love with someone if I ask 36 questions. It is still difficult to understand and know someone. While I think maybe I will like some girl in online social network, but some one have similar attitude, qualities and interests with me. I will observe someone and talk to someone for a few time to know her thinking.
It is very important to find someone similar and attackable for you. Social network is an amazing place that you can meet different people and maybe your true love will in the short future.
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NEW SKILL GET! hahaha~Anyway, I think the precondition of asking or answering 36 questions between two people is that there is already a good feeling between them. If I don’t like a boy, trying to ask these 36 questions to me, maybe I prefer to make the prevarications rather than telling him the truth.
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Interesting blog! Frankly, I am very interested in some psychological tests or questionnaires so that your blog attracts me. In our society, with the development of economy, the trust of friends are actually reduced less and less, even you have many friends.In my opinion, I highly agree with you that the reason for it is lacking of self-disclosure and communication with each other. Although falling in love with someone is difficult in 36 questions, it indeed reflects some principles of how to earn friend’s trust.Only when we pay the sincerity can get true friendship.So, please be honest to your friends if you want to have his trust.
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Quite interesting! Actually, I have done similar questions before in my friend circle in wechat because I am so curious about what questions can make people fall in love. Then I find some of the questions are quite personal that usually we only share it with our good friends. Just as you said in the blog, the self-disclosure of private personal information is a quick way to establish an intimate relationship, however, I think the depth or extent of self-disclosure matters as well because we are not likely to reveal ourselves too much in front of strangers.
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An intimate relationship with others means that you trust in others and you feel safe to disclosure yourself in front of them. I think it may start from disclosuring yourself or telling people your true feeling.However in an adverse way,disclosuing oneself to a stranger and then fall in love with him or her after these 36 questions, seems a little hard for me. Because for me, the close relationship needs to be built gradually in my life.While I really feel happy if the people I cherish want to talk about these questions with me, which means they really trust me. And after these questions, I can have a deeper understanding of them.So I think the 36 questions really can help people build a more intimate relationship.
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I think it is quite easy for someone to fall in love with online strangers !
In Hong Kong and also APAC region, “Romance Scam” is very common and most of the victims are females ……
You may visit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3JZWloMqqU, a video clip produced by HK Police for more information about this scam.
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I like this topic. At first, I just wander how possible I can quickly fall in love with a stranger guy within a shot times. Base on your 36 questions and conception of self-disclosure, I get some suggestion about how I get up with a new handsome boy. To more involve in realistic life, some guys maybe do more action in how he can get close to a girl, then he can do more self-disclosure. For schock in suddenly self-disclosure. Some girls may be feel fear and get away from this person. Just since the communication is the most complicated task, so we need do a lot of work on analysis of communication skills. BTW, anyway, your post most some theory and thinking more clear to me. I like the question about No.9 and No.12.
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Really interesting! I had no idea that there is study on social networking in big bang theory. And it is interesting to know that self-disclosure is a reciprocal process. Basically, we always disclose ourselves in our daily life. It is important to know the disclosure process.
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An interesting piece of post, thanks. After these 36 question can help me to understand much more about a stranger, however it doesn’t mean i will fail in love with her, unless through the question I feel that we are so match in different aspect. And the most important is that I need to be SINGLE at that moment.
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Interesting topic! I was curious about how to fall in love with someone just with a series of questions and thought it unbelievable before reading the post. Now I think it has some reasons. Generally most people do not open their heart easily to others so that it takes two persons a long time to get familiar with each other. If there’s a series of designed and reasonable questions to help them know each other better and more quickly, the time that they need to acquaint even fall in love with each other could be largely shortened. The title sounds not that impossible now! hhh
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