Questions that get past small talk

In 1997 the psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues published a study that has since become famous. Pairs of strangers took turns asking each other a set of 36 questions, in a fixed order, for about 45 minutes. The questions started light and became gradually more personal. Afterwards, the pairs reported feeling markedly closer than pairs who spent the same time on small talk.

The magic was not in any single question. It was in the structure: both people disclosed, in turn, and the depth rose slowly enough that it never felt like a leap. Each answer earned the next question.

Job questions invite a label, not a story. "I'm an accountant." Then what? Good questions have three qualities: they can't be answered in one word, they ask for a preference or a memory rather than a fact, and they give the other person a choice about how deep to go. "What's something you've changed your mind about recently?" can be answered with a film or with a worldview. The other person decides.

Two rules make any list work better. First, answer your own question too; a conversation where only one person discloses is an interview. Second, follow up. The list is a starting point. The best question is almost always a follow-up to the last answer.