Circling Science

The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings

Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine N. Aron, Robert Darrin Vallone and Renee J. Bator · 1997

Evidence
Experiment
Kind
Journal article
peer-reviewed
Method
Experiments with pairs of students who didn’t know each other
Published
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377
Practices
Structured self-disclosure

Adjacent

Studies a related practice or mechanism, without testing Circling.

Pairs of strangers who took turns asking progressively more personal questions felt closer afterwards than pairs who made small talk. This is the research behind the “36 questions”.

In the first study, pairs of students spent 45 minutes either on escalating self-disclosure tasks or on small talk. The self-disclosure pairs ended up clearly closer, though, as the authors note, still only at about the 30th percentile of students’ ratings of their own closest relationship. Later studies found that the effect didn’t depend on matching partners for agreement, on expecting to be liked, or on making closeness an explicit goal.

What it doesn’t show

Measures immediate closeness between strangers, as the pairs rated it themselves, not lasting relationships, and not Circling.

Directions that build on it

  1. Active ingredients

    Builds on 10 works · 3 funding routes

    Which parts of the practice do the work: present-moment attention, disclosure, or hearing how you affect others?

  2. A controlled trial of Circling

    Builds on 5 works · 5 funding routes

    Does a Circling programme reduce loneliness or build closeness more than an active control?

Links

Cite

Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R. D., & Bator, R. J. (1997). The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297234003