What To Talk About On A First Date, According To Research

Chatting with a stranger can be uncomfortable in any situation. During a first date, when there’s the potential for romance, making conversation can be especially awkward. This video suggests what to talk about on a first date, according to research.

Man and woman on a date image from Shutterstock

Citing research from various studies, Business Insider’s video tells you what you should (and shouldn’t) talk about during a first date for a better likelihood of a second one. For example, they source a 1997 study researcher Arthur Aron published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Aron gave subjects a list of 36 questions to ask each other, and those questions were designed to “create closeness”. Basically, Aron wanted to see if total strangers could more quickly become friends or even romantic partners by sharing secrets and personal info with each other. The study reported:

In the three studies reported here…the mean was about 4 for each question. This suggests that subjects rated their relationship to their partners of less than an hour to be about as close as the average relationship and their lives and in other people’s lives…A third indication that these studies actually produced some degree of felt closeness is that many subjects maintained some relationship with their partners afterwards.

Of course, it’s just one study, and there are a lot of caveats to the findings, but as the video suggests, sharing secrets or other personal information can help make your first date conversation more engaging.

Additionally, research from author and professor Dan Ariely suggests controversial topics make for better first date conversation. Writing about his own research, Ariely concludes:

Our daters had to choose questions from the list to ask another dater, and could not ask anything else. They were forced to risk it by posing questions that are considered outside of generally accepted bounds. And their partners responded, creating much livelier conversations than we had seen when daters came up with their own question…when people are free to choose what type of discussions they want to have, they often gravitate toward an equilibrium that is easy to maintain but one that no one really enjoys or benefits from. The good news is that if we restrict the equilibria we can get people to gravitate toward behaviours that are better for everyone .

In other words, controversial topics help you get to know each other better, because you’re more likely to share your personal views, opinions and, possibly, experiences.

The video offers a few more tips and suggestions, so you’ll want to check it out above or at the link below.

What you should talk about on a first date, according to research [Business Insider]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


Leave a Reply