“The fact that it worked so well for the cross-ethnic pair was so exciting to me,” she says. Perhaps more surprising, the Fast Friends activity seemed to work well no matter the students’ gender and whether or not they were paired with someone of the same ethnicity. Help children have conversations to build closeness. “There’s a lot of power in the question-and-answer activity.” “It’s amazing how much the students opened up to each other,” says Echols. This suggests that sharing meaningful things about their lives helped bridge the gap between stranger and friend for these middle school kids. Students felt closer to their Fast Friends partner and considered them more of a friend afterward than they did a random student they hadn’t participated in the activity with. Researchers then analyzed how friendships had grown or changed. Two weeks after the activity was over, all the students reported again on how well they knew and felt friendly toward other students in their class. Sample questions included less personal ones like, “What foreign country would you like to live in and why?” and “Do you think boys or girls have it easier?” and more revealing ones like, “How would you describe a true friend?” and “Describe your biggest failure.”īefore and after these sessions, students rated how close they felt to their partner and how much they considered their partner a friend. For the questions, researchers drew from both the original 36 questions procedure and The Kids’ Book of Questions to find ones that were age-appropriate. Because the school had mostly white and Hispanic students, kids from other ethnic groups (Black, Native American, mixed ethnicity, etc.) were grouped together.įor the first two sessions, the partners spent time asking and answering personal questions, while the third session involved them building a tower structure together in competition with other pairs in their class. The researchers used this information to pair them with a student they didn’t know well or consider a friend-either from the same ethnic group or a different ethnic group. That’s what Echols wanted to try.įor her study, 301 young teens at a public Midwestern middle school rated how well they knew other students of the same gender in their class. It has been shown to reduce prejudice and anxiety when people from different cultures are paired up, but it has never been used as a classroom-wide activity in middle school. The 36 questions activity, also known as Fast Friends, involves pairing people together and having them take turns answering questions that become increasingly more personal and require more vulnerability. “This one seems promising.” Using questions to build closeness “There’s a need for a program that’s direct and intentional for building friendships and providing opportunities for more social acceptance,” says Echols. Not only does this exercise appear to help kids feel closer, it seems to work equally well for middle school boys and girls and across ethnic differences. Now, a new study conducted by Leslie Echols of Missouri State University and Jerreed Ivanich of the University of Colorado has found that the famous “ 36 questions” that can help people feel close or even fall in love could help prompt friendships in young teens. From the GGSC to your bookshelf: 30 science-backed tools for well-being.