Good questions to ask someone you just met
Most lists of questions to ask a stranger have the same problem. The questions are fine, and they do not help. Coming up with a question was never the hard part. The hard part is what you do with the answer.
Follow-up questions do the work
Researchers counted the questions in real conversations, and people who asked more were better liked. The part you would not guess is which questions. The effect ran through follow-ups specifically: the ones that pick up what the other person just said. Not openers, not topic changes. Speed daters who asked more of them were more likely to get a second date.
Told how many to ask, the group that produced the effect was asked for at least nine. The comparison group was told at most four. Those are the quarter marks of a real conversation: the average in the researchers' own pilot was closer to seven.
What a follow-up looks like
They say something. Instead of answering with your own version, or moving to your next topic, you ask about theirs.
- "You said you'd just moved — what made you go?"
- "What's the bit of that you actually like?"
- "How long have you been doing that?"
- "Was that always the plan, or did it just happen?"
- "What's the worst part of it?"
- "You said it was fine — is fine good or is fine bad?"
- "What would you be doing instead?"
- "How did you end up in that?"
- "Is that normal, or was that a strange one?"
- "What did you make of that?"
None of these are clever, and that is deliberate. You do not need a repertoire. You need to spend a turn on their answer instead of your next remark.
Openers, since you came here for a list
- "What's your day been like?"
- "What are you avoiding right now?"
- "What's the last thing that genuinely annoyed you?"
- "What's something you've changed your mind about?"
- "What are you supposed to be doing instead of this?"
Each is only useful because of what you do next. Ask your second question about their answer and the conversation is running. Move to the next item on the list and you are conducting a survey.
Two honest limits
This is about being liked, not about the conversation being good for you. Someone who asks everything and answers nothing has told nobody anything. If that is already your habit, the useful direction is answering more.
And "at least nine" was an instruction in an experiment, not a target. Counting your own questions mid-conversation is a reliable way to have a worse one.
Where this comes from
People who ask more questions are better liked, and the effect is carried by follow-up questions rather than by questions in general.
What the study actually did
Three studies of real two-person conversations. In one, 430 people were paired for online get-to-know-you chats. In another, people were instructed to ask either at least nine questions or at most four — numbers taken from how much real conversations actually vary — and the high-question group was better liked. In a third, the researchers counted follow-up questions in genuine face-to-face speed dates: daters who asked more of them were more likely to be asked on a second date.
What it doesn't show. That asking questions is good for the asker. The measured outcome is how much the other person liked them, which is not the same as the conversation being worth having. "At least nine" was an experimental instruction and not a recommended target — the studies did not test whether counting your own questions helps, and it plausibly hurts. Online chat and in-person speed dating, both non-anonymous.
Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., & Gino, F. (2017). It doesn't hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430–452 ·
10.1037/pspi0000097
