“Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone—not comedy—mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter,” Provine concluded. Laughter is powerful, he wrote, because it is contagious, “immediate and involuntary, involving the most direct communication possible between people: Brain to brain.”19

There was one other key finding in the Harvard study of speed daters: Follow-up questions are particularly powerful. “Follow-ups are a signal that you’re listening, that you want to know more,”22 one

It is important to note that matching isn’t mimicry. As you’ll see in the forthcoming chapters, we need to genuinely understand what someone is feeling, what they want, and who they are. And then, to match them, we need to know how to share ourselves in return. When we align, we start to connect, and that’s when a meaningful conversation begins.

But when the Arons, in their experiment, told people to go back and forth and “share your answer with your partner, then let him or her share their answer to the same question with you,” people started to bond. “Reciprocity is critical,” Arthur Aron told me. “It’s one of the most powerful forces in the world. If you don’t have reciprocity, then

When we ask a meaningful question such as “What’s the best part of working here?,” it pushes the listener to think before replying, and “that’s sometimes enough to get them to start questioning their assumptions, and start listening more,”21 Heilman said.

What are two topics you most want to discuss? • What is one thing you hope to say that shows what you want to talk about? • What is one question you will ask that reveals what others want?

“The single biggest problem with communication,”2 said the playwright George Bernard Shaw, “is the illusion it has taken place.” But scientists have now unraveled many of the secrets of how successful conversations happen. They’ve learned that paying attention to someone’s body, alongside their voice, helps us hear them better. They have determined

The next time you feel yourself edging toward an argument, try asking your partner: “Do you want to talk about our emotions? Or do we need to make a decision together? Or is this about something else?”

He explained that one reason she felt so at ease was likely because of the environment they had created together, how Felix had listened closely, had asked questions that drew out people’s vulnerabilities, how they had all revealed meaningful details about themselves.