Surely, the technique could be tested more rigorously....
Select a pair randomly. Put the pair into a room with one two-seat bench and one stool, with one table accessible from both, and at least one obvious video camera. Ask the participants to complete a survey, captioning 20 photographs with multiple-choice descriptions of smells. The subjects are asked to place "all metal objects" into lockers.
Escort the pair to the "treatment room", immobilize their heads in a plastic frame, such that their faces are 5 cm apart, and stick a device up their noses that sprays a thin vaporizer mist. Hands and feet would be restrained, such that each person would be unable to touch the misting device. The experiment assistant leaves the room and causes a "room is being locked" sound to be heard inside. The lighting in the room would be set to 555nm green, the audio would play a quiet "electrical equipment" hum, and the pair would be left alone with a visible countdown clock for exactly 30 minutes, with beep tones sounding at 0:20:00, 0:25:00, 0:29:00, 0:29:15, 0:29:30, 0:29:45, 0:30:00. At 0:30:00, the lighting returns to normal, and a "room is being unlocked" sound is heard before the door opens.
The control group gets a misting of water droplets. The experimental group gets oxytocin and vasopressin.
Then the experiment assistant takes them out of the apparatus and returns them to the other room, where they are asked to repeat the image captioning task. The objective experimental data will examine whether a pair that elects to use the stool before the treatment will share the bench afterward, and whether the participants exchange any contact information during the debriefing period.
I think it's important to not inform the subjects that the experimenter is trying to make them fall in love, because expectations do crazy things to psych experiment results.
I could say the same about a few psych experiments that were actually conducted. The Stanford prison experiment [0] seems rather awful, and it actually got released as a thriller this year [1].
But this particular one seems to be much like Clockwork Orange and Human Centipede, staring into one another's eyes and speaking candidly.
Select a pair randomly. Put the pair into a room with one two-seat bench and one stool, with one table accessible from both, and at least one obvious video camera. Ask the participants to complete a survey, captioning 20 photographs with multiple-choice descriptions of smells. The subjects are asked to place "all metal objects" into lockers.
Escort the pair to the "treatment room", immobilize their heads in a plastic frame, such that their faces are 5 cm apart, and stick a device up their noses that sprays a thin vaporizer mist. Hands and feet would be restrained, such that each person would be unable to touch the misting device. The experiment assistant leaves the room and causes a "room is being locked" sound to be heard inside. The lighting in the room would be set to 555nm green, the audio would play a quiet "electrical equipment" hum, and the pair would be left alone with a visible countdown clock for exactly 30 minutes, with beep tones sounding at 0:20:00, 0:25:00, 0:29:00, 0:29:15, 0:29:30, 0:29:45, 0:30:00. At 0:30:00, the lighting returns to normal, and a "room is being unlocked" sound is heard before the door opens.
The control group gets a misting of water droplets. The experimental group gets oxytocin and vasopressin.
Then the experiment assistant takes them out of the apparatus and returns them to the other room, where they are asked to repeat the image captioning task. The objective experimental data will examine whether a pair that elects to use the stool before the treatment will share the bench afterward, and whether the participants exchange any contact information during the debriefing period.
I think it's important to not inform the subjects that the experimenter is trying to make them fall in love, because expectations do crazy things to psych experiment results.