01 Sources
Where the questions come from.
Kept current from the source ledger
Every question in Sunny names where it came from. Most of them we wrote ourselves; the rest come from a short list of sources that are genuinely free to use, and this page is that list — along with the research the daily ritual's design leans on, and the credit each one is owed. The build fails if a question ever claims a source that is not on this page.
Sources we use directly
Question material taken from these ships on each row's own terms:
-
International Personality Item Pool (ipip.ori.org) — 3,000+ public-domain personality items; already in Love Match verbatim (BFAS)
Terms: Public domain "for any purpose". Attribution shown anyway. -
ICAR published norming data (Condon & Revelle 2014) — Calibration facts for the IQ score (proportion-correct across 96,958 people) — data, never items
Terms: Facts are not licensed content. Items themselves are RESEARCH-ONLY and are NOT used. -
Military OneSource / DoD MC&FP (militaryonesource.mil) — US-government couples & deployment content — separation questions, reunion prep, deployment communication. The one LDR-native source that is verified public domain
Terms: "…in the public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise used without the department's permission unless otherwise noted." Cite; imply no DoD endorsement; logged-in Member Connect content and third-party materials are NOT covered. -
ACF/OPRE HMRE compendia and other US federal reports — Catalogues and report text (federal works are public domain). The measures they index keep their own licences — verify per measure
Terms: Public domain for the reports themselves.
Research the design is built on
These gave us ideas, structures and findings — never their words. The depth ladder, the daily formats and the savouring cards each trace back to one of them, with thanks:
- Aron et al. 1997 (PSPB) — The *procedure*: escalating reciprocal self-disclosure in three sets, ending with questions about the dyad itself. NOT the 36 items — no open licence exists; even Berkeley's hosting is personal-use only.
- Altman & Taylor 1973, social penetration — Depth taxonomy: breadth × depth, peripheral facts → attitudes → core. The `depth 1–5` field.
- Reis & Shaver 1988 — Intimacy = disclosure → response → *perceived* responsiveness. Why the reveal moment (see the answer, react, see the reaction) matters more than the question.
- Stafford & Canary 1991 — The five LDR maintenance strategies — positivity, openness, assurances, networks, tasks — as question categories. Assurances and openness track LDR satisfaction hardest.
- Borelli et al. 2015 — Relational savoring — reliving one specific past moment of closeness — as a prompt *format*, tested on separated couples. Our savour cards already do this.
- Kardas, Kumar & Epley 2022 — People underestimate how good deep questions feel — the licence to nudge deeper than users would self-select.
- Gottman's Sound Relationship House — Three question *genres* to rotate: partner-knowledge, appreciation, daily turning-toward. Card text is copyrighted and NOT used.
Everything else is ours
Any question that does not cite a source above was written in-house, checked for originality against the products that came before us, and ships as our own wording. Ideas and topics are free for anyone to build on; sentences are not, so we write our own.
Nothing on this page implies endorsement by any of the people or institutions named. In particular, use of Military OneSource material implies no endorsement by the U.S. Department of Defense.