What rom-coms teach us about real-life relationships: psych study
Here’s how to write your own blockbuster romance.
Psychologists revealed some of the biggest takeaways people can learn about their love life from romantic comedies.
Eli Finkel, a Northwestern University psychologist and author of “The All-or-Nothing Marriage,” and Paul Eastwick, a social psychologist at the University of California in Davis, who focuses on attraction and close relationships, studied useful relationship tips from classic rom-coms and published their findings in the new report.
“Our hope was that famous movies (When Harry Met Sally, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Challengers) could serve as Trojan horses for smuggling serious ideas and scientific evidence into the public discourse about relationships,” the pair told the Association for Psychological Science.
In the latest episode of the duo’s episode, “Love Factually,” they explain different lessons the films have taught them, from negative reciprocity and building intimacy to relationship must-haves.
“As psychologists, we largely study how people subjectively experience their relationships, but relationship science also extends into related social science subfields, such as sociology, communications and family studies,” they said.
One of the first lessons learned was the relationship-destroying power of negative reciprocity.
“I have to confess I am particularly partial to ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind‘ seeing the movie just about saved my relationship with my then-boyfriend (now husband),” Jessica Stillman wrote in an Inc. opinion piece. “But apparently, I’m not the only one who’s had their relationship [emotional intelligence] raised by this strange but affecting movie.”
In “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” negative reciprocity, a dismissive exchange that receives a disproportionate response, is seen between the two characters but isn’t encouraged if you want a healthy relationship dynamic.
“If I lash out and then you lash out and then I lash out to that and so forth, we end up in a very significant fight, the sort of fight that’s predictive on average of divorce,” warned relationship expert Finkel and Eastwick.
Although science proves negative reciprocity to be a recipe for disaster, according to a recent study published in Communications Psychology, stepping away from the argument for five minutes can help diffuse the situation.
Another lesson of the importance is building intimacy through reciprocal self-disclosure, which can help strengthen a relationship. An example of this can be seen in “Before Sunrise,” where a young traveling couple named, Jesse and Celine exchange deep questions and answers throughout the night.
This approach allows couples to ask each other a series of thought-provoking questions that gradually become more intimate, increasing their feelings of emotion and closeness.
“Where you say a thing and then I say a thing. And each of us is taking turns in terms of self-disclosing, sharing private information, personal information about ourselves. That’s where you really get, on average, the deepest sense of attraction and connection to each other,” the scientists continue.
Eastwick and Finkel agree that “Before Sunrise” demonstrated the highly encouraged concept well.
“The movie does just a magnificent job of, almost like a tennis match, passing back and forth, who’s sharing private, interesting information about themselves,” they add.
Lastly, certain behaviors should be displayed in relationships versus evolving interests.
Eastwick and Finkel admired the relationship aspect of “La La Land,” which demonstrates how a couple shaped each other throughout their partnership.
The men point out that people tend to have a list of qualities they seek in a partner, but this list never actually aligns once they find a romantic interest. Instead, the duo will adapt to each other’s preferences.
“We think we want somebody who comes already pre-packaged sharing our values. But it’s more useful to think about the ways that partners share and sculpt each other,” Eastwick and Finkel share.
For example, in “La La Land,” the couple shares different tastes in music. Seb is passionate about Jazz, while Mia is not. However, the more time they spend together, she eventually becomes infatuated with the music genre herself. This dynamic could have been a deal breaker at the beginning of their relationship, but it eventually fizzled out.
“A relationship is something the partners co-create. It isn’t something that can be distilled down to characteristics of the two partners—distilled down to something knowable in advance. In large part, it’s what the partners make of it,” Eastwick and Finkel said.
