Ever wondered about the scientific accuracy of relationships in your favorite rom-coms? Paul Eastwick, a psychology professor at UC Davis, released Love Factually, a podcast analyzing romantic comedies and dramas through the lens of relationship science, on Sept. 25. He has been teaching PSC 150, a class on the science of attraction in close relationships at Davis since 2016, and studies evolutionary science and its connection to close relationships and attraction.
Eastwick partnered with Eli Finkel, a psychology professor at Northwestern University with whom he has been doing research for almost 20 years, to create the podcast.
“It occurred to me and Eli that we can highlight our whole field pretty well by using movies as a medium,” Eastwick said. The goal of the podcast is to make their research, and the broader field of relationship science, more accessible.
The episodes are structured so that listeners are given a recap of the movie, followed by an analysis of the portrayal of relationships. “We first remind you about what happens in the film. Then, we analyze what the movie gets right, we highlight misconceptions about relationships and moral quandaries in the movie, and we discuss novel research ideas posed by the movie that our field can't yet address,” Eastwick said.
Through the podcast’s creation, Eastwick and Finkel have been able to address and identify certain patterns in the movies that are reflected in the research. For example, the well-proven phenomenon of self-expansion is a recurring theme in rom-coms. “It's a truism in close relationship research that when people get into a relationship, they take on new interests and engage in new activities, they grow in a profound, psychological way,” he said.
On the other hand, this genre perpetuates misconceptions, too. For example, many movies rely on the false idea that there is an absolute societal consensus that certain people are either fit or unfit to form romantic relationships. “This isn't how it works at all. The agreement about who is dateable is very far from perfect, and so we explain in the podcast why that is and why we know this from the science,” he said.
Through the films they cover in season 1 of Love Factually, Eastwick and Finkel have decided that La La Land and A Portrait of a Lady on Fire are the most scientifically accurate, while Ten Things I Hate About You is “perhaps encouraging people to do some really, really dumb things.” The podcast is covers La La Land and When Harry Met Sally for the first two episodes, which are available now. The remaining pre-recorded episodes will be released the following eight Mondays.