A Pair of Psychologists Mined Rom-Coms for Relationship Lessons. Here Are Their 3 Biggest Takeaways 3 Relationship Lessons You Can Learn From Rom Coms, According to Relationship Scientists

Eli Finkel is a Northwestern University psychologist and author of The All-or-Nothing Marriage. Paul Eastwick is a UC Davis social psychologist whose research focuses on attraction and close relationships. Both are hard-nosed relationship scientists who spend their days immersed in experiments and data. 

And not just because they love a good meet-cute story as much as the rest of us. They thought romantic movies would be a great way to illustrate fundamental truths about how relationships work (and what causes them to fall apart). 

“Our hope was that famous movies (When Harry Met Sally, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Challengers, etc.) could serve as Trojan horses for smuggling serious ideas and scientific evidence into the public discourse about relationships,” the pair explained to the Association for Psychological Science. 

So what did they find watching classic rom-coms like Clueless and La La Land? You can learn all their lessons by listening to the podcast, but here’s a taste of three useful takeaways for anyone looking to strengthen their relationships. 

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). But apparently, I’m not the only one who’s had their relationship EQ raised by this strange but affecting movie about heartbroken exes Clementine and Joel who try to erase their memories of their relationship. 

You know how, when someone you’re close to speaks to you with a little bit of a nasty tone, you sometimes come back more aggressively to try and register your displeasure? But then the other person just reacts to your aggression by being more aggressive, and then suddenly you’re in a full-blown fight? That’s negative reciprocity, and it plays a big part in the demise of Joel and Clementine’s relationship. 

“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,” warn the relationship scientists. 

Though science predicts bad things for couples (or, for that matter, friends or co-workers) that let negative reciprocity get out of hand, it also suggests a way to short-circuit it. Just take a breather. A recent study published in Communications Psychology shows pairs can turn the temperature way down on an interaction just by stepping away from the argument for a mere five seconds. 

If reciprocal negativity can tear down a relationship, reciprocal disclosure can build one. To see this in action, just watch Before Sunrise, which chronicles the romantic night a pair of young travelers experience together when they meet by chance on a train. 

You may have heard of this concept before thanks to the viral sensation “36 Questions That Lead to Love.” The hit article insisted that by asking a series of gradually more intimate questions, you can build feelings of increasing closeness with just about anyone. This is just what Jesse and Celine, the main characters in the movie, do over the course of their night together. 

Turns out the idea isn’t just a movie gimmick or internet craze. The power of reciprocal self-disclosure is backed by serious research done by Art Aron, Sue Sprecher, Stan Trager, and others. Eastwick and Finkel explain how to put it to work if you’re looking to quickly build closeness with just about anyone: 

“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,” they report. 

La La Land is probably most remembered for being mis-announced as the winner of the Best Picture Oscar, but for Eastwick and Finkel the biggest takeaway from the musical chronicling the relationship of Seb and Mia is as an illustration of how much we shape our partners over time. 

People, the pair of relationship scientists write, often have long lists of preferences for what they’re looking for in a partner. We tell ourselves we want someone who loves hiking or travel or whatever. But in real life, as in La La Land, couples rarely start out matching each other’s preferences exactly. Instead, they adapt to better suit each other over time. 

“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 note. In La La Land, Seb is a jazz obsessive, while Mia initially has no interest in jazz. It might seem like a deal breaker, but Seb’s passion for jazz is contagious and Mia slowly begins to hear the appeal. Seb and Mia ”never would have made it to step one if this had been like checking people off on online dating,” the pair note. This should probably cause you to pause and consider if you’re out there looking for love (or maybe even an employee), is your list of must-haves too long?