Romance Media Could Alter Perceptions of Relationships, Study Says

Research says: Probably not.

Carrie Smith, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Mississippi, and two of her students recently published their findings on how Hallmark movies often portray idealistic versions of relationships. Those unrealistic expectations could affect relationships in the real world, Smith said.

"With Hallmark, you're going to have resolution, love, romance and pretty people in 90 to 120 minutes," Smith said. "It delivers every single time, and so to get back to the science, that's where cultivation theory comes in.

"Cultivation theory argues that what you see is kind of what you believe in, that media cultivates belief over time. The more we consume media, and that media consistent provides the same information, the more we will internalize what we are seeing."

Hallmark is famous for its Christmas-themed romances and has often released as many as 40 holiday-themed movies a year. Nearly 80 million people reported watching at least a portion of a Hallmark movie around the holiday season in 2021, and Hallmark was named a top entertainment cable network for 2023.

"People can say they don't watch Hallmark movies, but I guarantee most people have watched at least part of a Hallmark movie, or something like it," Smith said. "Because if you love it, you love it. And if you hate it, you must have come by hating it some way.

"So, you probably watched at least one."

The research found that those who watch more Hallmark movies are more likely to believe in concepts such as relationships are either meant to be or not, soul mates exist and love at first sight, and to believe that people of the opposite sex can never be just friends.

"What we're not saying is that Hallmark causes these things," she said. "It could be that people who hold these beliefs are drawn to Hallmark movies.

"We can't say A causes B or B causes A. But what we can say is that these things are related."

Many Hallmark movies have the same formula: wealthy, attractive person meets wealthy, attractive person, falls in love, encounters conflict, resolves it and lives happily ever after. While fun in theory, real life rarely works out this way, Smith said.

"If you hold your life to that standard or your partner to that standard, you're going to be disappointed," she said. "Because none of these people are real, fleshed-out people. None of them have flaws.

"If I'm going to hold my spouse to that standard, or if he's going to hold me to that standard, we're going to fail."

Media has influenced the way we see each other and society in the past, Smith said. Before the widespread availability of visual media, sitcoms from the '70s and '80s normalized what an American family might look and act like, and television has even been shown to change our political perceptions and cognitive ability.

"We as social psychologists believe that media can affect beliefs, and we always go to violent media affecting violent beliefs and violent behavior," Smith said. "But you have to think about the flip side. Can pro-social media lead to pro-social beliefs? Can romantic media lead to romantic beliefs?

 "If you see it often enough, you start to believe it, so then it is true for you."

Ultimately, Smith's study is a reminder that the media one consumes can shape them, she said. The solution is to be mindful of what one watches, especially what one watches often.

"Like lots of psychology, it's being mindful of the things that we know happen," she said. "How are these beliefs serving you? If it's believing that your partner is awesome and looking for how they're awesome, then maybe that's a good thing.

"But if you're unhappy with your husband or your wife because they're not taking six hours of their day to go walk with you in a pumpkin patch? Then that's unrealistic."

Top: Holiday movies aired on the Hallmark Channel and other networks often portray an idealistic version of relationships. Watching a lot of these movies can affect a person's perception of relationships in the real world, a new study by a UM psychology professor and her students concludes. Graphic by Jordan Thweatt/University Marketing and Communications