Dr Michelle Dickinson: Nanotechnologist reveals why going to the movies is a good first date idea

While it might seem really traditional, heading to the cinema to watch a movie for a first date could be a really great way to get to know a stranger, according to new research out this week.  

The study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science found that laughing during a comedy or crying together over a sad film was powerful in strengthening social bonds. 

The study took pairs of strangers and measured their emotional and physiological responses as they watched emotionally charged videos together.   

In addition to asking the participants to rate their emotional experiences they also measured their heart activity with an electrocardiogram, their respiratory activity and their skin conductance. 

They found: 

Positive Emotions Foster Connection

Participants who watched positive videos felt a stronger sense of connection and social identification with each other, suggesting that positive emotions enhance feelings of mutual understanding and affiliation. 

Impact of Negative Emotions

Even with negative emotional videos, an increase in positive feelings during the experience correlated with greater bonding. This suggests that while negative emotions capture attention, it’s positive emotional responses that most reliably foster connection. 

Joint Attention Matters

Watching the same video with a shared focus boosted prosocial attitudes and feelings of connection, especially in highly emotional contexts. This shared attention helped participants feel more connected, highlighting the power of collective emotional experiences. 

Physiological Synchrony Enhances Bonding

The study also found that participants’ physiological responses, such as heart rate and respiratory patterns, tended to synchronize during emotionally intense videos. This alignment was linked to a stronger sense of connection between individuals. 

The study illustrates that both positive and negative emotions can enhance social bonds, with positive emotions being particularly influential in creating a sense of connectedness. Shared attention and synchronised physiological responses amplify these effects, making emotionally charged experiences powerful catalysts for social bonding.

So if you have a first date scheduled for this weekend - find a comedy and head to the movies to test how well you bond with your date. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
And joining me now is doctor Michel to concern now
a girl with our science study.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Of the week. Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
This is an interesting one. And as I just meant
to before the break, you know, what would be your
sort of safest, the most comfortable first date, And I
think going to the movies. It kind of does depend
on what movie you go to because it could be
a very awkward first date. It's depending on the material.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
And I was like, oh, first date, why would you
go to the movies because you can't talk to the person,
Like why wouldn't you Like shouldn't you go somewhere where
you get to know them, like a cafe or a
bar or whatever. But actually research that's the best place
to go on a first date is the movies, and
you should watch a comedy together if you want to
bond with this new person. This is all based on

(00:56):
So this is a new research published in the Royal
Society Open Science Journal. You can read it. It's a
lovely easy to read per and the research is based
on research that happened over a century ago by sociologists
called Emil Durkham who observed intent emotional events reinforce social
bonds between group members, and he sees that this is

(01:17):
a foundation of things like sporting events or social protests
where you're basically you're with a group of shd experience
and you're emotionally charged and you feel really bonded. And
what they found in that research is that if you're
in sort of these emotionally charged social gatherings, you actually
feel more connected to the strangers that you're next to
and more committed to this group of people that you

(01:38):
don't know. So they took this one hundred year old
research and said, I wonder if it applies to dating.
So they ended up with one hundred and twelve volunteers.
They paired them up, they sat them side by side,
sixty centimeters from each other, very specific in a dimly
lit room with a movie screen, and they made them
watch three emotion enticing videos. One was a positive video,

(02:01):
it was a comedy. One was a negative video, which
was a documentary of the suffering of animals. One was
a neutral video, which was somebody taking footage of a
university library and you just walked through looks on and
as they want with this movie together or these movies together.
They had an ECG measuring heart activity. They should their

(02:24):
respiratory activity so how fast they were breathing, and skin
conductance to look at how you're sweating and other things
like that to measure your emotional response. And what they
found is that if you're watching a comedy together and
it's fun and you're laughing together at the same things,
even if you don't know each other, you have a
stronger sense of connection and a self identification of yourself

(02:46):
which helps you identify with the other person. And those
positive emotions enhnce your feelings of mutual understanding and affiliation
with this stranger, meaning that you're more likely to get
on with them, to bond them, to feel connected to them.
And I was like, who would have thought, like this
is pretty weird, but it maybe when you think about
things like social protests. I hadn't thought about these emotional

(03:09):
things actually human with social creatures, right, we actually need
these things to bring us together. So that was the study.
They said, if you want to go on first date,
take them to a comedy, sit next to each other,
and you'll have a great time.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I love it just avoid The R sixteen contains nudity, violence,
and sexual content.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Maybe that could just be awkward.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio