SIFTing Through Relationship Misinformation on Reality TV

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This post was co-authored by Dr. Liesel Sharabi and Dr. Asheley Landrum.

Reality TV has no shortage of eyebrow-raising moments, but when "Naked Attraction" hit HBO Max in 2023, it sparked even more conversations than usual. The show, where contestants bare all (literally) in a quest for love, pairs its revealing premise with sciencey-sounding claims. Naturally, we were intrigued.

In episode three, one statement in particular made us call “bullsh*t!”:

Turns out, you really can judge a man by the size of his balls. Anthropologists in America have discovered that smaller testicles have lower testosterone levels, which suppresses a man’s urge to mate and re-channels his brain activity towards nurturing and child care. So, small balls might mean a bigger, better daddy.

Ummm… What?

Asheley is a media psychologist with an interest in misinformation, and I’m a relationship and data scientist. Together we realized that no one was studying misinformation about relationships in entertainment and social media—and specifically, on dating and matchmaking shows like "Naked Attraction." What does misinformation look like in this context? How can people verify the claims they’re exposed to? We decided to find out.

What’s Relationship Misinformation?

In a recent paper in a special issue of Current Opinion in Psychology on the psychology of misinformation, we introduced the concept of relationship misinformation, defining it as “false or misleading information about relationships that can be evaluated using scientific data.”

Think about those dating shows, TikToks, or pop-culture articles that toss around “science-backed” advice—how often do they oversimplify or exaggerate? "Naked Attraction" gave us the perfect case study to dig into.

How Do You Verify Claims on Reality TV?

When a claim sounds too wild to be true, don’t just shrug it off. Instead, use the media literacy strategy SIFT:

• Stop. Pause before accepting a claim as true.
• Investigate the source. Who’s making the claim? Do they have expertise or bias?
• Find better coverage. Is there a more reliable source addressing the same topic?
• Trace back to the original. From where did the claim originate?

We applied SIFT to the claim and tracked it through layers of media coverage, from cheeky headlines like “Choose Dads with Smaller Nads” in TIME to a scholarly article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Bingo—we found the source! Better yet, we reached out to the study’s lead author for clarification.

So, What’s the Truth?

While the study did explore links between testicle size and caregiving behaviors, the show’s claim exaggerated the findings. In short:

• The researchers found a slight correlation between smaller testes and nurturing tendencies, but testosterone levels weren’t directly linked to parenting in the study.
• No one suggested testicle size determines mate quality or “daddy” potential—those leaps are entertainment fluff.

Why This Matters

Whether it’s reality TV or social media, relationship misinformation shapes how we think about love, compatibility, and even biology. Shows like "Naked Attraction" blur the line between fact and fiction, making it all the more important to question the claims we encounter.

So, can you judge a man as a potential mate by the size of his balls? The science says no. But hey, it makes for great TV.

Dr. Landrum is an Associate Professor of Media Psychology and Science Communication at Arizona State University. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a panelist on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s consensus panel on misinformation, and the interim director of the News Co/Lab at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication