Verified by 
Relationships
What Can We Learn About Love From ‘The Bachelor’?
How producers amp up the drama and appeal to create love on air.
Posted February 26, 2015
Nineteen seasons in, and I’ll admit, I’m still watching The Bachelor. As a psychologist, I can’t help but be fascinated by this dramatized reality show. As a girl, I’m sitting with my big bowl of popcorn secretly hoping there is a fairytale ending to it all. After all, the show has produced a handful of marriages. This begs the question—how much of the show is real, and what (if anything) can we learn from it?
There’s a whole lot of “crazy.”
The antics behind the women is often what draws viewers in in the first place. From the earliest seasons we’ve seen it all: Women showing up to the first night in a wedding dress, pretending to be pregnant, in a flight attendant costume, with a soccer ball, even with their grandmother in the limo. “What’ll happen next?!” is a key question in the minds of viewers. Not to mention, the dramatic narration which we all admit is laughable. “In this season’s biggest shocker ever…” and my favorite ubiquitous line, “for the first time ever in Bachelor history…” Naturally, the quirky girls on the show get ample airtime and as viewers we eat it up wondering when the Bachelor du jour will come to his senses and let her go. However, as many previous bachelors and bachelorettes have divulged post season, they knew their final 4-5 pretty early on. Everything else is just show. In fact, Dr. Drew Pinsky once shared that in some seasons bachelors have come on the show for media exposure, rather than finding true love as they proclaim. If you recall, the “they’re not here for the right reasons” theme was pretty big for several successive seasons a few years back.
Liquid courage helps… a lot.
In one season of the bachelorette, one of the women admitted that she was surrounded by alcohol at all times and drank far more than she ever intended. Taping can occur late into the night as individuals become more and more inebriated. Naturally, social inhibition goes down and the drama gets played up. Not to mention that many times contestants are type-casted. There’s the secretive quiet one, the loud-mouth party girl, the psychiatrically questionable one, the one with “walls,” the one with the dark past… Many times these do not accurately portray the women but naturally make for excellent television. And with the help of alcohol, a lot of the best lines come out.
Further, it has been suggested that while these contestants undergo psychological screenings, sometimes the psychologically unstable individuals are the ones who get cast. In Pinsky’s book, The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America, he shares, “reality-show producers have told us they consciously seek out contestants who are vain and controlling, because they make for more dramatic, watchable television” (p. 127). Furthermore, he discusses the fluidity of standards for mental health. While those who are in danger of harming themselves or others are likely to be screened out, “if they’re psychologically disturbed enough to create some real drama, the better. As far as reality shows are concerned, emotionally healthy, stable people just don’t make ‘good TV’” (p. 70).
The “Scarcity Principle” is key.
An excellent analysis of the lure and backstage puppetry of The Bachelor comes from Dr. Shauna Springer. In her book, Marriage, for Equals: The Successful Joint (Ad)Ventures of Well-Educated Couples, she discusses the idea of the scarcity principle. The idea that when demand exceeds supply, the limited supply suddenly starts to look very attractive. If you notice, many of the women develop crushes on the Bachelor almost instantaneously. They feed off of each other’s attractions. Very rarely do women actually reject the rose that is presented to them. They want what everyone else sees as being attractive regardless of whether or not they possess those feelings themselves. It’s not unlike blindly following a trend regardless of how ridiculous it may be. Rainbow-color framed Ray Bans, anyone?
Adrenaline works to their advantage.
Another often used tactic to seal in attraction by show producers is the adrenaline card. This season, we finally had a reprieve from it, as no one was challenged to face a life fear like bungee jumping off a bridge, or climbing a skyscraper. There were no girls in tears, clinging with terror to the bachelor, as he allayed their fears and was the hero when she finally overcame her phobia. The idea behind his antic being that the female contestant mistake her rush of adrenaline over the activity for overwhelming love for the bachelor.
World travel is exhilarating. Period.
Who can resist being whisked away to far off destinations? Be they tropical islands, historical European vacations, or a place that gives the women an excuse to shed all the many layers of clothing they already wear (not), the traveling is what gets many of the women. It only adds to the fantastical quality of the show. Who wouldn’t fall in love when kissed at the top of the Eiffel Tower with fireworks in the background? Or decide they have found happily ever after traipsing through a destination they never would have visited otherwise? The grandeur of it all is what often influences all the contestants. In fact, this season, there has been very little of such travel which is appropriate given that the ladies are being asked to consider living on a farm in rural Iowa. However, in seasons past, it has been the perfect way of sealing the deal for many contestants.
Cattiness does not always prevail.
At its inception, The Bachelor aimed to be a classier version of reality tv. By touting good moral values involving finding marriage, it sought to create drama while maintaining a semblance of integrity. As such, when viewers start to lose faith in the show (cue: Playboy clip from a contestant with body parts blacked out?!), they immediately depict these individuals being ousted from the show. A girl cheers for another girl’s downfall? That’s the cue for her to leave. In fact, the show often even plays up the virginity card as if to say, “see, we do pick wholesome girls. The other women just provided a stark contrast so you really appreciate the final 2.”
Hard to get often works.
Relatedly, once the dramatics start to get out of hand, typically it is the more reserved girls that suddenly start to shine. Anyone can sneak into the bachelor’s bedroom or tent at night. Anyone can take off all their clothes and start running into the ocean. But the one who shies away is more likely “wife material” and not a girlfriend that some bachelors end up choosing in the end. In fact, the final two typically boils down to one of two options—safe choice, possible wife, and fun, flirty, “we’ll see where it goes.” Naturally, physical attraction can play a key role and tip the scale in one direction or another. But at the same time, some guys can’t resist the lure of a sweet and sometimes even mysterious girl.
So what will happen on the dramatic conclusion of the Bachelor? I suppose we’ll all have to tune in and see…
For live Bachelor tweeting, follow me on Twitter at MillenialMedia (just kidding, I don't live tweet).
