This is a collab event with Le Love Club, a social club that curates events and facilitates connection for love in all its forms. Instead of our normal Q&A, you can enjoy a post-lecture discussion where you're matched with other attendees based on compatibility. After registration, you'll receive a link to complete the compatibility survey. Please complete prior to lecture.
✨ What if your favorite rom-com has been teaching you about love all along—but not always getting the science right?
Join Dr. Paul Eastwick, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, head of the Social-Personality Psychology program, and director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory, for a scientific look at what Hollywood gets right—and wrong—about love.
Rom-coms and romantic films have given us some of our most enduring ideas about attraction: love strikes like a bolt of lightning, women want commitment more than men, and somewhere out there is the perfect person just waiting to be found. But how well do these familiar stories hold up when we put them to the scientific test?
Drawing on decades of relationship research, Paul will explore what we actually know about how attraction develops, who seeks out relationships, and whether lasting love is more about finding the perfect match—or creating one over time. Along the way, we’ll put films like Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Barbie, Materialists, and La La Land under the microscope to see where Hollywood romance aligns with real relationship science…and where it takes a few creative liberties.
Paul Eastwick is a Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he heads the Social-Personality Psychology program and directs the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory. He is the author of Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection and co-host of the Love Factually podcast, where he and longtime collaborator Eli Finkel analyze rom-coms and romantic dramas through the lens of