Slope Media Group

So, there’s The Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives, The Bachelor and The Real World. It’s called reality, but its goal is entertainment. In any case, from this base of absurd television has evolved a sort of psychological experiment genre that exists under the Reality Television umbrella. Shows in this category use the television medium as a way to investigate a specific hypothesis or research question. We, the audience, watch as an aspect of human nature is scolded, mocked, or revealed-and we are surely entertained, possibly at someone’s expense.

There is an age old question relating to choosing your love interest: Beauty or Brains? Physical attractiveness or Sensational Personality? What is your deciding factor? Well, ABC’s Dating in the Dark explores this query, as three men and three women literally blind date each other. Here’s the premise: these single men and women all live in a house together, but are separated and unable to communicate with one another unless in a pitch black dark room. The “contestants” proceed through a series of rounds, where they all mingle and talk to one another to determine whose personalities connect well, as while being unable to see members of the opposite sex. The contestants whose personalities match well are set up on one-on-one dates—let’s just say a lot of the dates consist of relying on the sense of touching rather than seeing.

Basically, at the end of the show each man and woman is able to see his/her counterpart for just a few moments through a one way window. They then make the decision of whether or not to meet the other on a rooftop balcony and live happily ever after.  So what if one person ends up waiting on the balcony in hope that they are attractive enough for their counterpart? How upsetting of a realization would that be! This show forces individuals to choose between shallowness and genuineness. Is this show brilliant or is it cruel? There’s a fine line.

ABC’s other psychological reality television series is called What Would You Do? which focuses on the kinds of decisions people make when placed in an ethical dilemma. The show captures split-second decisions, which can often be enlightening and eye opening. Past scenarios have involved a gay teenager being publicly bullied, a “cougar” tutor seducing a teen student in a restaurant, a man slipping drugs into his date’s glass of wine, and a woman collapsing on the street. You would think, and hope, that observers would step in, but they don’t always. This explores the selfish mentality that so many Americans seem to have.

What would you do if put in an act of injustice? Would stand on the sidelines as a bystander, or would you interfere? I’m pretty sure a great deal of you would be afraid to be put under the spotlight.

While these psychological reality television shows different from the entertainment based ones, it could also be possible to examine the psychology behind the rise and popularity of entertainment reality television, but that’s a whole other can of worms that I can open on another occasion.