Romantic Memes and Beliefs: Influence on Relationship Satisfaction

Abstract

The study aims to understand the influence of romantic memes and beliefs on relationship satisfaction. Beliefs which lead to undesirable outcomes in the relationship are defined as “toxic beliefs”. As media plays an important role in socializing young people, the popular love memes produced by media nurtures the beliefs of young people. The current experimental study on emerging adults (N = 90) seeks to understand the influence of short-term exposure (Cognitive Priming) of romantic memes on romantic beliefs and relationship satisfaction of emerging adults. Participants of experimental group 1 (n = 30) and experimental group 2 (n = 30) were primed with different types of memes (a) popular/normative memes (b) counter-intuitive/off-beat memes followed by the administration of tools assessing romantic beliefs and relationship satisfaction. Participants (n = 30) of control group were only assessed on romantic beliefs and relationship satisfaction. Broadly, the study hypothesized that (a) there will be influence of priming resulting in significant differences on beliefs and satisfaction scores in experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 as well as control group and experimental group 2. (b) There will be influence of priming resulting in no significant differences on beliefs and satisfaction scores in experimental group 1 and control group. Results of the study suggest that there is an influence of priming romantic memes only in the domain of popular beliefs in relationship beliefs scale and overall there is no influence of priming on romantic beliefs and relationship satisfaction across the groups. The current study provides useful information about how memes influence young people, and discusses the importance of evaluating memes carefully before subscribing to any meme.