In the film Serendipity John Cusack leaves it to fate to decide if Kate Beckinsale is the woman for him

They have long been regarded as the perfect movie for a first date.

But according to a study, romantic comedies such as Bridget Jones’s Diary and Notting Hill could be bad for your love life.

Rather than being harmless entertainment, ‘rom-coms’ give people unrealistic – and potentially unhealthy – expectations about real-life relationships, scientists say.

Researchers found that those who watched romantic comedies were more likely to believe in predestined love than those who preferred other genres of movie.

They were also more likely to believe that perfect relationships happen instantly, and were less likely to believe that couples need to work at relationships.

Watching just one romantic comedy is enough to sway people's attitudes to romantic love, they found.

Dr Bjarne Holmes, who led the research, said: ‘We are not being killjoys – we are not saying that people shouldn't watch these movies. But we are saying that it would be helpful if people were more aware and more critical of the messages in these films.

The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realize.’

For the first part of the study, Dr Holmes and colleagues at the Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, studied 40 box office hits from 1995 to 2005 including You’ve Got Mail, The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan and While You Were Sleeping.

Most of those comedies depicted couples falling instantly in love and promoted the idea of fate – the notion that there is just one perfect mate out there, they found.

‘There’s a notion of destiny and couples in romantic comedies immediately understand each other,’ said Dr Holmes. ‘If you think that’s how things are, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.’

In a second study, Dr Holmes asked around 100 student volunteers to watch Serendipity – the 2001 romantic comedy starring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack, while 100 watched a David Lynch drama.

In a questionnaire after the film ended, students watching the rom-com were far more likely to believe in fate and destiny than those who had watched the ‘straight’ film.

A third study found that fans of romantic comedies had far stronger beliefs in predestined love.

爱情喜剧一直被视为最适合第一次约会时看的电影。

但一项研究显示，看浪漫爱情喜剧如《BJ单身日记》和《诺丁山》等，不利于你的感情生活。

研究人员称，爱情喜剧并非无害，它会让人对现实的爱情产生不现实甚至可能不健康的期待。

研究人员发现，看爱情喜剧的人比看其它题材影片的人更相信“缘份天注定”。

此外，他们更愿意相信一见钟情，而不太相信两人之间的感情需要经营。

研究发现，只看一场爱情喜剧就足以影响人们对于爱情的态度。

研究负责人布阿恩?赫尔姆斯说：“我们并不是在扫兴，并不说大家不应该看这些电影，而是想强调，人们在看这些电影时应带着清醒的头脑和批判的眼光，这才不会受其影响。”

问题是尽管多数人知道那种完美的爱情不现实，但一些人还是无法摆脱其影响。

在研究的第一部分，来自爱丁堡赫尔特?沃特大学家庭与个人情感实验室的赫尔姆斯博士及其同事对1995年至2005年的40部票房大片进行了研究，其中包括《电子情缘》、《爱上新郎》、《曼哈顿灰姑娘》和《二见钟情》等。

其中多数影片都讲述了男女主角一见钟情的故事，宣扬了“缘份天注定”的爱情观，即你注定和某一个人有缘。

赫尔姆斯博士说：“这些爱情剧中都有‘命定’的因素，影片中的男女主角也都‘心有灵犀’。如果你相信这些东西，等于是自寻烦恼。”

在第二次研究中，赫尔姆斯博士让约100名学生志愿者观看2001年由凯特·贝金塞尔和约翰·库萨克主演的影片《缘份天注定》，同时让另外100人观看大卫·林奇导演的一部影片。

之后的调查问卷显示，看了《缘分天注定》的学生对于命运和宿命的信奉程度大大超过看现实主义电影的人。

第三次研究发现，爱看浪漫爱情喜剧的人对于缘份的信奉远超过其他人。

Vocabulary:

killjoys:扫兴的人

David Lynch:大卫-林奇是当代美国电影界的一个多面手，既是著名的编剧、导演，又是优秀的电视制作、摄影师、漫画家、作曲家和书画刻印艺术家。他在主流派和超现实主义之间保持着一种游刃有余的平衡，在银幕上无情地揭露了现实生活中黑暗和极端暴力的一面，使作品散发出独特的个人魅力。与同时代的电影制作者相比，他得到了广泛的认同。