Love At First Psych is an Audible original audiobook (audio drama may also be an apt description since it features a full cast of actors). It is a romance novella with the following premise: two undergraduate students are taking a Social Psychology class all about the psychology of love. They have a group assignment to determine if love at first sight really exists, and they have to do so by interviewing couples. Not to mention, the two students have some sort of history together. With all these familiar tropes of the genre, you know exactly what you’re getting into when you click ‘play’.
I went into the audio drama with appropriate expectations about the story: I was in for a short, fluffy romance, which was what I was looking for. Being a psychologist – in Australia, that means having gone through undergraduate and postgraduate degrees – I had questions about how the story was going to make this premise believable within the context of a psychology degree. Alas, it did not do that well enough, and I have feelings about it. Spoilers ahead.
Psychology is a science
Contrary to what seems to be a popular belief, psychology is a proper science. In universities, we don’t learn how to interpret your personality via handwriting (true story: a relative asked me if I could do this), pick up on lies based on micro-facial expressions, or interpret dreams. Our work is based on the scientific method. In undergrad, we learnt about statistics, understanding evidence-based theories, the brain, and yes – social psychology, which is a science in itself. There’s absolutely room for argument about how many ‘classic’ psychological studies were unethical or flawed in their methodology etc, but a huge amount of what we learn is based on thorough, ethical research and data analysis. Assignments were all about knowing how to understand and cite research; that hypotheses are never proven or disproven, but supported or not supported; and if you had to run research interviews, there was an ethics application process to do and consent forms to sign. The only assignment I can recall that fell outside of those parameters was one where I had to watch the sunset, but this was for a class that was all about visions and perceptions; I had to describe what I was seeing as the sun set.
In Love at First Psych, the two characters interview couples about their relationships. There are guidelines about how they should ask questions as to avoid leading the interviewees to give certain answers, and the characters mention giving their interviewees an info page about the assignment. It doesn’t bother me that the story didn’t go in depth about an ethics application (that’d be boring), but there were details that made me think there wasn’t one at all. For instance, they interview a pair of teenagers at one point, with no mention of parental involvement. There’s no mention of what they’d do if their participants become distressed by the interview, which is relevant when they opt to interview a pair of exes.
The biggest thing that irritated me was this: Marigold, the female main character, actually said something along the line of ‘this is not scientific research’. If it’s not scientific piece of work, why is it being assigned in a Psychology class, a science class? What is the assignment trying to teach the students? Qualitative research is an absolutely valid way of conducting research – I wrote my thesis based on qualitative data – so there’s nothing wrong with conducting interviews to test a hypothesis. However, there are guidelines on how such interviews have to be conducted, and how the data will be coded.
Overall, this premise would have made more sense if it was a journalism or a nonfiction writing class.
Why do I care?
I’m sure some people will read this and think “‘”what does it matter? It’s a little romance novel. You’re taking this too seriously.”
Well, psychology is often disregarded as a science. Audible and the romance genre both have a huge audience, so it is important to get the basic principles of the field correct. In my first year of my psychology undergraduate, there were about 3,000 students enrolled in the classes. I would bet that a few of those thought the classes would be about counselling skills or fun personality analyses, when they were quite different in reality.
Did I actually enjoy the story?
Let’s start with the positives. The voice actors are great (I have a slight soft spot for Santino Fontana), and it is a quick, fluffy romance. There are parts of it that are really sweet, and I enjoyed the interviews Marigold and Robbie conducted. I like their respective background stories. Marigold referred to her experience caring for a mother with bipolar, which was presented compassionately. I also enjoyed Robbie’s reflections on his parents’ marriage and how it impacted him.
While the beginning was solid, it fizzled out for me towards the middle. Marigold and Robbie kept referring to ‘what happened last semester’, and when that was finally revealed, the incident didn’t make sense to me. As a result, the third act conflict fell flat for me.
If it wasn’t for my gripes about the psychology assignment premise, this book would have been okay, but not be memorable to me.
-Priscilla
Novel Feelings 