Saying "I do" to a PhD in marriage proposals

February 10, 2015 - Anne MacLaurin

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, many couples are busy buying the right gift and booking reservations for romantic dinners. And PhD student Lisa Hoplock is delving into the psychology behind successful and failed marriage proposals.

“It’s a very good idea, particularly for people with lower self-esteem, to have a serious conversation or two about the possibility of getting married, timelines and expectations before proposing. Doing so puts both people on the same page and reduces the ambiguity of what the proposee’s response will be,” says Hoplock.

Hoplock will be analyzing the content of close to 300 YouTube videos and 400 written descriptions of marriage proposals within mixed-sex couples. Her SSHRC-funded research will compare successful and unsuccessful proposals, and then develop and test a theory experimentally. She will also conduct experiments based on content analysis and is hoping to expand her focus to same-sex couples in future research.

People propose in all sorts of different ways, explains Hoplock. “A common non-verbal response for both proposals where the person says yes and proposals where the person says no is for the proposee to bring their hands to their face or chest.”

“One way these proposals differ, is that the person who says yes will often then hug and kiss the proposer, whereas the person who says no will often then walk or run away from the proposer as quickly as possible.”

Hoplock hopes to have her data collection and research completed in about a year.