The Psychology Behind Reality TV Shows
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Decade/top-10-reality-tv-shows-decade/story?id=9210225
Humans are social creatures who thirst for swigs of juicy gossip. There is nothing more riveting to us than a visual representation of the human condition in its most gloriously depraved state in what is known as a reality TV show. The set of reality TV shows portrays the (mainly) unscripted raw interactions of a group of people chosen to participate collectively in a particular season of a show. The design of a reality show is based on the producer knowing their audience, knowing that there is an irrefutable allure behind the craftiness that certain characters display and that will set them apart over the course of the show. Ratings for shows such as “The Apprentice” and “America’s Next Top Model” are propelled by the presence of characters whose actions leave the audience empathetic, speechless or in some form of enticement that guarantees their return for the following week’s episode. Watching the interactions between characters emerge and unfold draws us into the plot of the show as we try to get inside the heads of the contestants, understanding their strategies and cheering them on for their amiability or scorning them for their shameless wickedness towards another contestant.
At any point of the show, a link can be made between each and every character. The strength of these links will vary, of course, and the contestants with the strongest links–or edges in the form of a networks diagram–usually have a sturdy enough support system to allow them to make it to the next episode. On the other hand, the weakest link(s) gets kicked off the show. The ties that the women on America’s Top Model have are dynamic, flowing and ebbing like the waves of a tide, as alliances are made and mind games are played from one episode to the next to ensure their survivability on the show. Even on a show with as prestigious and affluent a mogul as Donald Trump, the host of “The Apprentice” show series, there is cattiness and foul play to be witnessed. Human beings will instinctively join forces if their alliance provides them with benefits. Two nodes connected by a strong bond who simultaneously each have a weak bond to a third node will ultimately overpower the latter and thus force their elimination from the show. Those on the outside of a local network looking in have little to no influence and are unable to defend themselves. Despite their laughability, reality TV shows give crucial insight into the way human beings think and interact with no holds barred in a setting where everyone wants to come up on top and will do so at the expense of others.