Charlie And Conformity

“Welcome to the island of misfit toys,” Sam says to Charlie. This line is spoken when Patrick declares Charlie as a permanent part of the group, and encompasses the feeling that Charlie has throughout his life, as well as the rest of the people in the group. Several of the characters within the movie feel as though they do not belong, but reach a sense of belonging when they are with this group of people. These characters experience situations that can be analyzed using five important themes in social psychology, including: conformity, persuasion, self-justification, aggression, and prejudice. Conformity is a dominating theme from start to finish and is seen in many of the characters, but Charlie falls victim to this most often. Beginning
Two characters who experience this are Brad and Patrick, who are mentioned together because their cognitive dissonance is related to one another. The first dissonance observed between these two is at the party when Charlie sees Brad and Patrick together. Patrick asks to keep it a secret so Brad’s father does discover them. Patrick is experiencing cognitive dissonance about being with Brad because he has to keep it a secret and Brad has to be drunk to be with Patrick. This dissonance is reduced when Brad is finally able to be with Patrick without the aid of mind-altering substances. This allows Patrick to feel less dissonance about keeping the secret. Brad, during this time, is also experiencing dissonance because of the same reasons, but towards the middle of the movie, this dissonance causes Patrick to be physically hurt. Within the textbook, it states that the effects of dissonance are increased when someone feels responsible and if their actions cause serious consequences. Brad feels dissonance because he is still keeping their relationship a secret at school. Instead of changing the cognition by telling everyone, he tries to add a cognition. The cognition is calling Patrick a “faggot” in front of the whole cafeteria. He did attempted to reduce his dissonance by internally justifying that he is not gay, Patrick is the homosexual.
For fear of being ridiculed, he tends to not speak up; this is seen on the very first day of high school in Mr. Anderson’s class. A lack of confidence leads to an excessive amount of built up anger. This is known as rumination, which can be considered a personality trait of Charlie. Right before the cafeteria fight, he had been experiencing a plethora of emotions regarding his friends not talking to him and having flashbacks to his aunt’s death. These built up emotions cause a catharsis in reaction to the violence taking place. Repressing the anger and witnessing a fight are both causes for Charlie becoming violent in the scene. Aggression of this type is considered hostile aggression for two reasons. The first reason is because it was triggered by anger, which was mentioned above and the goal of this anger was to harm the people hurting Patrick. The second reason is because it was impulsive and irrational. Charlie did not actually know what he was doing because he blacked out. His fight instinct kicked in causing him to act out irrationally to protect his friends. Prejudice against homosexuals is the reason the fight broke out, but this is not the only time or subject of prejudice in the movie. Buddhism was a popular religion in the sixties and seventies because the religion elicited a peaceful feeling to anyone around them. It was about being one with each other and