Driving Miss Daisy Essay

“Driving Miss Daisy” directed by Bruce Beresford has several social psychology principles present in its 1950’s story line. Revolving around a growing friendship between two distinct characters; Daisy is provided with a chauffeur thanks to her son Boolie. Hoke, an African American is told to transport her around town when she sees fit. At the start of the movie self-serving cognitions are exhibited by Daisy when she crashes her car into the neighbor’s yard. She claims to her son that her older car would have never behaved this way; as if cars had intentions and feelings. In this scene she is distancing herself from the failure, which was putting the car into the wrong gear. Instead she says it is the cars fault for the mishap.

Once Hoke
Hoke mentions that he declined the offer and had never thought of accepting. This would represent the favor he is doing for Boolie. Caught in this predicament he feels obligated to return the favor for his loyalty so he offers to raise Hoke’s salary.

Belief perseverance is shown by Daisy when she is told that the temple she attends has been bombed. This principle is defined as a tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited. At first she refuses to believe the information is true. When told that a police officer was the one who was passing on the information Daisy results in telling Hoke to not speak to her. Additionally, opting that perhaps the police officer may not be saying the truth.

Lastly, Miss Daisy falls victim of the spotlight effect leaving her temple after a ceremony. She becomes worried about what her friends thought of her when she got picked up. She explains that the car was parked right in front of the temple, waiting for her like she was “The queen of Romania” everyone had seen her. Here she is overestimating the amount of attention others were paying to her at the time she was