Preview

Good Will Hunting

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1230 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Good Will Hunting
The relationship between Psychology and Movies

Movies are most of the time related to a human being's life. Movies apply psychology to their plots. For example, movies like the StepMom directed by Chris Columbus, and Good Will Hunting directed by Gus Van Sant show us that psychology is part of our lives in a day to day base. It could go from a divorce to a person who is scared to take a step in life. The textbook, Psychology: Core Concept, by Philip G. Zimbarbo, Ann L. Weber, and Robert L. Johnson, utilizes examples from these movies. We are going to see how these movies relate to the core principles of psychology.
In Chapter four, we see how psychology starts all the way from the beginning of our lives. It shows how we as organisms change over time. We go from being a zygote to an embryo and then to a fetus. Then we go into behavior performance since we are born until we die. We start with little things like responding to sounds, recognizing our moms, moving from side to side, walking, talking, playing, and so forth. One big aspect of our life is learning to talk. We start out babbling, and then go into our one- word two-word stage, until we are able to learn grammar. Another aspect of our life is cognitive development. This is where our thinking changes. This theory comes from the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. We start out by assimilating information. We assimilate through out our lives. Then there are stages we go through from birth to adulthood. The first stage is the Sensorimotor Stage which is from birth to the age of two. In this stage, the child relies heavily on innate motor response to stimuli. (pg.133.) Then there is the stage call Preoperational Stage which is from the age of two to about seven years. In this stage we learn to use our language in a well developed mental representation. (pg134.) Then there is the stage from seven to eleven years this is call the Concrete Operational Stage. In this stage, is capable of understanding conversation

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Jean Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development made much emphasis on developmental changes in children’s thinking processes as well as the difference in structures that reflect learning at different ages. Spite the fact that Piaget theory is through the observance of children, I am persuaded the cognitive development is relevant even at adulthood. I believe there are influential factors that cause our mind to evolve which can either be something, someone or one’s…

    • 1331 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development suggests that development occurs through four different stages, the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. While the information processing theory propose there is a continuous pattern of development that are not broken up into specific stages as Piaget offers.…

    • 208 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of the main characters in the movie Good Will Hunting, Will, starts off as smart mouth, joking young guy that hangs out with his 3 best friends fighting and drinking.. He works at MIT as a janitor and starts secretly solving hard theorems put on a chalk board in a hallway that “only one or two people in the world knew how to solve” (Van). Will was really smart, in the beginning of the movie it shows him reading big books. While at a college bar he stands up for a friend by showing how smart he is and tells a guy that he is getting an over priced education that he could “have gotten at the public library for 1.50 in late charges” (Van). Will beats up the guy that use to pick on him in kindergarten, and gets arrested for assault on an officer. He tries to overturn his case by defending himself and stating property rights and the constitution. But this judge put him into jail unlike every other judge.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Week 2 PSY 280

    • 1387 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Cognitive theory argues that the cognitive ability, an individual’s way to think are as they physiologically matures and has chances to interact in their environment. In Bae article (1999), Jean Piaget is mentioned as a leading theorist behind this thinking. Piaget theorized that babies are curious and thoughtful, generating their own schema about their world. Cognitive theory according to Piaget explains how people think changes with time and experiences, including an individual’s thinking that influences their individual’s actions. Piaget presented that individuals interaction to the repeated stimulus are in a stage of equilibrium of accommodation and assimilation cycles, when a new stimulus is, the state is into disequilibrium. As the individual adds new knowledge and understand new stimulation, he or she adapts or accommodates and adjust or assimilate to once again return into a state of equilibrium. These cycle as Piaget presented is how an individual learns and introduced it into four stages from birth…

    • 1387 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In both the Gus Van Sant directed film Good Will Hunting and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the antagonists are trying to find the true value of life. While the film is not by any means the visual for the novel, the two are often compared most typically because of the antagonists. Both Holden Caulfield and Will Hunting are both capable of exceeding in the world, but their cruel living styles act as setbacks to whatever beholds in their respective futures. Fortunately for both of them, there are people who show compassion toward them and understand their complexities and also want to help them succeed in life because they find potential in them.…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many movies, as in numerous things or behaviors in life, show social psychology. In movies (whether they are illustrating racism, pro-social behavior, unselfishness, or even aggression) there are fundamental themes or life lessons to be learned.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Forrest Gump

    • 3984 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Of all the disturbances being listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)1 only a few of them have not yet been portrayed in films. Cinema has certainly been fascinated by insanity and its manifestations, and psychiatric disorders have provided film directors and scriptwriters with a stream of material for their scripts, action, and themes. Taking that interest into account, it is necessary to reflect on the vision of mental disturbances that has been transmitted by cinema to the public in general. For most average citizens the only contact they may have with the psychiatric reality is through cinema; hence, films are their one - yet strong -…

    • 3984 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon starting this assignment I was first faced with picking the movies from which to write the reports on. Just as every junior high student did I had "read" Lord of the flies, so I naturally skipped the book and went straight to the movie. I thought it would be a fun, good example of psychology in film. Who said slacking never pays, without my complete lack of the desire to read, I never would have known about this movie or its relevance to psychology!…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For my second self-motivated learning activity, I decided to watch the well-known family movie Finding Nemo. I have seen this movie multiple times before, but after watching the movie with the knowledge I received from psychology, it made me think about the psychology aspects found within the movie.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Theories of Learning

    • 2770 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Jean Piaget was primarily interested in how knowledge developed in human organisms. Cognitive structuring of the knowledge was fundamental in his theory. According to his theory, cognitive structures are patterns of physical or mental action that underlie specific acts of intelligence and correspond to stages of child development. He has integrated both behavior and cognitive aspects in one developmental theory. In his theory he put forward four primary developmental stages. They are sensorimotor, preoperations, concrete operations, and formal operations. In the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), intelligence takes the form of motor actions. Intelligence in the preoperation period (3-7 years) is intuitive in nature. The cognitive structure during the concrete operational stage (8-11 years) is logical but depends upon concrete referents. In the final stage of formal operations (12-15 years), thinking involves abstractions. (Cameron, 2002)…

    • 2770 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    After watching the stunning 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I realized that this film has a meaningful message of individualism. Psychologist B.F. Skinner believed, that psychology should observed behaviors that could be measured and verified (Hockenbury and Hockenbury 8). Skinner also argued that behavior is a simply influenced by the environment (P. 19). I do believe that from the 1970’s until the present day this film has influenced many people and societies. It has made people realize the importance of understanding human behavior and its mental processes. For many decades psychologists have been studying the human brain and human behavior and for some of them the performance of a lobotomy was in past years a solution to mental illness problems. However, lobotomies are still being performed at many mental institutions throughout the country, and I personally believe that this is a crucial way to treat patients with mental illness. As an example, in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, doctors performed a lobotomy on Randall Patrick McMurphy in order to solve his behavior problem, but it only changed his life in a negative way, making him a vegetable. Psychologists should have tried a different procedure before even proceeding with such a practice. Maybe they should have considered the practice of Psychoanalysis to understand the causes of McMurphy’ behavior. Sad but true, it was too late for McMurphy to get himself out of this mess and he did not have the opportunity to try any other program that might would have helped him.…

    • 1457 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Good Will Hunting

    • 1618 Words
    • 7 Pages

    1) Will hunting was an orphan. As a child he was moved from foster house to foster house and during this time he didn’t receive proper moral development. He was alone and probably acted out by breaking things, hurting other kids and talking back but this got him punished. In the movie he explains that he would get abused by his foster parents, he would get cigarette buds put out on his skin and probably got a lot of verbal abuse. This could’ve resulted in his relationship issues and his need to feel cared for. Sean outlined Wills problem by coming to the conclusion that the reason he hangs out with the friends he does is because they care for him and they have his back. As a child he felt like he didn’t have that therefore he’s filling the need now. He broke up with his girlfriend that loved him very much because of the traumatic events that have happened in his childhood. As a child being moved from house to house not having one family messes up their intellectual development. As soon as he felt comfortable in his home and felt that he was happy in this new home he was pulled away and brought into an entire new atmosphere. This caused Will to push people away after time to avoid them leaving him and leaving him hurt. He leaves before they can, hence why he left Skylar.…

    • 1618 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Developmental psychology studies the way human develop and change over time.” (Burton, Westen, & Kowalski, 2014, p. 464). Piaget has proposed 4 stages in his theory of cognitive development; the first is sensorimotor stage, pre-operational stage, concrete operational stage and finally, formal operational stage.…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Basic human needs play a large part in human development and if all needs are not met at the appropriate ages the child may never have the capacity to use that part of their brain again, which means they might not ever be able to learn certain skills even if given the opportunity (Macionis J. and Gerber L. 2002,p.113). The different stages of human development fall into categories that were argued by psychologists to be the normal ways for a human to develop into a adult.All of these psychologists' findings, further support the importance of social experience on the developing human mind.One psychologist in particular was Jean Piaget (1896-1980) he studied cognitive development in normal well adjusted humans then broke, what he believed was human development, it into four stages, the first being the sensimotor stage. This stage suggests that for the first two years of life children learn entirely through their five senses. The second stage is the preoperational stage, this is the stage that the use of language is beginning. Finally there is the formal operational stage, which is when individuals begin to think and reason on their own (Macionis J. and Gerber L.…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Psychology and the Media

    • 1722 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The approach that psychology is presented in today’s media can somewhat differ from the way it was presented in the late 1800s through the 1900s. The message that…

    • 1722 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays