Riley Movie Analysis

Riley, an athletic and goofy young girl, was born in Minnesota. As an infant, Riley had two main emotions: Joy and Sadness. As she grew older, Anger, Fear, and Disgust developed. These emotions acted as people who worked inside Riley’s brain to guide her through her surroundings as she grew up. For example, fear kept Riley safe by making her aware of the possible danger around her as she played and disgust kept Riley away from potentially poisonous foods.
From a young age, Riley developed five important memories called “core memories.” These particular memories were more important than any others because they defined Riley’s personality. Before Riley’s family moved to San Francisco, all her core memories had a joyful emotion attached to them.
She lived in Minnesota her whole life and was happy there. During that time, she made many memories with her family, friends and hockey team. When she thought back to those memories, all she felt was joy. Since these memories made Riley feel lively, she became emotionally attached to them and did not want to stop making them with the people she loved. This emotional attachment seemed to interfere with how well Riley adapted to moving to San Francisco. Once Riley’s family arrived at their new house, Riley attempted to adapt. However, her attempt did not last long due to the realization of how much things had changed in her life. Riley then endured a wave of stress as she went through her first few days of school. Her parents became distant, her friends were back in Minnesota, hockey tryouts did not go well, and she could no longer be goofy because she was no longer happy. When Riley thought back to her joyful memories in Minnesota, all she felt was sadness. Her precious memories soon became traumatic enough to give her the idea to run away from
It can either improve or impair them depending on the time of the stress exposure and the time of the person’s developmental learning (Schwabe et al., 2012). Typically, those who are in their time of learning, have an improved memory than those who are not in that stage (Schwabe et al., 2012). This is because people are more attentive when they are in their time of learning, making the information stick (Schwabe et al., 2012). Children are almost always in a time of learning and that is why they typically have an improved memory (Schwabe et al., 2012). When stress is involved, it can affect proper brain development and will make long-term memories easily retrievable (Schwabe et al., 2012). These memories are more retrievable because the stressful event is more powerful than any other neutral event (Schwabe et al.,