Analyzing Human Behavior in a Film from a Social Psychological Perspective

In addition to being entertaining, videos offer portrayals of human behaviour. Your objective in this assignment is to analyze, from a social psychological perspective the behaviours and events depicted in ONE of the films from the list below. You are not being asked to critique the film on its artistic merits. Instead you should analyze the human actions seen in the film. Then to make sense of this material, apply what you have learned from chapter 13 regarding the factors that predict and explain human social behaviour.

Choose ONE of the films listed below, a large number of them are currently available on Netflix. View the film you choose at least once (you will be given class time to do this at home), take notes on interesting examples of human behavior described in the social psychology chapter and lecture. Two viewings maybe helpful. After reviewing your notes and the material from chapter 13, identify THREE different social psychological principles that appear to be operating (observed) in the events or depicted by individuals in the film. (For example: cognitive dissonance, stereotypes, schemas, group think, deindividuation, prejudice, conformity) or any of the major explanations for human behavior discussed in the chapter. For each principle that you identify:

1. Briefly describe the relevant scene (you can assume that the reader has seen the film). So at a level similar to how you would describe a part of the film you liked to a colleague who has also seen the movie)

2. Describe IN DETAIL the social psychological principle you believe is relevant. Your task here is to demonstrate that you understand the principle or theory, and that you can . You don’t need to do a library search for this assignment using your text and lecture notes is fine. But remember not to plagiarise. You need to rewrite thoughts and facts in your own statements. Also, please do not simply tell me this scene demonstrates prejudice, aggression, conformity.

3. Elaborate on how the selected scene illustrated the principle you have identified. Its also ok to write about how a scene might fail to follow predictions of certain types of behaviour. For example, perhaps you have selected a scene that demonstrates prejudiced behaviours. Does the character reveal that they have emotions, stereotypes and a predisposition to discriminatory action? (Factors that increase the likelihood of behaving in a prejudiced way). Or if you are talking about Conformity. Does the film demonstrate behaviours on the part of one character that increase the probability that those around them will conform to their demands? ITS VERY IMPORTANT that you do not write something like “this scene illustrates conformity.” You need to be specific on precisely HOW the scene illustrates conformity, or how it fails to support what you learned about conformity in class.

Remember you need to identify 3 DIFFERENT SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES that are relevant to your film. Your written analysis should be 2-3 well written pages. Be sure to include a short introduction specifying which three principles you will be discussing. Followed by the bulk of your paper – the three scenes and their psychosocial analysis followed by a conclusion to tie everything together. The following Grading Scheme will be applied