Analyzing Canadian PM Justin Trudeau's Psychological Behavior During India Visit In An Essay.

1) Select an event involving a person in the news, whether it be a celebrity or merely a person of interest that is unusual or considered to be different from the norm.  You may find this event by following news sites, twitter, or social media.  Please submit to the drop box for approval prior no later than October 31, 2018.

2) In your “Introduction”, briefly describe the event and why the person’s behaviour is of particular interest to you.  Following that, outline what you will be covering in your paper.

3) In the body of your paper, use headings to describe the following:

• Describe the theory of learning you believe best fits the person’s behaviour in this case? (You may need to make some assumptions as to how they might have learned this behaviour)
• Describe the theory of emotion that best applies and justify your selection.
• Is there a personality disorder or some other mental disorder that could account for this behaviour? If so, describe along with your reasoning.  If not, outline how stress may have played a role by relating it to a theory of stress.
• How could others have influenced this person’s behaviour.  Describe a social psychological phenomenon that best describes this.

4) In your “Conclusion”, briefly summarize your findings and outline whether you believe their action was a result of “nature” or “nurture” or both.

Behavior analysis using theories of learning

The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid a visit to India in February this year with focus on creating jobs and strengthening ties. Citizens of both the countries for various reasons had criticized the trip. The Prime Minister was attacked not only for his choices of outfits during the trip but also for his connection with separatist groups like Khalistan. After returning to Canada, Trudeau was seen mocking his India trip calling it “the trip that ends all the trips”. The media in both the countries also criticized the Prime Minister’s demeanors during the trip. The behavior of Trudeau during his India trip could be deciphered by conducting a psychological analysis.

Understanding the psychology of people helps in knowing the reasons behind the behavior they demonstrate. Thus, it will be interesting to understand Trudeau’s psychology during his visit to India. Understanding the Prime Minister’s psychological behavior is important because it could reveal the reasons for the trip’s failure. The paper will first describe Trudeau’s India trip and then explain his behavior using the theory of learning. Then, the paper will analyze his behavior using the theory of emotion, his past psychological distress and other social psychological phenomenon.

During his weeklong visit to India, Justin Trudeau has had to face criticism on many occasions because of his association with a convict and his ‘snub’ by the Indian Prime Minister. It needs mentioning that Mr. Trudeau was not welcomed at the airport by the Prime Minister of India; instead, a state minister of agriculture received him. The media in both the countries dubbed as a ‘snub’ by the India Prime Minister because he is known for welcoming state heads personally. The reason for this neglect is said to be the Trudeau government’s association with the Sikh separatist group Khalistan. In fact, Mr. Trudeau’s wife was even pictured with Jaspal Atwal, a convict of 1987-attempted murder in Canada and an ardent supporter of Sikh separatists banned in India (See Appendix).

The Trudeau government tried to distance itself from Atwal but further revelations of the Prime Minister’s ties with the convict raised more eyebrows. Many also criticized his lack of interest in the official proceedings and instead spending the days a holiday tour with his family.

In the following sections, Trudeau’s behavior shall be analyzed using the various theories of learning and emotion.  

Theorists have proposed several theories of learning over the years that help define the behavior of people. The major theories of learning include behaviorism, cognitivism, experiential and constructivism.

Behavior analysis using theories of emotion

Behaviorism states that learning is an observable change in behavior, which is caused by outside stimuli in the environment (Ertmer & Newby, 2013). Behavior changes through either ‘classical conditioning’ or ‘operant conditioning’. In classical conditioning, the individual responds to a stimulus already present to get that response while in operant conditioning, the response is first made followed by the stimulus.

According to the theory of cognitivism, learning is attained not through responses to stimuli but through cognitive processes such as learning, reflection, thinking and motivation (Coppin & Sander, 2013).

As per the constructivist approach to learning, stimulus-response phenomenon does not describe learning rather involves self-regulation and the construction of theoretical formations through reflection and notion (Yoders, 2014).

Experientialism explains learning as an outcome of the experiences that people have throughout their lives. The efficient observation and processing of experiences improve performance, the theory states.

After analyzing the definitions of major theories of learning, it can be discerned that Trudeau’s behavior could be best explained using the constructivist approach. The theory mostly emphasizes on the significance of social influences, human consciousness and free will. As seen in Trudeau’s behavior during his visit to India, he demonstrated constructivism as he interpreted the immediate surroundings and then modified his behavior accordingly. This was mostly seen in his choice of vibrant outfits that he and his family had wore in India – while visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar or meeting with the Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

Constructivism in psychology involves subjective experience and collective practicality, which means that learning, happens through experience that is limited by the experience, qualities and knowledge of the learner. According to the personal construct theory, a division of the constructivist theory, people create experiences and events in a different way from one another. Assessing Trudeau’s behavior from this perspective provides a clear explanation behind the behavior he exhibited in India. The experiences he had in other Asian nations like China and Japan on his trips in 2015 and 2016 respectively played a big role in shaping his behavior in India. His visits to China and Japan are also filled with pictures of him donning traditional attires at various events and visiting landmarks. However, Trudeau failed to interpret those experiences correctly went too far ahead in trying to mix with the culture. This shows that his learning came from the experience he had in other Asian countries.

Emotion, as it is known, is a complex psychological and physiological experience that people go through owing to their interactions with the environment. Emotions play a vital role in shaping an individual’s behavior. In order to understand this better, it is important to examine the various theories of emotion in psychology.

Trudeau's mental health

The James-Lange Theory of emotion states that as individuals experience various events on life, their nervous system forms physical responses to these events (Kriegel, 2014). Examples include the increase heart rate, upset stomach, trembling and so on that in turn creates emotional reactions like fear, sadness or anger.

Another theory of emotion is the Canon-Bard Theory according to which, individuals feel emotions and then become familiar with the physiological reactions including seating, trembling, muscle tension and so on.

The two-factor theory proposed by Schachter and Singer states that emotions are based mainly on two factors – cognitive interpretation and physiological arousal that is interpreted by cognition (Sahoo, 2014).

Cognitive appraisal is another theory of emotion where it is described that experience of emotions is based on the way people appraise the incidences around them (Moors et al., 2013).

Out of the above-mentioned theories of emotion, the cognitive appraisal theory best explains the psychological behavior of Trudeau. The cognitive appraisal theory proposed by Richard Lazarus is appropriate to explain Trudeau’s selection because it tells the way people understand an event. In simpler words, this theory helps interpret whether the event chosen had positive or negative outcome. The event in discussion here is the Canadian Prime Minister’s visit to India. The event was considered by majority of the population as a negative occurrence because of the non-fulfillment of promises.

As opposed to the two-factor theory of emotion that keeps arousal and emotion separately, the cognitive appraisal theory considers that both occur simultaneously (Moors et al., 2013). Example of this could the event where an employee witnesses a colleague being promoted making her or him feel either resentful if she or she feels she deserved it or happy. After Trudeau returned in his country, his views on the tour and the controversies that had popped up clearly demonstrated negative emotions. The Indian population had both arousal and emotion at the same time during Trudeau’s visit due to his links with a designated Sikh militant. The fiasco where Jaspal Atwal was invited to the dinner by Canadian high commissioner did arouse negative sentiments of the Indians who have suffered a lot due to Sikh extremism. The event left people thinking whether Trudeau was actually an ambassador of peace and good ties with India or a messenger of separatists.

While attempting to understand Trudeau’s psychological behavior, it would be of vital help to know whether he had any mental health issues or someone in his family had any issues. Besides that, the theories of stress could also help explain his behavior during his India trip. According to an article published in The Globe and Mail, Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, had bipolar disorder (Theglobeandmail.com, 2018). Added to that, she had divorced with his father, Pierre Trudeau, the former Prime Minister of Canada and the demise of his brother Michel, which further influenced Trudeau’s childhood and youth (Theglobeandmail.com, 2018).

Theories of stress

These events could explain the ideologies Trudeau follows and his attaching more importance to feminism or mental health. This also explains his close associations with the Sikh separatists as the Sikh groups have always backed his Liberal party, which was led by his father too. Apart from that, no mental health history of Trudeau explains his behavior.

The theories of stress could explain his behavior better. The transactional theory of stress is probably the most common theory (Brasseur et al., 2013). Other theories of stress include the person-environment fit theory, the job demand-control theory and so on. According to the transactional theory of stress, transaction amongst individuals and their environment directly result in stress due to the exhaustion of resources and hence, threatening the wellbeing of individuals (Babatunde, 2013). The person-fit environment theory suggests that work-related stress occurs owing to the lack or absence of fit between the skills, resources and abilities of an individual and the working environmental demands. The job demand-control theory of stress emphasizes that stress could be the outcome of the interaction between various psychological demands in job associated to workload like emotional and cognitive demands amongst others and discretion of skills (Dawson, O'Brien & Beehr, 2016).

With an idea of the various theories of stress, the one theory that could best describe Trudeau’s psychological behavior in India is the transactional theory of stress. The theory explains that workplace stress experience is related to exposure to specific workplace scenarios and the individual’s assessment of the difficulty in coping (Jiang & Jiang, 2015). When Trudeau had to answer to the Indian media and the government regarding his links to the militant Jaspal Atwal, he demonstrated awkwardness and low confidence due to his failure to appraise the difficulty. The transactional theory also states that the stress experienced compels the individual to make changes in behavior and function as well. Trudeau’s attempt to appease the Indians, especially Sikh community by visiting the Golden Temple also clearly shows his attempt to change his behavior and function to deal with the stress of being associated with terrorists.

In this section, it would be better to focus again on Trudeau’s past life as a child and a youth living in a troubled family – his parents’ divorce and his mother’s bipolar disorder. In an attempt to portray himself as a strong, progressive and independent Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau associates himself with ideologies that might hurt others’ sentiments. The most visible example of this is his closeness to the Sikh extremist organizations, which was an attempt by him to portray himself as a progressive liberal thinker. These attempts show that Trudeau tries to hide his vulnerable self, which has suffered from his social environment and present himself as a sizzling politician.

Social psychology refers to the scientific study o the way the implied, imagined and actual presence of others influence individuals’ feelings, thoughts and behaviors. As discussed above, the implied presence of his childhood influences have molded the way Trudeau behaved while in India.

Conclusion

The conclusion thus, shows that the Canadian Prime Minister has been influenced by nurture although some influences of nature are there as well. Most of his demeanors in India demonstrate that he was under immense stress due to the circumstances back in his own country. In the report, Trudeau’s behavior while his trip to India, has been analyzed elaborately with the help of various theories. The theories of learning, emotion and stress have been explained first and then associated with his behavior in the report. It was found from the analysis that the constructivist theory of learning explained Trudeau’s behavior appropriately. In terms of the theories of emotion, the cognitive appraisal theory was found to be the better amongst other theories to justify Trudeau’s selection for behavior analysis. Further, the report also explained the social psychological reasons behind Trudeau’s demeanors and found that his difficult childhood had some influence on his present behavior. In the end, it should be suggested that further research into his overall gesture, posture and behavior be conducted in order to have deeper insights into his psychological behavior.

References:

Babatunde, A. (2013). Occupational Stress: A Review on Conceptualisations, Causes and Cure. Economic Insights-Trends & Challenges, 65(3).

Brasseur, S., Grégoire, J., Bourdu, R., & Mikolajczak, M. (2013). The profile of emotional competence (PEC): Development and validation of a self-reported measure that fits dimensions of emotional competence theory. PLoS One, 8(5), e62635.

Coppin, G., & Sander, D. (2013). Contemporary theories and concepts in the psychology of emotions. Emotion?Oriented Systems, 1-31.

Dawson, K. M., O'Brien, K. E., & Beehr, T. A. (2016). The role of hindrance stressors in the job demand–control–support model of occupational stress: A proposed theory revision. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37(3), 397-415.

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71.

Jiang, Z., & Jiang, X. (2015). Core self-evaluation and life satisfaction: The person-environment fit perspective. Personality and Individual Differences, 75, 68-73.

Kriegel, U. (2014). Towards a new feeling theory of emotion. European Journal of Philosophy, 22(3), 420-442.

Moors, A., Ellsworth, P. C., Scherer, K. R., & Frijda, N. H. (2013). Appraisal theories of emotion: State of the art and future development. Emotion Review, 5(2), 119-124.

Sahoo, F. M. (2014). Human Emotion: Towards Developing Guidelines for Application. Vilakshan: The XIMB Journal of Management, 11(2).

Theglobeandmail.com. (2018). The emotional complexities of Justin Trudeau. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-emotional-complexities-of-justin-trudeau/article29409595/

Yoders, S. (2014). Constructivism Theory and Use from 21 st Century Perspective. Journal of Applied Learning Technology, 4(3).