The movie Dead Poets Society - Essay Example

With his wit and wisdom, Keating inspires his students to pursue individual passions and make their lives matter. (Weir, whole film).This movie highlights four important aspect of social psychology, namely group influence, non-conformity, effects of culture on self-esteem and heroism from disobedience. With the careful and efficient incorporation of the said social psychology aspects, this movie has become one of the most highly rated educational movies. The theory behind group influence as a social construct is that a person's development- mood, behavior and outlook in life- is shaped by the norms and thinking of the groups in which he associates himself.

A child who is immersed in a religious family generally tends to be a moralist while one who grew up with criminals tends to be one himself (Hewstone, 143) We can see this factor vividly at work in the film in two different conditions. The first is that of the influence of the school to the young minds of the children and the second is that of the influence of John Keating to the tendencies of his student. The school has always been regarded as a major setting for the personality development of a person.

Not only do we learn the machinations of the world we live in, we are also instructed on the prim and proper ways of how to act, think and communicate. With regards to the first scenario, we see Welton Academy structuring its students as academic achievers and outstanding lawyers and doctors. To achieve this, they apply a curriculum devoid of any romantic (i.e. artistic) topics such as poetry and the arts. The school can therefore be seen as the group and its teachers as the influencing members.

The students, immersed in such culture of high expectations and strict teaching, develop a preference for realistic ideas and shield one's self from romantic ones. It is apparent that the school leads them to the side of realism (i.e. fact based) rather than romanticism. This preferential system is exhibited by Richard Cameron's signing of the documents incriminating John Keating's who he perceives is going against what the school taught him. On the other hand, we see John Keating influencing the students by introducing them to poetry and the ar