Realistic Representation of Psychological Concepts in the Film A Beautiful Mind - Movie Review Example

Running Head: REALISTIC REPRESENTATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS Realistic representation of psychological concepts in the film "A Beautiful Mind" Name xxxx TA`s Name and time and day of your section Introduction It is known in psychology that most people believe in their own personal experience so much that they ignore findings of research, even if the underlying scientific evidence is very compelling (Knapp, 1999, p.ix). And while this is not always a bad thing that we channel all events in our lives through our personal psychological filters, if we can use this term, it is important, though, that we do not lose the ability to see connections between our real-life experiences and the strict psychological theories that attempt to structure and categorize different elements of our everyday goings-on. In this light, the genre of film may provide us with a lot of useful insights into how some strict psychological concepts may be applicable in the real life, and the film "A Beautiful Mind" directed by Ron Howard gives us a great example of how this instructive function of cinematography can be masterfully implemented. The story of the film is devoted to what can be evaluated as a heroic life story of an outstanding mathematician John Forbes Nash, haunted by both his genius and manifestations of insanity so prominently coexisting in him. On this background, a careful viewer can discern in the film fine elements characteristic to several psychological concepts and theories, such as for instance a depiction on the concrete example of Nash of various symptoms related to a psychiatric condition of schizophrenia, the involvement of the film`s protagonist into social relationships network that often challenges his mental disorder, and the psychological processes associated with what is known as cognitive dissonance. Plot Review The film "A Beautiful Mind" opens when John Forbes Nash (Russell Crowe) is struggling to come up with some original concept at Princeton. We can immediately see the sign of genius in him, but at the same time it is clearly visible that Nash is often weird, uneasy in terms of social interaction, and painfully competitive. In fact, even though John has friendly relationships with several students, his only faithful friend is his roommate Charles. After some time, the mathematician comes close to elaboration of an original, pioneering and promising approach to game theory, and his successful scientific future seems warranted. John obtains a position at MIT, and gets involved into a hush-hush governmental program aimed at code-breaking research. During his such a secretive occupation, Nash is dealing with William Parcher, a top-level governmental agent who attempts to employ Nash`s talents for national security tasks. At MIT Nash gets acquainted with Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), a lovely and remarkable student. They marry eventually, but their happy life gets under the threat when John is diagnosed with schizophrenia and is apparently falling into insanity. In a psychiatric hospital Nash undergoes therapy through electroshock to get rid of his delusions, but he nevertheless finds it next to impossible to work or be a proper husband. Besides, as soon as he ceases to take his medication, the delusions come back. But despite all that, his wife Alicia provides a great support to him as he does not want to be again hospitalized, and with time John learns how to control his delusions. Finally, when John Nash is granted a Nobel Prize in economics he can be said to have gained the greatest victory of his life, but the one which he could hardly achieve without the love and help of Alicia. Psychological concept #1 Perhaps the most stunning display that the film provides is that of a debilitating condition of a person suffering from schizophrenia, a psychiatric term that is used to describe a mental disorder with various symptoms that in combination lead to changes in the reality perception and to consequent impairments in common social functions of an affected person. The very word schizophrenia can be translated as "a shattered mind", which, ironically, is so a fitting characterization of the Nash`s condition. People with schizophrenia left untreated usually manifest disorganized patterns of thinking and have auditory hallucinations and delusions, often quite acute (Green, 2001, pp.1-16). In this connection, the film depicts such symptoms of schizophrenia in a very vivid and distressing way, moreover that we as viewers learn that what we had previously perceived as reality and as key people in the life of Nash were actually his hallucinatory visions. Besides, aside from affected cognition, a person with schizophrenia can also develop alterations in his or her emotion and behavior. Such behavioral changes in their turn may lead to a social isolation that is further reinforced due to other factors that emerge from this medical condition, for example as when social cognition of a person becomes inhibited he or she may tend to avoid social situations with potentially stressful outcomes, thus further worsening the condition and increasing social isolation (Green, 2001, pp.82-85). We can see some symptoms of this process in the film as John from the very beginning is very awkward in relations with most people, and he himself says that "I dont like people much". The possible result of such a path to alienation is the complete unsociability of a person, and we can see in the film how difficult it is for John and his wife to resist this tendency. At the same time, we can also find in the film the confirmation of a controversy that surrounds the perception of schizophrenia in academic circles. Indeed, considering the variability of symptoms of schizophrenia due to possible interlacing between them, some psychologists and psychiatrists dispute the possibility of a firm diagnosis of schizophrenia, and argue that it at least should be allowed for that what is seen as one type of mental disorders is in reality a group of different disorders. In addition, it has even been suggested that schizophrenia is not a mental disorder as such, but rather a type of human perception that lies closer to an edge of what is though of as a normal behavior and experience. After all, many normal people may occasionally experience delusional manifestation traditionally attributed to schizophrenics (Green, 2001, pp.64-69). In this regard, the film, perhaps unintentionally, displays the fine line that separates insanity of Nash from his genius. When John is engulfed in his code-breaking work we see how his intelligence is operating on an almost unconscious level, but after we learn that many of his perceptions were generated by his mental disorder we are tempted to rethink in retrospective his approaches to work as those pertaining to a mad man. Here, a certain inconsistency between two views of Nash emerges, and, unfortunately, we cannot give a definite answer whether it is super intelligence or sheer madness that prevails in John. By the way, if I could add a commentary to the end of the film, I would mention that the story of John Nash should not be construed as necessarily linking insanity and talent, because there are numerous instances of talented people without apparent signs of a very unusual perception of the world. But as this connection between intelligence and insanity is contingent on different factors that we cannot fully predict yet, this makes exploration of stories of such prominent people as John Nash ever more interesting. Psychological concept #2 In the film "A Beautiful Mind" we can find signs of the psychological processes associated with what is known as cognitive dissonance, the concept which belongs to the realm of study of cognitive processing that in psychology investigates information processing as a phenomenon underlying our psychological mechanisms and functions. Cognitive processing comprises some theories about the way people learn something and internalize new knowledge on basis of their experiences. One of the plausible mechanisms of learning is enabled by accommodation and assimilation. Assimilation takes place in situations when experiences of people coincide with their internal perception of the world, and therefore new experiences fit into our existing world views. Accommodation happens when there emerges the need to change our internal perception of the world in order to explain new knowledge, and thus it can be viewed as a powerful impetus for learning from our mistakes because without the adequate knowledge we are bound to fail in many situations. In this conceptual frame, the notion of a cognitive dissonance relates to the state when a person is experiencing a conflict between two cognitions in the wide sense of the word, be they in form of emotions, attitudes, beliefs, values, knowledge, goals, etc. The theory of cognitive dissonance postulates that conflicting cognitions represent a kind of a driving force that makes us find new methods of dealing with situation to reduce the level of a cognitive dissonance, in this way simultaneously instigating us to undergo the process of learning from accommodation that we have previously described (Griffin, 2002, pp.209-211). We can find examples of cognitive dissonance in the film when Nash realizes that many of his experiences are in fact hallucinatory, and begins to learn to intellectually control some of his delusions. This difficult process, in which John can manage to be successful only partially as exemplified by his continuing visions of illusory figures even in the end of the film, requires undergoing by Nash of the mentioned psychological process of accommodation. However, what differentiates the protagonist of the film from the rest of people is that too profound changes of his perception of the world are needed for John to be able to go along lifes path. Therefore, this picture, while teaching correctly about the psychological issue of a cognitive dissonance, on the example of Nash somewhat exaggerates its scope in comparison to cognitive dissonances which we may normally encounter in the real life. Conclusion As we can see, the film "A Beautiful Mind" indeed contains elements in its plot and characters development that can be analyzed from points of few of strict psychological concepts and theories. And although being probably secondary to artistic and humane qualities of the picture, this academic merit of the film testifies to the ultimate involvement of everyone of us into the intricate web of personal, interpersonal, and social relations that in the end define who we are and what we do with lives that are given to us. Reference Green, M., F. (2001). Schizophrenia Revealed: From Neurons to Social Interactions. W. W. Norton & Company. Griffin, E. (2002). A First Look at Communication Theory. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. Howard, R. (2002). A Beautiful Mind. Universal Studios Home Video. Knapp, M., L. (1999). Interpersonal Communication and Human Relationships Allyn&Bacon. Read More