Social Psychology In The Movies

Real Life in Reel : Love and Social Psychology

Introduction : Romantic Love and Social Psychology

They went through difficult times since they met . They thought that they will never be able to express their love for each other . There were so many obstacles against their love . Yet in the end , boy pursues girl and they lived happily every after . So goes the basic plot of a number of love stories . Although they are exaggerated at times , we can gain a lot of insights about human interactions and motivations from the movies that we

watch . Good movies can make us cry , laugh and in the end gain valuable insight about the human drama . Sometimes , as a result of watching a good movie , we develop insights that help us deal with our particular situations and dilemmas . By engaging in the analysis of the interactions and motivations of individuals , we are engaging in social psychology (Schellenberg , 1970

One of the most universal s in literature and in movies is love Love can be considered as an emotion and with it comes feelings and experiences of affection and unity with the object of love . It is deeper than simple liking . The longing for love , however , is not only confined in the movies . People in general want to be loved and express their love . We also hear and witness people who become depressed as a result of failing in love and losing the object of their love . Millions of poems have been written about it . Every week we hear a new love song over the radio and there seems to be no lack of movies about love . Yet it is not easy to understand what love truly is . More than that , we do not have an idea how to measure love . What are the motivations that influence individuals to fall ' in love ? Is it primarily a function of the norms and the culture of the society where an individual belongs to This essay will seek to present a cursory understanding of love and seek to answer these questions . It will also look at several movies and will analyze the motivations of the characters of these movies and look at the influence of culture on the way that the characters in these movies fall in love

So , What is Love Really

According to Hatfield and Walster (1978 , individuals who are passionately in love experience a variety of emotions , including happiness , calm , anxiety , panic , despair and euphoria among others . Pain and pleasure are felt alongside each other . Males and females are capable to love in equal passion . Men , however , tend to fall in love faster . Hatfield 's study also found out that passionate love exists in different cultures all over the world and bonds people together . The occurrence of love varies from culture to culture according to Jankowiak and Fischer (1991 . That is why some anthropologists and social psychologists do not readily recognize it in some cultures because they do not know how to look for it

Romantic...