Psychoanalysis of a Family’s Entertainment Patterns

Psychoanalysis of a Family’s Entertainment Patterns Table Of Contents (Jump to) 1. Introduction 1.1 Family Demography 2. The Interview 2.1 Father 2.2 Mother 2.3 Son 2.4 Daughter 3. Governing Theories 3.1 Psychological Sketch of Family 4. Conclusion 5. References 1. Introduction The following article indulges into a study of the patterns of TV and radio programmes seen by an average household. We set out to carry our investigation by interviewing a family in Sheffield. After asking them questions like what they usually see and why do they see them we can try and construct a psychological pattern of their entertainment needs. This can then be fused together by various Psychological theories (such as Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Id, Ego and Superego, Jean Piaget’s Four cognitive stages for a child, and Maslow’s Theory of Five Pyramidal Needs) and we will see the influence of media and environment on consumer behaviour. 1.1 Family demography The test family interviewed is of British Caucasian descent located in Sheffield, United Kingdom. The Jenkins family is an average lower-middle class family with both parents holding down regular jobs. Mr. Stuart Jenkins is 47 years old and runs his own Public Relations firm, which he established 3 years back after quitting a well paying job at another company. Mrs. Sarah Jenkins, 48 years of age, works as a freelance Spanish translator with dreams of setting up her own Translation Agency. The remaining members of the family are 17 years old Jamie Jenkins and 8 years old Helen Jenkins. The interview After a basic interview, the following data has been assimilated about the viewing preferences of the various family members. I will endeavour to classify them: 2.1 Father Mr. Stuart Jenkins has an affinity towards programs like Top Gear because of his interest in fast and attractive cars. He has also been a keen follower of all football related telecasts since his introduction to the sport at a young age by his father. He especially watches all Liverpool games and cannot handle a defeat for his team. He also likes to watch old classics like Casablanca and considers the current crop of movies to be an excuse for sex and violence. 2.2 Mother Mrs. Sarah Jenkins seldom gets the chance to sit back and watch a show because of her hectic schedule and mentioned that she mostly just caught bits of what her husband and the kids happened to be watching. However, she does try to follow the ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ series’, which she prefers to view on her own. According to her she identifies herself with Brie, fortifying her argument by saying that the protagonist’s meticulous nature for detail, affinity towards cleanliness resembles and her taste in clothes matches closest to her. Moreover, these serials are often a topic of discussion among her friends. 2.3 Son Jamie is interested in the late shows on VH1 for that is the time when the channel airs a multitude of Rock/Grunge music – the music he and his friends listen to. He also diligently follows the happenings on The OC and likes to watch Pro Wrestling. He considers his choice to be his lifestyle and likes the rebellious nature of Ryan. 2.4 Daughter Helen loves to watch MTV since she thinks that pop music is ‘cool’ and proclaims Christina Aguilera to be her mentor. She saw Christina Aguilera at the MTV Music Awards and decided that she was highly talented and was worthy of being made a role model. She also likes to watch The OC, Hollyoakes, The Simpsons, and Family Guy among other teen soaps with her brother because it makes her feel grown up. 3.  Governing Theories Freudian Theory of Id, Ego, Superego: According to Sigmund Freud, the Father of modern psychoanalysis, the human mind is divided into three parts depending upon the levels of awareness. The absolute subconscious is named the ‘Id’ which in Latin means ‘Itself’. This part of the brain deals simply with the primal needs of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The ‘Superego’, also called ‘I’, is contained in the consciousness as well as the sub consciousness, and is the centre of all morals and values, which are derived from the concepts of right and wrong, taught in our childhood by our parents. The ‘Superego’ and the ‘Id’ are in a constant state of conflict, with the ‘Superego’ trying to counterbalance the ‘Id’. The ‘Ego’ is contained in the consciousness and is influenced by the societal rules around us. It has the unenviable job of trying to balance both the ‘Supe rego’ and ‘Id’. Being a part of the consciousness, it contains the processes logical reasoning and problem solving, and uses these tools to satisfy the ‘Id’s’ primal needs within the restraints of the ‘Superego’. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Abraham Maslow, a student of Jung, proposed the widely renowned Theory of Hierarchy of Needs, which states that within every person exists a pyramidal structure of five needs. These are, respectively: Physiological Needs (hunger, thirst, intimacy) Need for shelter or safety Need for social acceptance and belonging Need for esteem and attention Need for self-actualisation or self fulfilment According to Maslow, once a need is fulfilled, the next need becomes dominant. Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Stages: Jean Piaget was a child psychologist who proposed the now widely held theory of sequential growth of cognitive stages. He explained that a person comprehends all the information that fits into his established view of the world. When faced with information that is not possible to slot into that view of the world, the person has to rethink his view of the world to accommodate the information. Piaget described four stages of a child’s cognitive development as follows: Sensorimeter (Birth to age 2) – During this stage, the child learns about herself and her surroundings through sensations and movements. She learns that an object does not cease to exist simply because it is out of the reach of her senses. Preoperational (First speech to about age 7) – The child is now able to think about things even if they are not immediately present. However she still has difficulty in understanding the concept of time. She lives in a form of a fantasy and changes any input information in her mind to better suit her needs. Concrete (About first grade to adolescence) – The child begins to learn to think abstractly and grasp concrete ideas, managing to rationalize them. She starts to ask questions after rationally processing information. Formal Operation (adolescence) – This is the final cognitive stage. The child develops the ability of hypothetical and deductive reasoning 3.1 Psychological Sketch of Family Father Stuart Jenkins would seem to follow the Freudian Theory of Id, Ego and Superego. He quit his job and set up a business expecting to do very well for himself. However, he has not managed to make his firm perform to his expectations. His Id desires all the glitz and perks that come with a successful lifestyle, but he is unable to fulfil this need in his present situation, and feels an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. Thus, his Ego satisfies the Id’s impulses and helps him to forget his difficult responsibilities by focusing on that sign of success – a gleaming new car. His attraction towards cars can also be driven by the general notion that car are associated with Masculinity. His love for football can be traced back to his father, who introduced him to the game. His love for the sport could be a conditioned response instilled by his love for his father. It helps too that the social setup that he is in, considers football to be a ‘manly’ sport and thus it helps Stuart to reaffirm his manliness to himself. A Liverpool victory becomes a victory for Stuart himself, and a defeat just a reminder of his own failure. Stuart is a model consumer, and his brand loyalty to the movies of his generation is apparent. Any form of media is open to perception and any message could contain one or more potential ‘readings’. Stuart rejects newer movies because it seems to offend his sensibilities, and he perceives them to be corrupting factors. Mother Sarah seems to be the typical woman consumer for whom the home is as much a workplace as her office. While Stuart comes back from work to an evening of leisure, Sarah still has work left in managing the house. The cultural stereotyping and the resulting acquired modes of masculine and feminine subjectivities leave her with little time to be able to sit back and watch some television. However, she does not seem to mind it much and is fine with catching a few snatches of the various shows that happen to be on. This reaffirms the consumerist study that the man of the household has much more control over the content of the television than the lady. However, Sarah is partial towards ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Desperate housewives’, possibly because she identifies with some of the characters like Brie, who are independent of any ties. She probably prefers to watch alone to experience some contrived feelings of freedom from matrimony, and feel a bit closer to the scre en characters. While the Superego tells her that it is wrong to have such feelings, her Id drives her on. It takes the Ego to channel all her dark feelings into an escapist fantasy. The fantasy in some way fulfils her need for belonging, as per Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Son Jamie seems to be a normal teenager, enamoured by the global mantra of consumerism. With the consumerist society heralding the rebel as the new ‘cool’, rock and grunge are definitely the music to listen to. His friend circle listens to the same music, and so it is possible that his choice of music is also due to societal influences. The main protagonist of ‘The OC’, Ryan Atkins, is an outsider thrown into an alien environment who still manages to gain everyone’s respect and affection. Jamie, in his teenage-angst, probably fancies himself to be a bit of an outsider too, and thus wants to model himself after Ryan Atkins. His rebellious anger also finds an outlet through the hard-hitting Pro-Wrestling, just like countless other teenagers. Daughter Helen is a typical victim of the consumerist attack on tweens, being exposed to the world of sexual excess that is today’s pop music at such a tender age. According to Jean Pagiet’s stages of behaviour, Helen is still too young to correctly comprehend the sexual information that is being thrown towards her courtesy of MTV. Therefore it is not a surprise that her model mentor is not Margaret Thatcher, or Helen Keller, but a gyrating pop princess – Christina Aguilera. Sexual information is a must for children, but just like a driving license, it needs to be presented when the receiver is ready for it. Similarly, watching OC with her big brother might make her feel older, but all it is basically doing is desensitising her to violence, sex, and crime. As deduced from the interview of the Jenkins family, the influence of environment, media on the daily choices that a person makes are very profound. Consumerism can be observed in all spheres of life today. Man’s psychological attitude, combined with consumerism drives everybody needs, choices and decisions. References Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. Piaget, J. (1972). The psychology of the child Piaget, J. (1990). The childs conception of the world Assael, H. (2004). Consumer Behaviour A Strategic Approach. Maslow, A. (pub. 2000). Maslow on Management Available from http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/

The Most Deadly Drugs are Already Legal Essay -- Argumentative Persuas

This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Fried egg is probably the most influential commercial of our generation. We feared it, we laughed at it, some of us stopped eating eggs, and we made a lot of t-shirts about it. And who was scaring us? Who was so concerned about our health? Our loving friends: The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA). We used to watch those commercials and get all warm and fuzzy inside, someone out there cared enough about us to spend a lot of money on those frightening ads. Those good people down at the PDFA really don't want us using drugs. Or do they? The truth is, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America demonizes illegal drugs to protect the legal and profitable ones that kill more people. And this delicate maneuvering of the spotlight serves one purpose: to put a lot of cash in to the pockets of a few pharmaceutical, alcohol, and tobacco corporations. The tight-knit relationship between corporate drug peddlers and the PDFA is borne out most clearly by the organizations impressive list of funders. From 1988 to 1991, 54% of the $5.8 million the PDFA took from its top twenty-five contributors came from pharmaceutical companies. The other 46%? Largely tobacco and alcohol. Why are these huge corporations donating such large sums of money to the PDFA? Because they know that the PDFA strongly influences our conception of acceptability: Whatever drug the PDFA chooses to attack becomes a taboo, while drugs the PDFA chooses to ignore become a spotless joy. Because of this funding structure, even if the PDFA wanted to criticize the profitable drugs, it couldn't. Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters Mathea Falco explains, It would be suicidal if the Pa... ...s, One of the reasons young people have no faith in what we say about drugs is because of the lies by people like the Partnership. (St. Petersburg Times, 1990) Corporations are making big bucks and children are dying. Instead of spending a billion dollars to spit nonsense into young minds, the Partnership should be informing them about the dangers of all drugs, illegal and legal, worthless and profitable. And instead of convincing kids that everyone who smokes pot is a crazy murderer, they should differentiate between drugs and admit that heroin is not the same as marijuana. Without the children's trust, the entire message is worthless. Next time you see an Excedrin commercial, a Just Say No commercial, and then a Miller Lite commercial, realize that they are all the same. This is your brain. This is your brain on the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Romeo And Juliet Analysis Film And Play Versions

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses many ways in which he builds tension in certain scenes. In Act 3 Scene 1, Shakespeare uses a whole variety of ways to show and build tension in the play and between the characters. The film director Baz Luhrmann also made an adaptation of the play as a film. In his film there are many different visual ways in which Luhrmann builds and creates tension. My first point is, right at the start of the scene, Mercutio keeps pushing for a fight. Benvolio on the other hand, keeps telling Mercutio to retire, but Mercutio will not.In lines one and two, Benvolio says, ‘I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire: the day is hot, the Capels are abroad, and if we meet we shall not scape a brawl†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ This suggests that Benvolio is aware of the Capulet presence, and is not comfortable with where they are, this builds tension. However Mercutio’s reply is quite sarcastic and confident and it taunts Benvolio, ‘Thou art like one of t hose fellows that, claps me his sword on the table, and says ‘God send no need of thee! † This basically says to Benvolio that, if he carries a weapon, but does not use it, why does he carry it in the first place?This suggests that Mercutio carries a weapon for its purpose. In Baz Luhrmann’s version of Romeo and Juliet, there are many more Montagues than we get in the play. Then Tybalt and Petruchio enter, just two against around six, you just know something’s going to happen. Mercutio starts off just agitating Tybalt, but then when Romeo arrives and Tybalt says, ‘Well peace be with you sir, here comes my man. ’ Mercutio gets really angry that Tybalt wishes to see Romeo. This hectic mood is portrayed by the camera getting jerky, as if it has turned into a handheld camera, like a documentary following a war scene.Mercutio starts shouting at Tybalt which definitely builds tension because he chases him at the same time. This leads to the fight. In Baz Luhrmann’s version Romeo is getting badly beaten up by Tybalt, and Romeo does not fight back. Mercutio sees this as an act of giving in, as shown in line 66 when he says, ‘O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! ’ Mercutio then gives chase of Tybalt, he drops his gun into the sand, suggesting he does wish to kill anybody, let alone Tybalt, all he wants to do is aid Romeo. This builds tension with the viewers because they do not know what the outcome is going to be.In the film and the play, Mercutio helps Romeo by fighting for him, however Romeo does not wish for them to fight at all and the audience knows this as Romeo keeps trying to intervene. In the film, Mercutio fights Tybalt and eventually slams Tybalt to the ground onto a mirror which shatters underneath him; this builds tension as the audience believes that Mercutio has done some serious damage to Tybalt. However after this Mercutio goes to strike Tybalt again with a plank of wood, but Romeo stops hi m by getting in the way and holding him back.Whilst doing so, Mercutio gets struck by Tybalt with a shard of glass. This builds tension as Mercutio was one of the main characters of the scene, he did a lot and now he has been killed by Tybalt, the audience know something is going to happen. In the film, a lot of tension is built by pathetic fallacy, which is where the weather reflects the mood at the time. At the start of the scene, the sun is burning and is very hot and hazy, suggesting that it is unclear what is going to happen or that a person is unclear about something such as Benvolio being unclear on why Mercutio will not leave.Also, in the fight it could suggest that the outcome is unclear. When Mercutio dies, the weather changes dramatically to a very turbulent, stormy weather. This shows the chaos that is involved in the scene. The weather also turns from day to night, light to dark, which suggests that there is lots of deceit in this scene because Romeo is confused about M ercutio dying in his arms. The darkness also reflects Romeo’s mood as he gets angry and evil. He then set out to kill Tybalt. In the darkness Romeo also kills Tybalt by shooting him multiple times in the back.I have found that Shakespeare has used many ways in which he makes the play chromatic and exciting for the audience. I have discovered that the main fight itself is spurred on by Mercutio building tension between the characters and in the scene. I have also found that in Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of the play that he used many techniques such as pathetic fallacy to create drama and tension in this scene. Overall Shakespeare has used many ways to build drama and tension, he has conveyed excellently in this scene love and hatred.

Voltaire And His Candide - Voltaire s Candide - 1211 Words

Voltaire and his Candide Introduction Voltaire is the leader of the French Enlightenment, he enjoyed high prestige in the enlightenment movement. His life was spent in against the feudal regime system and the reactionary forces of the church (Gorbatov, 2006). Voltaire was knowledgeable, he had many works (including philosophy, history, literature, science, etc., throughout his literary creation, the most valuable was his philosophical novels (Sutcliffe, 2000). These novels maintained the vitality of art, because it was according to the need of enlightenment thought content, it had found suitable form of art (Mason, 1970). They were generally in the comic style through the semi mythical or legendary story, which alluded to the ironic reality, clarified some philosophy. Chadig (1747), Candide (1759) and Candide (1767) were representative of his philosophy novels. ‘ 1 Brief introduction to In Voltaire s philosophy novels, the most philosophy is Candide with the highest achievement and the greatest impact. It described the protagonist Candide s misery, criticized the feudal system and the reactionary rule of the forces of the church, however, it was optimism philosophy, Voltaire compared t the rational fictional gold country and the feudal autocratic system, highlighting the dark decay of the social reality (Voltaire, 2007). 2 The real world in Candide Candide was a simple and honest young man, the son of a German baron. In the home, Candide had been theShow MoreRelatedA Summary On Voltaire s Candide 1496 Words   |  6 PagesPre-draft Candide Voltaire known as French Enlightenmen, author, historian and a theorist. Franà §ois-Marie Arouet was born on November 21, 1694. 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