The Incredibles, a family-oriented superhero animated film, filled with action-packed crime fighting entertainment will be the topic of this paper on social psychology. As an animated film, many of its characters and situations are an exaggeration of real life, allowing for clear demonstration of many social psychological principles. This paper will focus on providing clear examples of cognitive dissonance and the frustration-aggression principle. The movie follows the story of a superhero family who live in an area where superpowers have been banned.
Bob, who is also known as Mr. Incredible, is struggling with cognitive dissonance early in the film. The scene explicitly showing his struggle takes place in both his own work cubicle and the office of his boss, Gilbert Huph. At the start of the scene, an elderly lady comes to Bob in order to get an insurance claim approved. He is forced into cognitive dissonance when he denies her claim, after which he shares with her the secret to getting her claim approved. The scene continues as he is sent to speak with his boss who confronts him about his anti-company activities. While in his boss’s office, he can see a robbing of an innocent person going on which further exacerbates his psychological distress. This drives a wedge between his thoughts and actions causing cognitive dissonance which ultimately ends in an outburst when it is poorly resolved.
The cognitive dissonance theory was discovered by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957. Cognitive dissonance theory is described as the state of having inconstant thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change that cause a discomfort. The psychological discomfort leads to the changing of actions or beliefs in an attempt to reduce the discomfort. This is driven by the need to restore balance and maintain internal constancy in order to be able to function in the real world at the highest possible standard. Cognitive dissonance is also described as relief from tension after the ideas or behaviour has been changed. Copious experiments have been done to explore and test the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance. These experiments proved that cognitive dissonance has the ability to impact everyone. When individuals were asked to write an essay about something they don’t believe in for a reward of two dollars, they began to believe and support the ideas and thoughts they were writing about in the essay in order to relieve the tension produced by the phenomenon. The understanding of cognitive dissonance opened many new ideas for social psychologists, such as the idea that “we cannot directly control our feelings, but we can influence them by altering our behaviour" (Myers & Dewall, 2015).
As viewers of the movie, we see Bob struggling with cognitive dissonance as he has to continuously say “no” to situations he would normally agree to. The theory is supported in the scene where he is clearly uncomfortable denying the elderly lady of her insurance claim. The scene opens with Bob repeatedly denying the pleas of a helpless old woman, a stark juxtaposition to his heroics in the opening sequence of the film. We can almost feel Bob’s discomfort as he can be seen peeking his head out of cubicle looking to see if anyone is around and possibly listening. When he sees no one is around he whispers instructions for the lady to get her claim approved and then takes a sigh of relief knowing that the discomfort from his two opposing thoughts has been relieved. Ultimately, Bob’s job at the insurance company is requiring that he act as a villain which, is in opposition to his personal belief that he is a hero. As the scene progresses, he is seen being lectured in his boss’ office. This time he feels the need to help someone who is being mugged just outside the office. Now, he not only has to choose between being a hero or villain at the insurance company, he also has to choose been being a hero or villain in the real world. While speaking with his boss, Bob struggles with cognitive dissonance yet again. Bob makes a break for the door to help the mugging victim to relieve his own psychological distress when his boss proclaims that he will be instantly fired if he goes to the victim’s aid. Struggling with deciding between his two conflicting ideals, helping others and keeping his job to provide for his family, he freezes. In his inability to relieve the tension of his extreme cognitive dissonance, he snaps; externalizing his mental tension, he outbursts in violence, throwing his boss through three walls. The look of shame on his face tells us that he knows he has done wrong but at the same time he experiences a sense of relief as he has finally chosen to break the mental tension.
The frustration-aggression principle is clearly demonstrated in the opening sequence of the film when superpowers were not yet banned. Buddy, who later becomes Syndrome was desperate to become Mr. Incredible’s sidekick. Buddy had a dream of being a superhero but later turns into a villain after repeatedly being rejected by Mr. Incredible. Buddy followed Mr. Incredible everywhere he went and put considerable effort into impressing him, invented his own superpowers. Every time Buddy had an encounter with Mr. Incredible he begged him for a chance at being his sidekick. Mr. Incredible finally became tired of constantly telling Buddy that “[he] works alone” and ultimately arranged for Buddy to be driven home in a police car, with specific instructions to tell his mother what he had done. This pushed Buddy’s frustration to its breaking point, resulting in extreme aggression throughout the film.
The frustration-aggression principle was proposed in 1939 by psychologists Dollar, Dood, Miller, Mower, and Sears. It proposes frustration as the primary cause of aggression in people while stating that the person does not have to become aggressive with the person or object that is causing them frustration, they may become aggressive with anything or anyone including innocent bystanders. Frustration is defined as feelings of being upset or annoyed, especially when one is being obstructed from achieving a goal or objective. Aggression is hostile or violent behaviour towards another person or object. It can be seen in physical, verbal, or emotional forms. These two traits are often related as the more frustrated people become, the angrier they get. Men are more likely to be victim to the frustration-aggression principle, as men have higher aggression rates than women. This principle was supported by researchers observing the correlation between aggression and batters being hit by pitchers in Major League Baseball. It was shown that batters were more likely to be hit by the pitcher when the pitcher was frustrated due to previous batter hitting a home run, the current batter hitting a homer last time at bat or a teammate being hit by a pitch in the previous half inning (Myers & Dewall, 2015). This supported the original idea that frustration and anger are correlated.
Buddy becomes increasingly frustrated with Mr. Incredible as each time he approaches Mr. Incredible to be his sidekick, he is rejected. When Mr. Incredible finds Buddy in his car and asks buddy to get out, when Buddy refuses, Mr. Incredible ejects him out of the car landing him on the nearby sidewalk. This bold rejection energizes Buddy's frustration. From here on, Buddy continuously tries to prove himself to Mr. Incredible but to no avail. Mr. Incredible does not accept him as a sidekick. Buddy even breaks into a bank to attempt to help Mr. Incredible catch a robber, leading to Mr. Incredible repeatedly and firmly rejecting Buddy. The frustration reaches its peak when Buddy’s hero sends him away with the police, instructing them to tell his mother what he has done, which we can assume is a moment of deep shame.
From the frustration-aggression principle, Buddy should exhibit aggressive behaviour due to his overwhelming amount of frustration. Although the frustration does not occur when Buddy is young, his aggression builds and is released in the later portion of the movie when Buddy is an adult and has changed his name to Syndrome. Syndrome lives a life of anger, violence and revenge, with his focus being defeating Mr. Incredible for all the embarrassment he caused him as a boy. Mr. Incredible stood between Buddy and his goal of becoming Mr. Incredible’s side-kick, resulting in life altering levels of frustration. In his quest for revenge, Syndrome began killing other superheroes, especially those who Mr. Incredible was allies with. He later seeks his revenge on Mr. Incredible directly, and even launches an attack on a major city. Buddy’s journey to become Syndrome is a highly exaggerated example of the effects of frustration-aggression principle, providing an ideal scenario to explain it.
The Incredibles is a well-renowned movie for its underlying messages and teaching aspects. It’s bold examples of many psychological principles make it an ideal teaching tool. In addition, it incorporated many aspects of social psychology taught in chapter thirteen of Psychology 101 seamlessly. Specifically, the two main principles portrayed in this movie were social dissonance, the uncomfortableness of two opposing ideas, and frustration-aggression principle, the idea that one becomes aggressive when they are frustrated. The movie was able to portray these principles so well as it exaggerated everything the characters did allowing the viewer to really connect and understand the motives of the characters. In conclusion, The Incredibles is not only a family fun movie, it is one that will teach its viewers aspects of social psychology and provide insight into many life lessons when viewed and reviewed on a deeper level.