“Inside Out”: Riley’s Psychological Analysis

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Table of Contents

Introduction
A Brief Summary of the Film
Family Portrait Analysis
The Theory of Psychoanalytic Development
Cognitive Development
Application of Skinner’s Theory
Existential Development
Christian Context
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The academic study of cartoon works is essential to detail psychological analysis because it allows to summarize and assess the applicability of theoretical concepts in practical implementation. The core of this statement is the recognition that contemporary cartoons rarely serve a pure entertainment function but instead aim to educate viewers about specific patterns and qualities. This genre of cinematography is mainly aimed at the children’s audience, which means that the task of the screenwriters is to create such material that would be able to tell the severe emotional problems of the real world in a simple and understandable form for the young viewer. This works even when the authors embody the most fantasy reality on the screen and give the characters incredible superpowers.

Particular attention in the genre of cartoons deserves the legendary Disney company. Its unique feature is a long history of the brand, which has become the center of attention for more than a dozen generations. Consequently, not only modern children but also their parents and grandparents grew up in the works of this animation company. This reason underlies the in-depth development of the published animated works, as the company’s management is aware that not only children will be present at the film screenings. The characters in all of the company’s films have a high degree of personal development and scripted motivation, and therefore it is appropriate to study whole concepts of a psychological theory of personal development on their example.

Among the majority of modern Disney cartoons, each of which deserves to be in the center of this analysis, the most interesting is the material of 2015 by the American animator Pete Docter, namely Inside Out. The cartoon is an excellent demonstration of the age dynamics of a protagonist named Riley going through severe emotional crises and the severity of her relationship with her parents. Through the example of Inside Out, one can trace the depth of psychological study of theories from Freudian concepts of childhood to Jungian archetypes of the Shadow. A detailed, critical analysis of this film from the perspective of a psychotherapy student is the core of this research paper.

A Brief Summary of the Film

The narrative of this animated work centers on the life and growing up of an eleven-year-old girl named Riley, the only child in a whole family. Due to work circumstances, the family has to move from their native place of residence, Minnesota, to a poor neighborhood of San Francisco, and as a result, the girl’s habitual way of life changes dramatically. Riley is forced to go to a new school, make acquaintances and, most importantly, give up her favorite hobby, hockey, because, in this region, the sport is not available to children. As a result, the girl is going through a complex change crisis, for which she was not yet ready. The situation is complicated by the lack of deep family ties shown: certainly, mother and father spend time together with their daughter, but there seems to be no real understanding between them.

The title of the film Inside Out was not given to work because of its romantic and intriguing sound or its deep subtext. On the contrary, the film uses the concept of the five fundamental emotions that determine each individual’s behavior. The film repeatedly shows that every living being, whether human or animal, is guided by their emotions in all decisions. These five include Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust, each of which appears as multicolored humanized beings living in the character’s mind. Moreover, each of the emotions seems equivalent, and there is a partnership between them in general. This refers to the status of the active emotion, the fairness of duty over Riley’s dream, or the contemplative nature of crucial decision-making.

Another intriguing feature of the cartoon is the concept of spherical capsules that hold all of the individual’s memories. The inner world of an individual’s consciousness is much deeper than the brain center with its five key emotions and is represented by billions of memories, locations, and images, creating the individual’s worldview. In addition, all the characters from a person’s dreams live in this world and the workers who remove old memories and control the effectiveness of memory. The primary emotions can load balls of memories into the receiver so that Riley “recalls” specific events at a given moment: this is a critical skill that will decide an essential role in the girl’s behavior.

Family Portrait Analysis

As a typical younger generation member, Riley is an active, generally cheerful child, successfully balancing school, relationships with friends, sports, and spending time together with her parents. The film showed the family spending every evening dinner together, discussing current problems and sharing feelings. Such parenting methods are known to be an excellent implementation of the strategy of the harmonious development of the child’s personality (Camarero-Figuerola, 2020). As mentioned, Riley is an eleven-year-old white girl, and her parents are probably no more than forty years old. There is every reason to believe that both parents are related to Riley since no statement to the contrary has been made.

It is interesting to note that Riley is the classic collective image of children at this age. Riley is just entering a phase of adolescence in which critical changes in not only her appearance but also her conscious perception of reality are noticeable (Morin, 2019). In terms of physical growth, the high school student has the shapely physique of a young girl (Balaban, 2018). In terms of cognitive development, Riley also demonstrates necessary transformations for an eleven-year-old girl: doubt in authority figures (parents), resistance to physical and spiritual intimacy with them, and attempts to run away from home (Ropes, 2020). All of this together makes it clear that Riley’s image is not random: the authors deliberately tried to create an archetype that would have critical characteristics for this age group.

In the context of a family portrait, this family can be described as entirely stereotypical. This includes a hockey-loving father passionate about his career, a stay-at-home mother willing to find compromise in any scandal, and a curious daughter who has the classic selfish views of the only child in the family (Bai et al., 2019). The religious views of the family members were not discussed during the film, but it can be assumed that they are either American Christians or nonbelievers. In contrast, the socioeconomic status of the family was well discussed in Inside Out. As typical middle-class people, the Riley family cannot afford to buy an expensive home in a prosperous area of western California. Instead, they have to buy an empty house with no furniture in a dilapidated neighborhood in San Francisco.

Finally, to complete the portentous analysis of the narrative family, it is appropriate to consider the positions of the gender and sexual identities of the protagonists. The work did not explicitly state the presence of any LGBTQ+ community members or gender identities other than the innate gender characteristics of the individuals. In addition, in the depths of Riley’s subconscious, a young boy, whose archetype is her love reference, was spotted. Subsequently, Riley will meet a similar boy in real life, which directly alludes to the possibility of a romantic relationship between children. As a consequence, it is possible to state with complete confidence the heterosexual orientation of the girl.

The Theory of Psychoanalytic Development

The Freudian view of psychoanalysis may cause many doubts and discussions in the academic community, which, however, do not invalidate the fact that it is possible to apply the researcher’s concepts to actual cases. In fact, Sigmund Freud is one of the most recognizable figures of psychological personality theory, whose ideas are often disseminated even to an untrained audience. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis is built on several pillars, which are revealed by a detailed examination of the film Inside Out.

The first of these factors is the idea of determinism, which postulates the predetermination of the manifestation of the psyche. The entire movie seems to be built on this concept, as a built-in mechanism directly sets all emotional patterns: the little cognitive beings that control Riley’s emotions and memory. As a result, all the actions manifested by the individual have a causal origin, which is what the authors laid down in the creation of this animated work. Moreover, it has been shown that each individual’s key emotions are unique and have similar features of appearance and behavior. Consequently, it is appropriate to assume that these creatures are born together with a person and exist together with them throughout their life. In turn, this means complete continuity of the adult individual’s worldview from childhood.

Another intriguing illustration of Freudian psychoanalysis concerning Riley is the concept of sublimation. As it is known, in psychology, the term refers to an individual’s defense mechanism aimed at redirecting excess energy into an alternative channel to achieve positive outcomes (Even-Tzur & Hadar, 2019). This method allows one to relieve stress and reach heights in creativity, sports, or hobbies. Riley demonstrated an example of sublimation while playing on the hockey field when control of her life was handed over to Anger. The aggressive girl, overwhelmed with destructive feelings, decided to channel that energy into sports, which is an excellent example of sublimation.

Cognitive Development

There are quite a few well-known theories that study the evolutionary development of personality in parallel with the maturation of the individual. There is no doubt that one of the best known is Piaget’s theory, which categorizes dynamic growth as a sequence of alternating phases associated with age. According to Piaget’s theory, Riley is in an intermediate state between a period of concrete operations and a phase of formal operations (Bormanaki & Khoshhal, 2017). Theoretically, this means that the girl already has a formalized logical thinking system but still operates with little abstract thinking. In addition, according to Piaget, Riley can make her assumptions and hypotheses. Consequently, perceived knowledge builds up not in the form of individual micro-themes or lists but as a coherent system.

Assuming that the key five emotions are not individual personalities within the individual but rather a comprehensive resource structured by responsibilities, one can notice a strong correspondence between Riley’s personality and Piaget’s theory. In the first place, Riley has concluded on her own (or, more accurately, through emotion) that her current life does not bring her joy, and therefore she needs to return to Minnesota. Riley correlates the deterioration of her emotional state with the move and her new surroundings, and therefore, as a result, tries to escape from home. It was a constructed hypothesis that the girl would be able to get everything back if she moved back: thus, if the story were to allow her to return to her hometown, she would be able to test this hypothesis for validity.

Application of Skinner’s Theory

Another interesting theory relevant to this cartoon is Skinner’s theory of operant learning. The core of this theory is the idea that human or animal behavior can be conditioned by the use of stimuli that the subject may or may not consider satisfactory for a particular case (Devaki, 2021). Specifically, the patterns of an individual’s behavior are governed by positive reinforcers, prizes, memories, or rewards. It is a memory that is the key factor within this film, as in Inside Out, Riley repeatedly turns to deep capsules to calm himself in the face of stress. On the other hand, the Emotions themselves determine the girl’s behavior: in moments of critical need, key emotions determine which memories or patterns to turn to guide Riley.

Existential Development

Finally, the most unobvious element of Riley’s story is the discovery of the Jungian Shadow in the protagonist’s life. It is worth recalling that Carl Jung constructed the nature of an individual’s personality according to a triangular system, the basis of which was psychic energy. The individual’s consciousness forms the apex of the triangle, and between the two boundaries is the unconscious, including the archetype of the Shadow. The Shadow, according to Jung, is a particular component of the unconscious system, which is an autonomous unit consisting of personal and collective attitudes (Freysson, 2020). Failure to accept the Shadow leads to personality incoherence and thus to the most serious internal conflicts.

In relation to Riley, such a Shadow can be referred to as the emotion of Sadness, which is traditionally perceived by society as a negative, demanding side. Sadness in the film is not a self-sufficient unit and requires the support of Joy, the situational leader of the whole five. Thus, Riley cannot accept Sadness and instead tries to shut down the emotions of Joy even where they are inappropriate. In turn, this strategy leads to a lack of harmony between emotions, and as a result, Riley’s deep stress. It is likely that if the girl had been initially normal about her Sadness and Sadness, she would have had no problem expressing her emotions.

Christian Context

An essential part of psychological counseling is the professional ethics that govern the nature of the relationship between the parties. If biblical teachings are used as the source of such ethics, it is appropriate to form some vision of Riley’s ultimate client management strategy. In an initial analysis, systemic counseling, and making work proposals, it is critical to consider the client’s religious background and not create solutions contrary to the foundations of Christianity. In addition, Riley should not have been suggested to study on Sundays if it interfered with church attendance. Simultaneously, the Bible suggests personal development by demonstrating love for God, so finding integrations between academic personality psychodynamics and Christian precepts would be an intelligent solution.

Conclusion

In closing, it should be noted that animated films are often profound reflections of existing theories of personality psychology. In the film Inside Out, Riley’s review of the protagonist successfully identifies the motivators and driving forces driving the girl’s life and behavior. It has been shown that Riley can be seen as a collective image of critical physiological and cognitive transformations occurring to an individual at the age of eleven. In addition, concerning Riley, it was appropriate to consider the academic views of Freud, Jung, Skinner, and Piaget as reflected in the character’s behavior.

References

Bai, B. Y., Tan, X. Y., Zhang, N., & Yang, Y. (2019). Social dominance orientation and selfish behaviors in Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of psychological entitlement. Child Indicators Research, 1-11.

Balaban, V. (2018). The relationship between objectively measured physical activity and fundamental motor skills in 8 to 11 years old children from the Czech Republic. Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 7(2), 11-16.

Bormanaki, H. B., & Khoshhal, Y. (2017). The role of equilibration in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and its implication for receptive skills: A theoretical study. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 8(5), 1-13.

Camarero-Figuerola, M., Dueñas, J. M., & Renta-Davids, A. I. (2020). The relationship between family involvement and academic variables: A systematic review. Research in Social Sciences and Technology, 5(2), 57-71.

Devaki, V. (2021). Influence of Behaviourist and cognitivist theories in adult language acquisition. Elsya: Journal of English Language Studies, 3(1), 38-44.

Even-Tzur, E., & Hadar, U. (2019). Socially accepted violence by “agents of law”: Sublimation of aggression as a model. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 47, 21-28.

Freysson, E. (2020). The hidden side of the soul: how the shadow archetype relates to human evil[PDF document]. Web.

Morin, A. (2019). 11-year-old child development milestones. Very Well Family. Web.

Ropes, K. (2020). The intersectional effects of race and gender on time to. Lead Exposure, Concentrated Disadvantage, and Violent Crime Rates Tara E. Martin and Scott E. Wolfe 25 Puberty and Girls’ Delinquency: A Test of Competing Models Explaining the Relationship between Pubertal Development and Delinquent Behavior, 37(1), 132-160.

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