This movie has concepts from Chapters 9-12. You may use concepts from other chapters, but you should make sure to include some concepts from these chapters.
Watch the movie. Take notes.
Next, write your comment. Your comment does not need to provide an overview of the movie (we have all seen it). Your comment should be an in-depth analysis of one or more principles from your text. You should use scenes and characters to provide examples of textbook concepts. Your comment should reflect that you are in an upper division, university level Motivation and Emotion course and clearly link elements from the movie to the textbook. Some of your comments last time for Ray were far too short. I think you know who you are. This is a comprehensive assignment (linking course lectures, textbook, and the movie) and you cannot do that in just a few short paragraphs.
BE SPECIFIC. At the bottom of your comment, please put a list of the ME terms you used.
Amadeus was very different from the other movies we have watched. This movie was really interesting to the fact it depicted Mozart using historical facts completely different than anyone has ever thought of him. After watching this, I found myself to be curious about his life, so I read a little about him. Much of what occurred in the movie is shrouded in facts. This made me question many things about Mozart’s and Antonio Salieri’s various motivations throughout their careers.
This movie is told from the viewpoint of Salieri. Towards the beginning of Salieri’s career working as the court composer in Vienna, he believed himself to be really good at what he did. Salieri admired Mozart’s work and his gift of music. It was not until Salieri witnessed an exchange between Mozart and his fiancée that we see the huge contrast between these two men’s self-esteems that plays out through the rest of the film. Mozart had very high self-esteem, he really believed in the music that he composed. Before he reached Vienna and had to compete with Salieri’s power, he had never failed with music since the age of three. Salieri at first appeared to have high self-esteem until he met Mozart, then the audience saw him questioning his skills and anger occurred. There was a built up of anger throughout Amadeus. It hit it’s climax when Salieri came to believe that Mozart had slept with the woman Salieri loved. After that Salieri became furious with Mozart and God. Anger usually arises when individuals believe something is not how it should be. He was so upset with God because he had given so much talent whom Salieri deemed unworthy. When anger is acted out it usually is very successful at righting the injustice. Salieri never expressed his anger to Mozart and since he believed that it was God doing the injustice he at first felt helpless. Due to never acting out the anger, Salieri soon turned subtly violent. He started plotting Mozart’s death.
Although Salieri hated Mozart he could not help but gain great joy from his music. Even while his hatred motivated him to use his power to make sure his operas were rarely shown, Salieri still went to each opera. Mozart was driven to poverty because of his lack of shows, but he still performed for the local people. Salieri expressed interest in how each opera turned out by attending each night Mozart’s operas were performed. It was apparent that his music brought a lot of joy into Salier’s life during each song. The music is what soothed him. When people are happy they are more likely to help people. When Salieri noticed Mozart fall over, he rushed from his balcony to help him. Unfortunately, his true intentions were shown when Mozart’s fellow performers stopped by to pay him.
Salieri told Mozart that it had been the masked man who had been visiting him about making a death march. Mozart desperately needed rest but Salieri told him that he had to make the march by the next day. Salieri knew he would work himself to death. He believed when Mozart died he would have more joy because he would again be the best composer in Vienna, he would get what he wanted. As the movie ended with an old Salieri telling the story, we see he did not obtain joy. He was lonely and had to watch as his music was no longer remembered.
Salieri had felt threatened by Mozart’s musical greatness. This threat led to fear. Salieri had a self-schema about being the greatest musician in Vienna which he had been by that point. That became a part of Salieri’s consistent self. When what we believe about ourselves is threatened, we do what we can to fight that. Mozart challenged Salier’s consistent self so he turned violent.
Overall, this movie was full of motivational and emotional psychological factors. It was a great historical fiction story of joy, hatred, and ultimately murder. It was a good movie that I would recommend to other people.
Terms: self-esteem, anger, joy, interest, threat, self-schema, consistent self
In Amadeus, we watch as emotions lead to motivation which leads to behavior on the part of Salieri. Salieri shows a range of emotions throughout the movie. When he was a child, listening to music triggered happiness in him. This led him to smile. It also led to the desire to be able to play music. We can see how the happiness music brought him intrinsically motivated him to pursue a music career. He tells us that he had always admired Mozart. The scene where that changed was when Mozart came running out of the room where he’s just asked his future wife to marry him. This was a significant life event for Salieri. He’d waited his whole life to meet Mozart, and then he realized that Mozart was the man who had disgusted him. Salieri’s emotion to the way Mozart had treated Constanze was definitely disgust. (Actually, there was probably a little bit of jealously in there too.) He takes that emotion of disgust and justifies it by saying that Mozart had not acted like a gentleman, which was actually true. Another scene in which emotion was shown was when Mozart plays the piece Salieri had written for him. Before this happens, we assume that Salieri wrote it to show Mozart that he was as good as him. I would call that emotion pride; the feeling that he is good at something, the body responses with an increased heart rate, the expression manifests itself as a smile (the “I’ll show you” kind of smile), and the sense of purpose helps him to decide that he’ll write a really good piece. His emotion of pride in place, it extrinsically motivates him to work hard at writing a piece. It’s extrinsically motivating because he’s not doing it to please himself; he’s doing to compete – to show he’s better. I found this scene to showcase Salieri’s greatest need – the need for power. He doesn’t really have intimate relationships and doesn’t require them. He somewhat needs affiliation, as he needs the approval of others. I would say that he does have a fairly high need for achievement, he wants to be the best, but I think power overshadows that. He wants to have power over Mozart, especially when he realizes that Mozart is better than him. He wants Mozart humbled and destroyed…. He wants Mozart dead. There are two emotions that all of these things stem from: anger and jealously. Jealously isn’t listed in the text as a basic emotion (and it shouldn’t be. It’s a complex emotion.) but jealously is one of the emotions at the root of the following actions. Salieri loves Mozart’s work; it fills him with joy and happiness, but he realizes that he will never be as good as Mozart. We see here the loss of intrinsic motivation for music; Salieri doesn’t take this as an opportunity to push himself to learn and get better; instead, he decides to avoid challenging himself. (Approach-avoidance behavior.) The conflicting emotion of joy and longing to be as good as Mozart leaves him with jealously. Anger fills him because he sees Mozart’s work eclipsing his own. He sees Mozart’s work living on and his dying out, and the jealously and anger combine to form hate. Hate can be seen when he describes how he used his influence to have Mozart’s operas only be shown so many times. This hate gives Salieri a purpose, to kill Mozart. We see intrinsic motivation enter the scene again; Salieri plots to drive Mozart mad. His need for power and his hate for Mozart’s talent (and Mozart’s personality) lead to Mozart’s death. However, these emotions and needs also lead to a very unfulfilling life. Instead of being a psychologically well person, he shows very poor self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. Of all of them, low personal growth is shown best when he says that he’s had 30 years to watch Mozart’s popularity grow. It tells us that he’s done no personal growth at all; he’s gotten better at nothing but has allowed his emotions to ruin his life.
Terms I used: jealously, anger, joy, happiness, intrinstic motivation, extrinstric motivation, achievement, affiliation, power, intimacy, need, disgust, self-acceptance, postive relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose, personal growth, approach-avoidance.
I’m going to start off by saying that I had quite the struggle staying awake during Amadeus. I felt like the movie was dragging on and on and on and I wanted to punch Mozart in the face every time he laughed! Despite my dislike for the film, I did see a lot of connections with chapter 12 on the self and its strivings and the movie Amadeus.
I would say that Mozart had a great sense of self. The four problems Reeve identifies in the book for analyzing the self are 1. defining or creating the self, 2. relating the self to society, 3. discovering and developing personal potential, and 4. managing or regulating the self. Mozart definitely didn’t have these problems. He created his own “self” (with the help of his father) when he was just a young boy. He was very relatable to society because he was so personable and everyone loved him. Along with creating his “self,” he discovered and developed his personal potential at a very young age when he was performing for royalty at age 5. He also didn’t have any problems managing his self. He was very good at what he did and had a ton of confidence in himself. An important way Mozart regulated his self was how me monitored his accomplishments and goals by talking with the Emperor and all the other people of importance, including Antonio Salieri. As for Salieri, I think he also had a good sense of self, be was just overlooked because of Mozart. Reeve mentions that identity energizes and directs behavior. This is true for both Mozart and Salieri. In the time and occupations these men were in, society was semi-flexible. It was more so for Mozart because he could mostly choose what to compose and who to perform it for. This was not always possible because the emperor banned the play Figaro, which Mozart composed as an opera. For Salieri, he was able to state his opinions about things, but he ultimately had to listen to whatever the emperor said. They both however had the responsibility in determining their relationships with others. It was Salieri’s choice to hate Mozart. Though I can’t really blame him considering Mozart slept with the woman he loved. As well as hating Mozart, Salieri chose to hate God for giving him this bad luck. Every time something bad happened to him or didn’t go his way, he would curse God. I think Salieri’s hatred for Mozart also motivated him to continue to compose in hopes he could be as good as Mozart was. One problem I noticed with Mozart is that he had trouble self regulating. Self regulation means instead of acting impulsively, the self can evaluate its resources, monitor its goals, evaluate goal progress, and make the adjustments that are necessary to enable more competent functioning (Reeve, 2009). Mozart acted very impulsively, especially with money. There was a scene where Constanze went to talk to Salieri about getting Mozart a job, and Constanze mentioned how terrible Mozart was with money. She said it just fell through his fingers. Later in the film, Mozart is shown pampering and buying expensive things for his wife and his father in preparation for a party.
I like how our textbook describes self esteem: “like a scoreboard that shows how well or how poorly things are going and” “a consequence of cumulative achievement related successes and failures”. This means that Salieri had very low self esteem because he felt that nothing was going his way while Mozart had very high self esteem because he was so successful and everyone loved him. The higher the achievement, the higher the self esteem, hence Mozart’s high self esteem. People with low self esteem such as Salieri suffer from high levels of anxiety. This is demonstrated in the film because Salieri is constantly consumed with trying to live up to Mozart while also trying to make things worse for Mozart. Mozart’s success gave Salieri great amounts of anxiety.
Cognitive dissonance is defined as inconsistent beliefs about who the self is and what the self does (Reeve, 2009). Salieri exhibits this because inside, he hates Mozart with everything he has, but no one knows this but him. He doesn’t act like he hates him, he just thinks it himself. Even though he hates him, he still helps Mozart and attends his operas. This would have been very psychologically uncomfortable for Salieri because on the inside he literally wanted to kill Mozart but he couldn’t show it.
The self concordance model can be shown through Mozart’s accomplishments. The questions this model asks are: 1. how do people decide what to strive for in their lives? and 2. how does this personal striving process sometimes nurture the self and promote well being yet other times go away and diminish well being? The model starts with the individual creating a goal to strive for. In Mozart’s case, his goals were all musical. Whether his goal was to learn a new instrument or compose another opera, they all reflected his core self’s needs, interests, and preferences.
Terms: the self, identity, self-regulation, self-esteem, cognitive dissonance, self-concordance
Throughout the movie Amadeus we see a vast array of emotions emitted from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the feature character. With an obnoxiously, distinct laugh, we see a care free man with extraordinary talent. Each and every one of us has a vast array of emotions. Emotions are short-lived feelings of arousal that help us to adapt to opportunities and challenges we may face during important life events (Reeves 2009). There are six essential emotions, these include; disgust, anger, fear, sadness, joy and interest. Each one of these emotions is portrayed during the movie whether it was from Mozart or his envious rival, Antonio Salieri.
In the beginning we see Salieri’s utter disgust and anger with the composer Mozart after he is placed in the mental institution following his attempted suicide. Suicide was his coping strategy. Instead of facing the truth of achieving only mediocrity, Salieri avoids the facts and chooses the escape route, in other words, death. Salieri was a strong believer in God, whom he devoted his music to in order to praise him. He was a true believer in the power of Mozart’s music, but he couldn’t seem to understand why God had favored such a “vulgar creature” to be his instrument. As a result of these strong, harsh feelings, Salieri became filled with anger and disgust towards his God and Mozart. Anger being the most passionate emotion, we can see the passion in Salieri’s eyes after watching Mozart completely revise a short composition he had written for Mozart’s entrance in seconds. Anger and disgust can go hand in hand when it comes to getting rid of or doing away with something, which is exactly what Salieri wanted to do with Mozart. To Salieri, Mozart was an interpersonal contamination in his life. Disgust plays a positive motivational role on us surprisingly. It instills a drive within us, which keeps us from the disgusting matter or situation.
When an individual is faced with a situation that they may perceive to be dangerous or threatening to their well-being, fear arises. We see fear take place within Mozart concluding a visit from an unknown individual dressed in a mask and all black clothing, asking him to write a requiem for a man who is dead who deserved one but never got one by a certain time. A foreshadow of his death, Mozart is frightened by the request motivating to do as he was told. Another example of fear is shown through the cleaning lady for Mozart, who is really a decoy hired by Salieri. After witnessing Mozart on the fringe of going mad, the cleaning lady refuses to go back, in fear of not knowing what he will do. She became fearful of the unknown.
In the beginning we see a smitten Mozart for his future wife, Constanze. His interest becomes apparent after they chase one another around the room prior to Mozart’s performance for the pope. Interest instills the desire to explore, investigate and seek out. Within no time the two marry and stick by one another’s side throughout the movie. We see the Constanze’s love for Mozart towards the end when she mourns over he deceased body. She experiences the most negative, aversive emotion a person can feel. She is obviously in distress over his loss resulting in the coping function of crying, a physical expression of emotion.
The final emotion we see is the joy that is expressed by Salieri and Mozart through their composing. In the beginning, Salieri was confident and proud of his compositions. He admired the work of Mozart and was contempt with his place in life. It wasn’t until he met Mozart in person; we see a decrease in his overall joy in everyday life. Mozart on the other hand rarely let a smile slip from his face. We see a man abundant with joy throughout the movie. Getting what he wanted, being respected and receiving love and affection, not to mention being incredibly talented, Mozart really had no reason to not be joyful although we are only human and cannot be joyful 24/7. He had a very strong affect, presenting himself with a warm glow as a result of pleasant experiences.
Overall, we see a man full of energy and life, a man with a strong sense of self esteem and self acceptance. Mozart knew he was going to be something one day. He just needed the chance and a break out opportunity. He experiences personal growth from performance to performance after seeing the audience expression and feedback from the political figures, although he rarely took what they had to say to heart and instead did as he pleased. All in all he had success far beyond the average person.
Our lives bring upon challenges, stresses and problems, whether we bring them upon ourselves or not, they will happen. Our emotions present themselves in order to help us cope and solve these issues. The highs, lows, and various obstacles Mozart and Salieri experience are all important in defining particular emotions.
Terms used: emotions, fear, disgust, sadness, joy, interest, drive, coping function, self esteem, self acceptance and personal growth
William Peach
The movie Amadeus was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I thought it was going to be totally unrelated to anything I know from my generation, and as a result, totally stupid. I guess I could only picture Mozart as being old and boring. As it turns out, that is not the case. The movie was very easy to relate to for a number of reasons. The most obvious of the reasons I could relate to the movie were the strong, what the book calls, basic emotions. The movie was flooded with emotion, and it only makes sense that the basic emotions have been around for much longer than probably anything else we know. The five basic emotions the book discusses are anger, fear, disgust, sadness, joy, and interest.
There is, of coarse, set criteria which so-called basic emotions must meet in order to be considered a basic emotion. The following stipulations were produced by (Ekman & Davidson, 1994): The emotion must be “innate rather than acquired or learned through experience or socialization. The emotion must “arise from the same circumstances for all people (personal loss makes everyone sad, irrespective of their age, gender, or culture).” The emotion must be “expressed uniquely and distinctively (as through a universal facial expression). Also, the emotion must “evoke a distinctive and highly predictable physiological patterned response.” According to a group of researchers, (Shaver et al., 1987) “ people learn increasingly finer distinctions within the causes and consequences of these five basic emotions.” Basically, people begin to understand the origins and ramifications of these concepts more and more each day through personal experiences with each emotion. For instance, it takes “learning, experience, and socialization” (Reeve), to understand the many varieties of fear. As fear is a basic emotion, it describes, in general, an entire host of emotions that are simply off-shoots of fear. Such as, “alarm, shock, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification, anxiety, tension, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, dread, and perhaps others” (Reeve).
The first emotion I will begin discussing is fear. The emotion of fear seems to have obvious evolutionary purpose. There was a time in history when man lived outdoors and was probably as much preyed upon as he hunted. Of coarse today, saber-toothed tigers and other man eating beasts are mostly extinct thanks to man’s will to conquer nature, and the emotion of fear seems to cause more problems than it actually helps. “Fear is an emotional reaction that arises from a person’s interpretation that the situation he or she faces is dangerous and a threat to one’s well being,” (Reeve). However, according to Yoda, “fear leads to the dark side.” Currently, Yoda’s interpretation of fear almost makes more sense to me than Reeve’s interpretation. I think that one could argue Yoda’s interpretation easily when considering the movie Amadeus, and more specifically, the composer Antonio Salieri. Since the time of Salieri’s birth he had feared being nothing in life. It seemed that more than anything he also craved status and power. I think one could argue that his fear of not being powerful and well-respected ultimately led him to believe that if Mozart was dead, the world would be a better place for himself. In Salieri’s eyes, if Mozart were to die, than Salieri himself would be the world’s most beloved composer.
The basic emotion of anger was well represented throughout Amadeus. One of my favorite examples from the movie involved Salieri’s hatred for God’s decisions. Salieri became furious with the idea that God would give such tremendous music skills the such an “impish jokester,” as described on the back of the DVD case. In fact, Salieri became so incensed with the Lord, that he actually burned his own crucifix.
Mozart was very close to his father, and like all fathers, Mozart’s eventually died. When his father passed Mozart fell into a deep depression, and the basic emotion of sadness was very evident through his music. He made very depressing music and his alcohol consumption rapidly increased, addiction is often a consequence of depression.
Music and composition were the center of this movie. Even though music can express all the emotions I think it was really the joy of Mozart. He lived, breathed and almost even thought, entirely in terms of music. He would hear music in everything, for example, he heard notes for a piece of music when a lady was complaining about his bad behavior.
Salieri had a very complex relationship to Mozart, although he eventually pretty much just hated him. However, before the two composers met face to face Salieri and much respect for Mozart’s accomplishments and a great interest for who Mozart the man/musician actually was. He was certainly envious of Mozart and lived somewhat vicariously through him.
The movie Amadeus may not be for everyone, but there is no arguing that the basic emotions throughout the movie parallel the emotions felt by everyone.
Terms: anger, fear, disgust, sadness, joy, interest, basic emotions,
Throughout his life Salieri’s main motivation was to write and compose beautiful music. His dream was blocked by the talented Amadeus Mozart. After watching the movie, Amadeus, it is apparent how Salieri’s view of himself hindered his motivation to compose music. Instead he became almost obsessed with understanding Mozart and his incredible gift he had been given to compose outstanding music and produce inspiring operas. Much of Salieri’s issues can be related to the ways in which he defines or creates his self, relates his self to society, discovers and develops his personal potential, and manages and regulates his self.
By defining and creating one’s self a person is showing how their self- concept directs behavior. During the movie it is obvious how Salieri makes choices and acts upon them based on the self-concept he has of himself. Salieri forms mental representations of how he views himself through life experiences and reflections on those experiences. One such example during the movie is the overall conclusion that Salieri comes to, and that is that God was mocking his personal talent by working through Amadeus and blessing him with talents he did not deserve. It would be safe to say that Salieri was very self-conscious of his abilities to write and compose music. It seemed that every time he saw the work of Amadeus that he became jealous almost immediately. Even though Salieri held a very respectable job as well as writing amazing music he was never confident enough in himself to thank God for answering his prayer as a child.
By relating himself to society it becomes clear how Salieri’s identity also motivated his behavior. As stated before anyone can see that Salieri held a most admirable job. He was court composer which gave him the freedom to write music and give lessons to aspiring singers. Although he had some freedom to write and compose he still had to obey the orders of Count Hieronymus von Colloredo. His freedom to make decisions on behalf of Mozart’s work and actions makes it difficult for Salieri to relate his self to society. Therefore, his motivations were interrupted by questioning Mozart’s motivations. Salieri was often frustrated because instead of making his identity as a talented composer known to society he was instead helping the Count make decisions and judgment calls on Mozart’s work. It seemed every person he ran into was more obsessed about Mozart’s identity than they were with Salieri’s identity. A great example of this is during the scene where Salieri’s most fond pupil asks questions about Mozart. Salieri hides his anger well although it is easy to tell his pupil’s interest in Mozart makes him extremely upset.
Another way in which Salieri struggled was through the process of discovering and developing the potential of his self. Agency can be blamed for this, which is referring to the fact that an agent or “self” has the power and intention to act. When someone develops a sense of agency they are in turn struggling to live up to their potential selves. Agency deals with intrinsic motivation in the fact that it motivates a person impulsively through their needs to seek out challenges, exercise their skills, and develop their talents. Once again Salieri had some power over Mozart because he worked for the Count, but his opinion of Mozart was filled of jealousy, hatred, and confusion. These emotions motivated Salieri to act. He begins to plot a way in which to kill Mozart and even disguises himself to pull his plot off.
Even though most of Salieri’s ideas and thoughts were very negative he is still able to competently function. He functions in a way to rid the world of Mozart because he doesn’t want to deal with his immaturity and compete against his talent anymore. In my opinion, although Salieri is acting out of impulse he is very able to evaluate his resources, monitor his goals, evaluate his goals’ progress, and make adjustments accordingly. A simple example that comes to mind is Salieri’s goal to keep watch over Mozart by paying a maid to work in Mozart’s house. Salieri’s ability to self-regulate shows his intelligence and manipulation strategies are well planned out, yet once again proves to be a motivational barrier. In my opinion Salieri expresses every part of self-regulation. He begins with a thought in which he acts upon and then reflects on in order to begin the process all over again. Throughout his life Salieri struggles with motivation because of his issues with all of the following: self-concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation.
Terms: Self-concept, Identity, Agency, Self-regulation
First of all, I must say that I positively loved “Amadeus”! This movie was by far the most entertaining of all the movies we have had to watch so far. “Amadeus” had every aspect a good movie has; humor, romance, backstabbing, an enjoyable lead character, and a plot that requires you to think a little bit without totally frying your brain. Every second of this movie was enjoyable and there never seemed to be a dull moment, at least in my opinion. The only thing I would like to know is if the events in the movie were truly based on facts or if the plot line was somewhat contrived by the imagination of the writer.
At any rate, this movie was clearly filled with topics we have been covering in our Motivation and Emotion class. The one thing that really stuck out in my head, especially towards the middle and end of the movie, was perceived control. Salieri kept Mozart thinking he was in control in the movie when it was really the fact that Mozart was doing Salieri’s bidding of ruining Mozart’s reputation. This is most evident when Salieri tells Mozart he will put in a good word with him to get that job teaching music to the daughter of one of the Emperor’s council members. Mozart thinks that he is in control by putting his trust in Salieri, who has a great deal of influence. By allowing Mozart to think that Salieri is willing and able to help him, Salieri is taking advantage of the situation and the control Mozart feels he truly has.
Salieri also manipulates Mozart’s wife, Constanze, when she tries to apply Mozart for a job he didn’t want to have to apply for. Because of Mozart’s stubbornness, Constanze takes it upon herself to go to Salieri and beg him to look at her husband’s sheet music and convince the emperor to give Mozart the job. Salieri, knowing very well he doesn’t want to give Mozart the job, says that he will convince the emperor to give Mozart the job if Constanze will come visit him in return. When she goes for her “visit” to Salieri, he waits until she is in a very compromising position and has his servant escort her out. Mozart didn’t end up getting the job, and Salieri got to take an undeserved peek at Mozart’s music to see what his next composition was going to be. By letting Constanze think that she was in control, Salieri was able to get what he wanted.
In the movie, Mozart seemed to be especially good at self-regulation in order to reach his goal of making money and maintaining his status as an amazing musician. We see this when he is willing to make changes to some of his work in order to please the council that he composes for. He wants to write an opera called “Figaro’s Marriage”, which is just a musical version of a play that was banned in Vienna. Mozart makes his case to the council by saying he has edited out a lot of the things that were the cause for banning the play in Vienna. When Mozart gets his way and is able to start rehearsal for the opera, he is willing to make edits in order to please the council and maintain his status. Mozart is also aware that his occupation requires what essentially is constant work. The vast majority of his time was spent holed up in his home writing new music. Mozart set a goal to become a great musician. His implementation intention was to write operas. The performance was when he performed his music and operas before the council and audiences. Finally, he would self-evaluate by asking the opinion of others on how they liked his music. Then, he would turn around and write another piece of music.
Mozart is also a great example of the self-concordance theory. Mozart set the goal of becoming a world-famous musician. He then puts forth the effort of making music and travelling to Vienna in order to show his music to people in the greatest place for musicians in the world at that time. He then reaches his goal of becoming a popular musician by performing and writing/conducting operas. This created need satisfying experiences. Mozart needed to be recognized with positive feedback in order to keep striving for self-concordance. By giving his operas and having people praise him and give applause, he got positive feedback and was able to meet this need. Finally, it changed his well-being (at first) for the better. Before his downhill slide thanks to Salieri, Mozart was a very famous musician and everyone wanted to hear his music. This made him a happier person overall and helped keep him jovial. All of these combined to help him reach self-concordance.
Emotions also ran rampant through this movie. Salieri was clearly experiencing anger and jealousy towards Mozart. One reason these motivations manifested themselves were through the social interactions Salieri had in his daily life. Salieri was surrounded by people that held Mozart on such a high pedestal because of his great talent. He was also surrounded by people that had a great deal of influence. Because of this, it is easy to see why Salieri would grow increasingly jealous of a young musician who got everything Salieri only dreamed of having. It also made it easier for Salieri to become angry and take action to sabotage Mozart.
Mozart had a very similar social interaction that Salieri did. Mozart was surrounded by people that, at first, adored him. This helped give Mozart the emotion of happiness. However, when Mozart went against the council and the wishes of the Emperor, who were his main social interaction, they were quick to tell him that they were not pleased and that they did not have much more desire to work with him. This caused Mozart to have feelings of depression and it is what caused him to be so susceptible to the influence of people trying to steer him in other directions. Constanze also had a great influence on Mozart as a social interaction. Her pressuring him to make money caused fear in Mozart that was clear throughout the movie. Without money, Mozart would clearly be unable to support his family. Even though Constanze wasn’t always at his throat, Mozart knew that he needed to help support her and give his wife the best life he possibly could.
In general, Mozart also showed a great positive affect (the general state of feeling good, according to our text). Even when he was brought down by the council, Mozart still kept true to himself and the music he wanted to create. He was also quick with a joke. His laugh even told of his good mood. This positive affect seemed to keep Mozart going for as long as he did. It is clear that Mozart did not care what other people thought about him. All that mattered was that Mozart had his family and could create music. Not even financial hardships brought him down all that much. The one scene that sticks out in my mind that greatly shows Mozart’s positive affect is when he is at the party with his father and wife. His father clearly thinks the party is vulgar. Despite his father’s lack of satisfaction, Mozart still has a great time and entertains the crowd by playing some tunes on the piano and even pokes fun at Salieri’s music.
We don’t truly see a decline in Mozart’s positive affect until after he is visited by the disguised Salieri about composing the requiem and his wife leaves him, taking their son with her. With Mozart not being able to see his family and being forced to write such a depressing piece of work in order to get the money he needs to live on, it is no wonder the man became so depressed and ill at the end of the movie.
In summation, this movie was fantastic. Not only did it have numerous themes illustrated that we are learning about in class, but it was also a very entertaining movie. This is a movie I could watch over and over again.
M/E Terms: perceived control, goal setting, positive affect, self-concordance, self-regulation, emotion, social interaction.
Amadeus is a movie based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This movie is told from the viewpoint of Antonio Salieri. The movie was not one of my favorite movies we have watched this semester, but I also didn’t think it was the worst movie we’ve watched thus far this semester. I was able to see various examples that relate to chapters nine through twelve in relation to motivation and emotion.
In chapter ten the main concept is the self and its strivings. The textbook defines self as consisting of four problems that take center stage. Those four problems are as follows:
1.) Defining or creating the self
2.) Relating the self to society
3.) Discovering and developing personal potential
4.) Managing or regulating the self
Mozart had a great sense of who he was from very early on through his relationship with his father. He believed in his music and had great confidence in what he wrote. Salieri on the other hand is not as confident as Mozart. Mozart had a strong psychological well-being. The textbook discusses the six facets that are made up of psychological well-being. Self-acceptance, positive interpersonal relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth are the six facets. Mozart pursued each one of these qualities throughout his life and never really struggled with them. He accepted his musical abilities as his purpose in life and through positive interpersonal relations he was able to perform beginning at a very young age. Salieri is constantly comparing himself to Mozart and wanting to be just like him.
Another concept from the textbook that is shown in the movie is the nature of emotions from chapter eleven. There are six basic emotions which include fear, anger, disgust, sadness, joy and interest. Fear is an emotional reaction that arises from a person’s interpretation that the situation he or she faces is dangerous and a threat to one’s well-being. An example of fear from the movie includes Salieri’s fear of never being good enough. Because he was constantly comparing himself to Mozart and believing that that his talent was going unnoticed. Anger is a ubiquitous emotion that arises from restraint as in the interpretation that one’s plans, goals, or well-being has been interfered with by some outside force. It is also the belief that the situation is not what it should be. An example from the movie includes the scene where Salieri is angry with God. He hates that he wasn’t given talent like that of Mozart. Sadness is the most negative, aversive emotion. It comes from experiences of separation or failure. The movie shows just how sad Mozart was with the death of his father. Anyone who experiences a loss of a loved one typically goes through a period of time where they are filled with sadness. Salieri also experienced sadness through believing at times he was a failure because he constantly compared himself with Mozart. Mozart is clearly interested in Constanze. Interests are the most prevalent emotion in the day to day functioning and increases and decreases at times because some level of interest is ever-present. The couple is together all the time and therefore shows their interest in one another. Joy is the emotional evidence that things are going well and that desirable outcomes are related to personal success and interpersonal relatedness. From the very beginning of Mozart’s life he embraced his musical talent and allowed it to bring him joy in his life rather than fight it. Mozart was truly always happy with the work that he composed and joyful that his music was able to bring so much joy into other people’s lives.
The movie Amadeus provides clear examples of concepts that are discussed in our textbook on motivation and emotion. The basic emotions are easily relatable ideas and are great examples that can be pulled from the movie.
Terms: the self, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, joy, interest
The movie Amadeus is also a story of a young musician, who pursues their love for music. This is different than the other movies we have watched because this focuses on Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus, who is a famous composer of classical music. In the movie it begins with Salieri, who was a very big fan of Mozart’s music. The only problem is that he is jealous of Mozart’s talent. There is a point in the movie where he actually asks himself the question, “Why would God choose an obscene child to be his instrument. Chapter nine talks about the term self efficacy. Self-efficacy is the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner in order to achieve specific goals. Near the beginning of the movie it said that Amadeus wrote his first concerto at the age of four! My big achievement at the age was being able to walk. Amadeus was writing music when we weren’t even in preschool yet. It also said that he wrote his first symphony at the age of seven and a full scale opera at the age of twelve. Amadeus believed that he could do it and he was determined to achieve that goal. He was successful. Chapter nine then talks about the effects of self-efficacy on behavior. It explains that the more people expect they can adequately perform an action the more willing they are to put forth effort, despite difficulties along the way. I thought it was awesome when they called Mozart in to talk near the beginning of the movie and Majesty is playing a song, which he does not to play well at all. There are missed notes and pauses throughout his song. Mozart has some people who claim that he is not that good and is over ranked. Mozart doesn’t let that stop him. He gives his laugh, which is seen to be contagious to others and comes in and plays Majesty’s song off the top of his head after hearing it only once. He then improves the song and makes it a masterpiece within a minute. Now that is confidence. People become silenced and stunned at how well his music is. Chapter nine also talks about effort and persistence. This is how hard they work and how long they put forth effort into their work. Mozart is constantly writing music through his whole life. Majesty even asks him to commission an opera. Mozart is delighted and writes and composes his masterpieces. It also talks about thinking and decision making. Mozart does a lot of thinking and is faced with decisions throughout the entire movie. An example is when a stranger comes to his home wearing a mask and offers to give him a bag of money for his work. Mozart decides to accept the offer and finds himself in a situation with his work unfinished and the man coming back in demand of his musical work. The next term I chose is criticisms. This is when individuals will make comments, analyze, evaluate and judge an individual’s work or performance. There is no doubt that Amadeus wrote many masterpieces. I was getting sick and tired of people always telling Mozart how he needed to improve his work. Some people would say he was a young man trying to impress beyond his ability. They said he used too much spice and had too many notes. I would like to see them write and play his music. Chapter ten talks about the term self. This refers to an individual’s nature and character. Who are you? It is easy to say that Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus is a famous Musician who wrote many masterpieces, symphonies, concertos and operas. Amadeus should find a very high amount of favor in himself. We still find his music selling many copies to this day. The next term is empowerment. This involves possessing the knowledge, skills and beliefs that allow people to exert control over their lives. In the movie Mozart wants to be considered for the Royal appointment. Mozart’s wife takes things into her own hands and brings his work in to be analyzed. They are the original copies. Mozart is unaware that she has done this. The term self-regulation is when people evaluate how they have done. Mozart is constantly doing this in his head. It only takes him one time to write down a musical piece. We know this because when his wife hands the original pieces of work to Salieri, he finds no mistakes or notes scratched out on them. He says that this is absolute beauty, miraculous and that Mozart’s work must be the very voice of God. The last term is personal growth. This is when an individual develops into a new person and grows in their work. Amadeus did this indeed. It is unfortunate that he passes out in the middle of the opera and the passes away not long after this. This then marks the end of the movie, but not the last time we would hear Mozart’s music. Mozart’s work still has and will continue to sell. It is viewed and listened to by all types of people. It is also still played to this day.
Terms used- self efficacy, self-efficacy effects on behavior, effort and persistence, thinking and decision making, criticisms, self, empowerment, self-regulation, personal growth.
I watched the movie on www.youtube.com for free
Mozart probably experienced more dopamine releases than an average person. According to our textbook (p.63), "dopamine release triggers emotional positivity which creates enhanced functioning like that of creativity". His high level of creativity, which can be seen through his unique, complex musical masterpieces, means that he experienced many dopamine releases. Dopamine release also brings about approach behavior toward a rewarding event. For example, Mozart was asked to write music for several people. These events rewarded him with praise and honor. Dopamine release caused him to approach these events because he knew they would be rewarding.
Mozart was intrinsically motivated to write and play music. He enjoyed doing this because it was fun to do and he received great pleasure from it. By writing and playing music, he was also able to satisfy his psychological needs of autonomy and competence. He was able to write his music and operas how he wanted to (autonomy) and wanted to use his musical talents and skills by seeking out optimal challenges like writing operas for the Emperor and Archbishop (competence). Mozart was also extrinsically motivated to write and play music. He enjoyed doing this because it earned him money and allowed him to impress others and receive praise.
Mozart definitely had a high need for autonomy. One scene that shows this was when his father wrote to him telling him not to marry and to wait until he came to Vienna. Mozart disobeyed him and did what he wanted to do and that was to marry Constanze. Another scene that shows he had a high need for autonomy was when the Emperor wanted him to submit his music to his Italian colleagues. Mozart didn't want to submit his music to them though. He also drank and partied a lot even though his wife, Constanze, didn't want him to. Basically, Mozart wasn't big on rules, being told what to do, or receiving criticism. All of this shows that he wanted freedom to make his own decisions and to do things the way he wanted to do them. Thus, he had a high need for autonomy.
The need for competence was also high for Mozart. He wanted to use his talents and skills (his ability to write and play music). In order to do this, he sought out and mastered optimal challenges such as writing operas for the Emperor and Archbishop and being the best composer. By doing these things, he was able to satisfy his need for competence which gave him a sense of satisfaction and pride.
There are a couple of examples of efficacy and outcome expectations in the movie. One example would be when Mozart was commissioned to write an opera for the Emperor. Mozart was an overall confident person and knew he had what it took to write the opera (efficacy expectation). He also believed that the Emperor would approve of the opera and let him take it to the stage (outcome expectation). As was seen in the movie, Mozart wrote an opera, that was set in a harem, for the Emperor and he did approve of it and let him take it to the stage. Another example of efficacy and outcome expectations would be when Salieri planned to visit Mozart in disguise and ask him to write a requiem for a mass of death. Salieri knew that he could pull off the disguise and ask Mozart to write the requiem for money (efficacy expectation). He also believed that he could get Mozart to accept the offer and write the requiem (outcome expectation). As was seen in the movie, Salieri did pull off the disguise and asked Mozart to write a requiem for money. Also, Mozart did accept the offer and worked on writing the requiem.
There was one scene in particular that showed that Mozart had self-efficacy. It was when Salieri and he were writing the requiem after Mozart passed out at a performance. Even though he was sick and tired, he was still able to focus and use his talents and skills to write the requiem before the deadline. Thus, he was able to translate his talents and skills into an effective performance under tough circumstances. He coped well with the situation at hand.
Since Mozart was very successful with his music and achieved a lot of great things, like being considered one of the best composers and writing many masterpieces, he had a high self-esteem. Having high self-esteem, allowed him to be happy and carefree most of the time. However, his high self-esteem made him more apt to acts of retaliatory aggression. Whenever he or his music was criticized, he threw a tantrum or became very angry and would yell. He felt his high self-esteem (self-view) was being threatened by these criticisms and that led him to retaliate aggressively.
Mozart created a good self-concept of himself. He had received a lot of positive feedback about his music and abilities ever since he was young. This led him to come to the conclusion that his music is the best and he is a great composer. His self-concept is made up of domain-specific self-schemas. The most important self-schema (domain) for him was his music abilities. Since he was good at writing and playing music, his most important domain, that allowed him to create a good self-concept.
Once he established his most important self-schema, it directed him to extract feedback from others that would be consistent with his main self-schema. Throughout the movie, he constantly asked people for feedback (what they thought) about his music. Since his self-view was that he was good at writing and playing music, he wanted to confirm that's what other people thought too by asking them for feedback. However, some of the feedback from the Emperor's Italian colleagues was inconsistent with Mozart's self-schema. They didn't like his music and always thought it had too many notes. This made him experience some tension which he would relieve by writing even better music.
Salieri definitely experienced anger, one of the negative basic emotions, throughout the movie. His anger always seemed to arise from Mozart. For example, Mozart criticized the welcome march that Salieri wrote for him. Another example would be when the Emperor consulted Salieri about who should teach his niece to play the piano. Salieri thought the Emperor was going to ask him to teach her, but he decided to ask Mozart instead. Mozart basically gave unwarranted criticism to Salieri and the Emperor lacked consideration for him. Both of these examples brought about anger from Salieri. His anger stemmed from Mozart and that led Salieri to create the plan of having Mozart write his own funeral requiem before Salieri killed him. Basically, his anger caused him to think evil thoughts and to act aggressively.
According to Salieri, God is the attribution to explain why he isn't the best composer anymore, why his music is becoming extinct, and why he is now just a mediocrity. (God is the attribution/reason that Salieri uses to account for these life outcomes.) He blames God for his misfortune with Mozart. He despises God because he gave all of the talent to Mozart who Salieri believes is undeserving of the talent and ungrateful to God. He believes he is the deserving one and the one that's most grateful to God. Basically, Salieri believes that God is the reason why his music is no longer popular and why he isn't the best composer.
Overall, I thought this movie was good. I liked seeing what life was kind of like back then and how much people loved music.
My list of terms include: dopamine, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, autonomy, competence, efficacy and outcome expectations, self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-concept, self-schema, consistent self, anger, and attribution.
Mozart had a high self esteem. He thought of himself as competent, intelligent, and creative. Having a high self esteem is positively correlated with high achievement. Mozart was a high achiever. He wrote brillant music and operas and became well known for them at an early age. His high self esteem did not cause his achievement, but the achievement caused his high self esteem.
Saliere had a low self esteem. He was always comparing himself to Mozart and believed he was never good enough and would never be as famous. Low self esteem makes people vulnerable to anxiety and depression. Saliere had a depressed and anxious life because he was always thinking about how he wouldn't be as famous for music as he wanted to be. He was anxious about his music and what Mozart was doing. He even hired a maid to get an inside view on Mozart's work and his personal life.
Self concept is an individuals mental representation of themselves. It is shaped from personal experience and feedback from others. Mozart had a good self concept because he had been told that he was great from an early age and by a number of people. He thought of himself as important. In one scene of the movie, he showed up late for a performance because he was with a girl. But it didn't seem to bother him, it didn't change the way he thought of himself. His father later on was criticizing him for his financial irresponsibility but Mozart discredited the statements and offered to take his father out to eat.
Mozart showed a consistent self schema. His self schema was resistant to contradictory information. He did not let feedback that was inconsistant with his ideas (discrepant feedback) change his self schema or attitude.
Possible selves represent individuals ideas of what they would like to become and also what they are afraid of becoming. Saliere wanted to become a famous musician, impact peoples lives, and be well known. He was afraid of being unknown and unimportant. his possible self led him to strive to become a better musician. It energized his effort and directed his behavior to study and imitate Mozart. Eventually it led to him killing Mozart.
A role is a set of cultural expectations for behavior from persons who hold a particular social position. People expected Mozart to be a refined, distinguished, and socially graceful. Saliere was shocked when he first saw Mozart and said he was an obscene, rude kid. He was mad that someone like Mozart was the one in a high position and had so much talent.
Fear is an emotional reaction that arises from a persons interpretation that the situation he/she faces is dangerous and a threat to one's well being. Mozart experienced fear towards the end of the movie when he was sick and Saliere kept coming to see if the death mass was written. Mozart never wanted to answer the door because he was afraid of dealing with Saliere and not getting money. It activated his fight or flight response and Mozart chose flight.
Sadness is an emotion that usually arises from experiences of seperation or failure. Mozart expereienced sadness through seperation- the loss of a loved one, his father. Sadness motivates people to start a behavior that will alleviate the distress. Mozart wrote a play after his father's death that was very dark and had a plot about his father.
Terms: Self Esteem, Self Concept, Consistent self schema, Discrepant feedback, Possible selves, Role, Fear, Fight or Flight, Sadness, & Seperation.
While watching the movie “Amadeus,” I recorded examples of the basic emotions that we learned about in chapter eleven. The basic emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, and interest are evident in this movie. As I watched the movie, I noticed these emotions were demonstrated by the characters Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri, and Constanze Mozart. Throughout the movie, we see these emotions rise during expressive circumstances and how each character reacts uniquely.
In the movie, we see Antonio Salieri’s admiration for music and his devotion to God. He seemed to be marveled by the musical composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wishing he had Mozart’s musical gift and to praise the Lord through music, Salieri became jealous. Salieri grew angry at the thought that God had given Mozart more musical talent. This thought triggered an angry emotion. In the textbook, Reeve states, “Anger increases people’s sense of control” (p. 314). Demonstrating anger, Salieri took the holy cross and tossed it into the fire to express his hurt feelings. Salieri’s goal was to be a great composer, but it seemed like Mozart’s talent was an obstacle to overcome. Therefore, during the movie, Salieri figured the only way to around this situation was to plan revenge against Mozart.
During the movie, I noted that Salieri demonstrated the emotion of disgust. According to Reeve, the emotion of disgust, “arises from our encounters with any object we deemed to be contaminated in some way” (p. 314). I noted that Salieri demonstrated an interpersonal contamination (or the physical contact with undesirable people). Although Salieri admired Mozart’s music, I felt as though Salieri was keeping physically distant as he hid among the crowd at each of Mozart’s concerts. I felt this hiding act seemed to be an act of rejection and jealousy.
Fear is an emotion that is important in this movie as well. In the movie, there is a scene in which Mozart is fearful, feeling threatened by a man dressed in a black mask and cloak. The man in black requested that Mozart compose a requiem (“Mass for the dead”). The man offered Mozart a large sum of money to create this composition. At this time in Mozart’s life, money was important and money became an external motivator. Fear and money activated Mozart’s drive to complete the composition. This requiem became one of Mozart’s greatest compositions. As Reeve explains in the textbook, “Fear can provide the motivational support for learning new coping responses that remove the person from encountering danger in the first place” (p. 313). Therefore, I noted that Mozart’s fear may have played a role in the fine detailing and importance of this astonishing composition as well. Unknowingly, Mozart created his own requiem.
During the movie, viewers witness the sadness and grief that Mozart demonstrated after learning that his father had died. Mozart begins to drink and wraps himself up in his work. Also, we see Constanze’s grief after witnessing Mozart’s death at the end of the movie. She experiences separation after losing her loved one. Viewers see Constanze’s distress as she leans over the bed where Mozart lay dead and again as she demonstrates her grief at Mozart’s funeral.
At the beginning of the movie, I noted the joy and happiness Mozart and his future bride, Constanze, shared during their secret get-a-way at the Archbishop’s palace. Constanze provided support for her husband. She went out of her way to help her husband succeed in his music career. I also noted that Mozart’s perseverance to make his music heard led to the joyful outcomes of his music. Mozart was very successful. According to Reeve, “Joy facilitates our willingness to engage in social activities” (p. 316). While watching the movie, I could see the passion and joy Mozart displayed while conducting each performance and his willingness and concern to please a crowd. It seemed that his joy and affection was displayed during every performance and in each piece of music. His music captured hearts and souls of audience members and other composers, such as Salieri.
Without formal introduction, Salieri saw Mozart for the first time at the Archbishop’s palace. Salieri’s interest led him to explore and seek out information about Mozart’s life and musical works. As Salieri’s interest grew, Salieri hired a housekeeper to further this research. He gained information about the Mozart’s newest musical composition. He used this secret information to help him in his revenge against Mozart, trying to ruin Mozart’s musical status and career. However, Mozart’s incredible talent shines through and remains as one of the most popular composers today.
Overall, I thought this movie was very interesting; However, I would not consider this movie to be one of my favorites. I think the examples of emotions were very fitting for this movie. When I listen to Mozart’s music, I hear variety of bold and gentle characteristics within the music. After watching the movie, I am able to visualize Mozart standing on the podium conducting the orchestra and performers during each musical piece. His music is very powerful, emotional, and moving.
Terms used: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, interest, external motivation
Even if this movie was ridiculously long I did enjoy it. The scenes and acting were superb.
The movie starts off with Salieri making a great question that I am sure psychologists have wanted to answer: can you tell if someone is talented by just looking at them? As he finds out no you can’t. Salieri had expectations about how Mozart was going to be like and was completely disillusioned when he learned about his behavior.
In his old age Salieri reviews his life and sees where he has gone wrong. He wanted more then anything to be a musician and an amazing one at that. While Salieri had talent Mozart was a genius. It becomes very apparent that instead of looking at all the things that were great in his life he repeatedly compared himself to someone else. Salieri had everything going for him he was wealthy, well known, respected and had a great job being a teacher to an emperor. He lived in luxury but the man couldn’t let go of his hate.
Why? He took things the wrong way and instead of making positive decision he went for the negative ones. His life became unfulfilled, unsatisfying and he became depressed.
His self-efficacy before meeting Mozart was probably in good shape because by the time he met Mozart he had accomplished so much. However after he met Mozart he felt less competent. So he made a goal of becoming better then him. His change in competence was not for improving himself, but for competing against someone else. He wanted to take on more challenges to prove himself to others. Yet no one ever thought less of him, he implanted that thought. He blamed God for not being a success and not having things go his way when in reality the verbal persuasion he gave to himself was negative and self defeating. The kind of verbal persuasion he did not boost his self efficacy.
When Salieri looked at himself he was not happy at all. His dimensions of psychological well- being were not in place for him to be so. He had low self-acceptance, low positive interpersonal relations. Salieri did have a strong desire to have intimacy with someone, one of his students, but she liked Mozart. He believed his purpose in life was belittled and unaccomplished in comparison to Mozart. He felt like it was a joke, while he did have self growth to always improve it was so that he would be better then someone else. He felt he had low environmental mastery while in reality he had high environmental mastery. For example it seemed that every time one of his plans for ruining Mozart's productions backfired, it was while seeing another piece that he realized the strong hold Leopold had on Wolfgang even in death.
Some probable reasons why Leopold had such a strong influence on him; he taught him everything and devoted his life to making sure that Wolfgang did well. Wolfgang knew this and seemed internally thankful. His father’s support and feedback was really important to him, no one was more honest than Leopold. While the support that he provided was not always autonomy supportive and was more controlling. Wolfgang knew his father did things not to be so much in control, but to insure that he would be well.
Salieri performed self-regulation many times in his life. He had forethought to make goals and implementation intentions on how he was going to accomplish the goals, he did a performance and later performed self-regulation to see if everything went well and did the cycle again to keep going forward with other things. An example of this is when he plans to have the music cut from the ballet scene in one of Mozart’s pieces and then sets his plan in motion by telling the music director that the emperor wanted this out, he makes Mozart take it out. Later he sees his plan is foiled and decides to come up with another plan.
Salieri had many strong emotions that motivated him. It directed him to act in ways he thought would be coping. He had emotions of anger, disgust and also of joy. He looked at his emotions as a way of reading how well or insufficient his life was going. One of Salieri’s greatest faults was that he was not successful in doing something that would provide positive affect and because of it he didn’t engage in activities that would boost his mood and keep it consistent. He instead engaged in unpleasant events that made him unhappy because he did not try to keep his positive affect with other positive events.
Terms: positive affect, emotions, autonomy supportive, feedback, self regulation, intimacy, environmental mastery, dimensions of psychological well being, self acceptance, positive interpersonal relationships, verbal persuasion, self efficacy, competence, implementation intentions, forethought,
The movie Amadeus was very interesting and I really liked it. It was different from the other movies we have been watching, which was a nice change. The first term I am going to talk about is self-esteem. Mozart had a very high self-esteem and he believed in his music and knew that he was a good composure and people liked him. He was very proud of his work and he thought it was perfect. Because of Mozart’s high self-esteem he was also a high achiever. With these two things Mozart was able to become a great and famous composer. On the other hand Salieri had a low self-esteem. Salieri felt nothing was going his way and that he was never as good or as liked as Mozart was. Salieri had anxiety because he was always trying to live up and be as good as Mozart. Since he never was this was a reason for his low self-esteem.
Cognitive dissonance is when beliefs about who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent. Salieri thinks and acts in two different ways. We see how much Salieri hates Mozart and how is trying to make things worse for him. No one ever knows how Salieri really feels about Mozart because he is always helping Mozart out and he attends his plays and operas. We see a scene when Mozart is told to take the dancing out of his opera, because the emperor has banded ballet/dancing. Mozart then goes to Salieri and Salieri says he will take it up with the emperor. Here Salieri is helping out Mozart (what he does) while is still hates him (what he thinks).
Personal growth is another term. Someone who is high in personal growth has a feeling of continued development, sees the self as growing and expanding, is open to new experiences and has a sense of realizing his potential. We see that Mozart has a high sense of personal growth. We see how Mozart experiences personal growth from each performance after he sees how much the audience likes his work and how impressed the emperor and his people are.
Another term that the book describes that is depicted in the movie is identity. Identity is one’s relationship to others and to society. It is the means by which the self relates to society. Once a person inhibits a role the identity directs the person to pursue some behavior and avoid others. Mozart’s role or identity is a famous composer. He relates his identity to society by composing terrific music. Mozart did not always live up to his identity according to society. In private and sometimes in public he acts like a spoiled brat. He acts very immature and not like other famous composers act. The times we he acted like this in public is when people criticized his music.
Self-concordance model asks two questions. The first question is how do people decide what to strive for in their lives? and the second question is how does this personal striving process sometimes nurture the self and promote well-being yet other times go awry and diminish well-being? Mozart had/ set a goal of becoming a famous composer. This goal was set as a young child, because he was already composing great music at that time. He works hard, putting in long hours to write his music, plays and operas. He also moves to Vienna to show people his music. In Vienna is where Mozart starts to gather a fan base and he is noticed by the emperor and his people. He becomes a famous composer with this plays, music and operas.
Personal behavior history also shows up in this movie. Mozart was playing music as a child. He was very good and was playing to important people at a young age. His dad taught him how to play and encouraged his music. Mozart believed he was a great composer because of his past experiences with his music. People liked Mozart’s music at a young age and so Mozart knew that they would like his music now too. Salieri on the other hand did not have the same childhood experiences with music as Mozart. Salieri did not play music as a child, even though he enjoyed it and it made him happy. His father was not supportive of Salieri’s choice to compose music. He referred to becoming a composer as becoming a trained monkey. Salieri’s past experiences did not make him believe that he was or could be a great composer, even though he tried.
There were a number of basic emotions in Amadeus. The first emotion is anger. Anger arises when one’s plans, goals, or well-being are interfered with by some outside forces. Anger is shown throughout the movie, especially with Salieri. Salieri had anger toward Mozart from the beginning after seeing Mozart chase the girl around in the room Salieri was in. Salieri states that why did God give Mozart so much talent. He thinks Mozart doesn’t appreciate his talent. Salieri blames God for giving him the desire to compose music, but not the talent. We see Salieri’s anger towards Mozart when he finds out Mozart does not make corrections to his music, they are perfect the first time around. We see that Salieri blamed God for a lot of things, and he continued to have anger towards Mozart, which he never expressed. Happiness is the next emotion. Mozart is very happy while me plays music and after a performance. We see Mozart burst with happiness when the emperor wants to see the opera scene with the music, the way Mozart had wanted it. Salieri also experienced happiness through music. Because of the happiness that music brought him, we can see that happiness was an intrinsic motivation for Salieri to start composing music. We also see a scene in the movie were Salieri is extremely happy. This happiness occurs after the emperor declares Salieri’s opera the best so far. Then to top off Salieri’s happiness Mozart compliments his work. Sadness is the third emotion I will talk about. Sadness arises from experiences of separation or failure. Mozart experienced sadness form the loss of his father. To help alleviate his sadness and pain he writes a play with the plot being about his father. Mozart also falls into a sort of depression after his father’s death. We also see sadness in Constanze after Mozart dies. She is crying and you can tell by her facial expressions how sad she is. She just lost the man she loved so sadness is an obvious emotion for her to experience. Disgust is another term that the movie depicted. Disgust involves getting rid of or getting away from a contaminated, deteriorated or spoiled object. Salieri becomes disgusted with Mozart after seeing him chase Constanze around the room and then rolling around on the floor with her. Salieri felt both disgust and anger after that situation and continued to experience them throughout the movie. Interest was shown by both Mozart and Salieri. Mozart was interested in Constanze. We see this when he proposed to her and when he announces that he is engaged to Constanze. We see how proud Mozart is of Constanze. We also see how much they love each other and how much time they spend together. Salieri is also interested in Madame Cavalieri. When Madame Cavalieri shows up for her lesson with Salieri, we can see that he is interested in her by the way he acts and by his facial expressions. He then goes on to tell us that he loves her or at least feels lust for her. The last emotion threat is a basic negative emotion. Mozart became a threat to Salieri when he put Madame Cavalieri in his opera. He goes on to call Mozart a creature. Salieri thinks that Mozart slept with Madame Cavalieri after she hits him with her flowers after the opera. This then puts Mozart as a threat to Salieri and just fuels his angers towards him.
Terms used: self-esteem, anger, interest, threat, sadness, disgust, happiness, personal growth, identity, cognitive dissonance, self-concordance, personal behavior history
“Amadeus” actually turned out to be an interesting movie with lots of great examples of motivation and emotion. One of the first things I noticed with Mozart was that he definitely had a sense of identity. Even though some of his work did not please the Emperor, he still went on to compose the operas anyways because it related to his culture that he originally came from. I believe that he gained his identity and ultimately developed his self-schema through his father. All his life, his father was pushing him into music and always telling him to do his best. Self-schemas are derived from past experiences (Reeve, 2009). His past experiences he had of music were from his father, and through his father he developed his self-schema through composing operas and all types of symphonies. However, Mozart did develop his own self-concept, or his own way in which he represented himself (Reeve, 2009). In order to develop your self-concept, you must pay attention to the feedback that people are giving you. Although Mozart did his own thing when it came to operas, he still accepted constructive feedback from others such as Antonio. I remember at the end of one of Mozart’s operas, Antonio specifically told him that he needed to put more of an ending on his songs so that people knew when to applaud, and from then on Mozart tended to have big endings to his symphonies.
A lot of different emotions were shown throughout the movie as well. At first, Antonio felt disgusted with Mozart upon finding out that he may have slept with the woman whom he ultimately loved. The feeling of disgust turned into fear when he was at Mozart’s last opera and he witnessed him fall off of the stage. He rushed to his side to find out what had happened, and the feeling of fear ended up turning into interest. He sat by Mozart’s bed the entire time that he was sick, and helped him write his final opera before he died in his bed. I also think that Antonio as an old man felt disgust with himself also because he felt as if he had worked Mozart to death.
Mozart’s wife, Constanze also felt sadness and disgust when she found out that Mozart had been drinking heavily while he was writing his operas. She was so mad that she had left him for a few nights, and when she arrived home and found him sick, her sadness returned. She also felt sadness once he died in front of her, and she had to learn to cope with those emotions as well.
One of the things that motivated Mozart to work so hard was the money involved in the operas. That is what ultimately led to his death, I believe, was that he was so motivated to make this opera in order to make money, that he didn't realize the extent of his illness. Along with money motivating him, so did his wife. She was tired of him not making any money for the family, that she decided to take matters into her own hands and told Mozart that he had to find some way to make money again.
Overall, I was suprised how interesting and into this movie I actually was. I saw lots of different emotions run out of this movie, and many different types of motivation pushing Mozart to be the best composer of his time, and even still today. Without the feedback of other people and without the support of his wife and father, I don't think he would have gotten to where he did in life if not for those people.
I watched this movie online at the Netflix website.
Terms used:identity, self-schema, self-concept, disgust, fear sadness, interest, feedback, motivation, emotion.
Amadeus
I thought Amadeus was a very entertaining film that had a lot of very intriguing characters. Of these characters, Mozart is clearly the most interesting in his complex world of genius musical masterpieces and vulgar tomfoolery. After watching this film and witnessing the life and spirit of this character, I chose to do my blog on Mozart’s self-concept.
According to our book, self-concepts are individuals’ mental representations of themselves and that these self-concepts are constructed from experiences and from reflections on those experiences. Although we never hear from Mozart on the subject of how he thinks of himself, I caught a glimpse of what that self-concept may be through the actions and opinions that we saw from him. For example, throughout the entire film, we can see that Mozart is very proud of his work from when one of the court members tells him that some humility may do him good, when his wife says that he is very proud of his work, and when Salieri compliments his work saying it is marvelous, Mozart simply says “Of course! The best opera yet written.” To me this clearly illustrates that part of his self-concept is that he is just great, an idea that was probably developed from all of his experiences being praised as the best. However, this partial domain of being proud is not his whole self-concept, and is what the book calls a self-schema. A self-schema is a cognitive generalization about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. In Mozart’s case, his self-concept is that he is great, magnificent prodigy to the world with a self-schema that he is proud in the domain of his musical talent and reputation.
Another self-schema Mozart has is in the domain of his relationships with women. He clearly thinks himself to be quite the ladies man, able to seduce any woman he comes to contact with. We see this when he asks his wife to marry him in a goofy fashion, as well as when we hear that he asked a girl to marry him when he was a child, and again when we discover that he had sex with the lead singer of his first commissioned opera. He never thinks of the consequences, simply of the pleasures and the availability of these women to him. I think this is another very interesting dimension of Mozart that also has some highly motivational properties.
Our book tells us that self-schemas have two motivational properties: first that they can direct an individual’s behavior to elicit feedback to confirm this self-schema and second to move the present self to a desired future self. I saw these properties in both of the self-schemas I mentioned before, but I saw it especially in his self-schema of pride. When I think about Mozart’s pride in his musical ability, I also think of all the times that he shows off his skill for audiences of all sizes and criticize other composers to elicit the approval and praise of those around him. This same schema also motivates Mozart to act out this behavior in order to gain more recognition and fame in order to achieve his ideal state of being recognized as the only true genius composer.
After watching this film and examining Mozart’s self-concept as related to motivation, I feel a sense of pity for Mozart that his self-concept is so inflated, but I also feel that his character is so interesting and complex because he still holds himself so highly in the face of all the ridicule and poor decisions he had made. This Mozart is definitely a great specimen to examine the concept of motivation.
Self-concept, self-schema, motivation, behaviors
I thought that it was interesting to see the view of the title role not from the perspective of the main character. It was an interesting twist to be able to see another's view of someone most of us know as a famous classical musician.
Antonio Salieri most struggles with different aspects of his own self-identity. Four problems of the self are each explored:
1) defining or creating the self- in his young childhood Salieri's father did not believe in his music. But even then he believes and defines himself as being a musician in the future. He is high in efficacy expectation and outcome expectations, even before he is able to play music. So he prayed for change and once his father died, Salieri is able to work on creating his self as a musician.
2)Relating the self to society- once he begins his work as a musician,he goes to Viana he gives lessons and creates operas. He eventually works his way up to the role of Emporer Joseph's Court Composer. A position he holds with great pride. He takes on all the duties of the Court Composer such as playing duets and correcting the Emporer with "no ear." Any any musician can tell you that can be quite a task to handle. Also he works on committees that help others in his craft. Through out the movie, even when not given credit, he produces music to have the role of musician.
3)discovering and developing personal potential- Through out the whole movie, Salieri continues to work on his music improving it. It is almost a private competition for him with Mozart. When Mozart becames a threat to his status as Court Composer, he devises several plans to trick Mozart. Each time, Mozart overcomes and triumphs again. Salieri must discover new techniques to keep himself relevant and to continue to try to bring down his rival. Eventually he settles with portraying a "spirit" to frighten Mozart into writting a requiem.
He feels he has the potential to destroy him and be better than Mozart. Salieri works for this all through out the film
4)Managing and regulating the self- As stated above, Salieri works to stay in the positive with the Emporer, even giving an opinion on language he does not agree with. He asks for Mozarts opinion on his music almost in a way of showing it off as well as humbly seeking advice from someone who he knows is better than himself. Although Salieri truly feels God is playing tricks with him he continues to try to take control of his own actions to stay at the level of his "talent" over Mozart. When Emporer Joseph asks his opinions of Mozart initially, Salieri asks as he feels he must. He approves of what he hates. He will support his enemy because it is expected of him to like Mozart since all others do.
A big concept I think of during this is Locus of Causality. Salieri feels that everything is "god's doing" from the very beginning. He feels it is a miracle that his father dies. He says it is god's toying with him that Mozart has such talent yet is basically an immature boy. He feels it is wrong that he is denied such talent in a man of his stature.He never simply states that maybe he is just not as good.God even gave him the longing for music. It is all god's doing. Salieri seems almost helpless in his actions.
Salieri acts out of anger and fear mostly. Anger is described as the belief that the situation is not what it should be. The whole movie is about how Salieri does not feel that Mozart deserves to be "worshiped" by all for his music. Nor should the young man have more talent. For a long while it seems that everything is given to Mozart while Salieri has had to work for his position. His anger is only increased when Mozart continues to persever over all the obstacles he puts in the way. Nothing stops Mozart. Salieri even admits that being around Mozart was the first time he had really violent thoughts. He also admits to praying to God for Mozart to leave.
Fear arises from a person's interpetation that he situation is a threat. When Mozart is able to play Salieri's march after only one hearing and then continues on to critique it and change that same piece, Salieri see how much of a rival Mozart truly is. He feels he is losing the apporval of Emporer Joseph then. Through out the movie he still feels he is losing the respect of his position. When Salieri is giving a lesson to the women he loves, all she does is ask about Mozart. He begins to fear that he will lose her and eventually he does to Mozart.
Salieri is also disgusted with Mozart. He vowed his chastity to God for his musical talent. However, Mozart is perverse and childish. To Salieri, Mozart is a moral contaminate and his moral filth spreads to others. He often refers to Mozart as "the creature."
There is also much discrepancy for Salieri. He must keep up apperances so he pretends to support and help Mozart. He also acts like Mozart's presence is not a threat or bothersome to him. However his facial feedback makes it apparent to the audience that something is amiss. He does try to hide what his face is revealing by smiling or smirking when faced with an uncomfortable situation, but his eyes and brow often give away his true emotions.Salieri is often left to help Mozart, even though he usually figures it as a way to ruin his enemy.However in the end Salieri ends up willingly helping the man he has hated for most of his life. This alone would create a discrepancy in feelings.
On the other end of the spectrum is Mozart. He really has no doubt in his abilities or his self efficacy. He is arrogant and defiant because he knows what he is doing is what is best.He even refers to himself as "the best composer." With all the obstacles put infront of him by Salieri, Mozart continues to give effort and persists.Even when Mozart struggles with money he always finds a way to continue with his music, whether taking on new musical projects or selling golden trinkets. He continues to work until he dies composing with Salieri's help.
Terms: Identity, Self, Anger, Fear,Locus of Causality, self-efficacy, disgust, outcome expectations, efficacy expectations,Role, discrepancy,Facial Feedback
I thought it was very interesting how Salieri and Mozart were opposites on most of the aspects of psychological well-being listed in Chapter 10. These are all related to the self, both in how we perceive ourselves in our own minds as well as the minds of others.
Self-Acceptance-Mozart would score high in this area, while Salieri would score much lower. Mozart is generally happy and knows his own abilities. Salieri is self-doubting and becomes progressively more unsure of his abilities as Mozart’s fame grows. He becomes increasingly neurotic as he tries to subvert Mozart throughout the course of the film. After remembering Mozart making fun of him at the party, Salieri says “Go ahead all of you, laugh at my mediocrity,” which shows his disappointment with himself and his career (even though he is quite successful in his own right).
Positive Relations with Others-Mozart did not have the best relations with others, especially those in authority. When he is trying to become the Emperor’s daughter’s music teacher, he refuses to submit some of his work for scrutiny, and this is after he greatly upset the bishop. Salieri on the other hand was able to work himself through the ranks into the position of court composer, where he holds much sway with the Emperor. Conversely, Mozart writes ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ opera, which has been banned by the Emperor. He is eventually able to talk his way out of trouble, but barely.
Autonomy- Mozart would score much higher than Salieri in this category. According to the textbook a high scorer in autonomy “is self-determining; is able to resist social pressures to think and act in certain ways; regulates behavior from within; evaluates self by personal standards,” (Reeve, 2009). Mozart’s first opera for the Emperor is met with mixed reviews. The Emperor and his advisors think it has too many notes, to which Mozart responds that taking any out would make it incomplete. He has to deal with these sorts of criticisms throughout his career, and is generally able to take them in stride. It’s almost as if he accepts that the world was not ready for some of his music, but he had to write it down anyway. Salieri on the other hand composes much more mainstream music, and takes more conventional routes to success, such as taking on pupils. He is much more concerned with how people perceive him while Mozart is just concerned with the music.
Environmental Mastery- A high scorer in this category is able to capitalize on opportunities they come across as well as managing their associations with the outside world. Salieri does this fairly well, while Mozart does not. Mozart is recommended by Salieri to a wealthy man in Vienna to teach his daughter, but gets upset and leaves during the middle of the lesson. However, Salieri is able to move through the ranks of Vienna society, and has enough foresight to try to sabotage (though largely unsuccessfully) many of Mozart’s attempts to further his career. For example, this occurs when Mozart writes a ballet into the Emperor’s opera, which has been specifically forbidden. Mozart speaks with Salieri about getting the scene reinstated after the advisor-man rips it out of the score. Salieri promises to speak with the Emperor, but when the time comes, he encourages the Emperor to keep the scene out.
Purpose in Life- Over the course of this story, Salieri becomes increasingly obsessed with making Mozart fail, while Mozart is oblivious and just wants to write music that people will appreciate. Both have a purpose in life, but obviously one of them is more psychologically healthy than the other. Salieri almost has dual motives though, as he simultaneously hates Mozart the man, and is complete awe of his abilities as a composer. As Salieri’s life becomes more wrapped up in Mozart, it is almost as if his life begins to lose purpose, probably because of his increasing self doubt, and his overall lack of goal setting.
Personal Growth- Mozart is very arrogant, annoyingly so, but not without reason. While he was born with a great deal of talent, he also had to learn the basics of music from someone and expand upon his natural talent with practice and maturation as an artist. He is able to do this, rather successfully. Salieri, on the other hand, stagnates. He is not as naturally talented as Mozart (to his great dismay), and seems to reach a point where he is unable to grow, and is virtually stuck where he is (as far as composing music goes). Mozart knows what he writes is great, mostly calling his works the best music ever written, while Salieri does not feel as good about the music he writes. Salieri’s inability to achieve personal growth also likely adds to his greater dissatisfaction with his life, and his eventual craziness.
Terms used: Self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth, goal setting
As a child, Salieri yearned to be world renowned composer like Mozart. This yearning developed over-time into several self-schemas. As Reeves (2009) explained in Chapter 10, "self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experience." Salieri prayed to God that if he was able to become a well-loved composer, that he would praise and honor him through the music he composed. Because of this prayer, Salieri developed a self-schema of being very moral and devote in faith. We can see examples of his devotion through his repeated conversations with God.
Another self-schema Salieri developed was believing he was a great composer. This belief was reaffirmed when he became the court composer for Emperor Joseph II. This affirmation falls along the concept of the consistent self. According to Reeves (2009), self-schemas generate motivation through the consistent self and the possible self. The consistent self directs behavior in a way that confirms the self-view and avoids feedback that contradicts it.
Along with the consistent self, the other way self-schemas generate motivation is through the possible self. The possible self generates motivation for developing and growing toward sought after goals. This also is evident in Salieri's composer self-schema. He wanted to become a loved and well-recognized composer like Mozart. This wanting motivated his behavior to submerse himself in learning everything he could about music so that he could achieve this goal.
Terms: self-schema, consistent self, possible self,
First off, I really liked “Amadeus”. I thought that the acting was amazing and it was a very interesting plot. Many concepts in chapter 10 “The Self and Its Strivings” in our textbook related to Mozart in the movie. Through connecting these concepts to Mozart I gained a better understanding of his character in the movie.
It is clear early on in the movie that Mozart has very high self-esteem. Towards the beginning of the movie Salieri explains how Mozart has been playing piano since he was a child and how he is a legend. Apparently Mozart is aware of his achievements, because the first time we are introduced to him Mozart mouths off to the King, telling him that “If his grace is not satisfied with me, he can dismiss me.” Mozart’s previous successes have led him to have an inflated self-view. This is evident in the previous example because when Mozart is criticized he lashes out and becomes angry. Mozart is good at composing and playing piano, and he knows it all too well.
Mozart undoubtedly has many self-schemas that come together to create his self-concept. One of those self-schemas that I would like to focus on is his view that he is the greatest composer alive. This self-schema is very clear to the audience because of the way Mozart acts throughout the movie (very cocky) and because he also says that he thinks he is the best!
Mozart is motivated by this self-schema in many ways. He tries to surround himself with people who will confirm his self-view. A very good example of this is his choice for a wife. She adores Mozart and confirms his self-view that he is the greatest composer ever. The feedback that Mozart’s wife and his fans provide allow Mozart to feel even more secure in his self-view.
Even though Mozart has many people telling him how great he is, there are also times in the movie when he receives self-discrepancy feedback. One prime example is when the King of Austria tells Mozart that he thinks his first opera in German has too many notes. This criticism shakes Mozart up and causes a discrepancy between Mozart’s self-view and the feedback he is receiving from others.
Mozart often goes through self-verification processes, where he asks others what they think of his work. It seems like Mozart is fishing for complements, but really he is just trying to verify what he already believes. Shortly after the King tells Mozart what he thinks of his work in the above example, Mozart asks Salieri what he thinks. When Salieri tells Mozart he thought it was good, Mozart begins bragging and saying that his is the best music that anyone can hear in Vienna. This scene plays out multiple times throughout the movie, with the King criticizing Mozart, Mozart getting mad, and then Mozart going to find someone who will reaffirm his previous self-view. Mozart is a textbook example of a man going through a self-verification process.
Mozart’s role as a composer comes with some social expectations. In Austria, the King and his cronies expect Mozart to behave like Salieri. Unfortunately, they are sorely disappointed because Mozart has a mind and style all his own. A contributing factor to this social shortfall is that Mozart is not very good at self-regulation, probably because he never really had a mentor from whom he could learn the ways of a gracious composer. But while Mozart may dress, behave, and even compose unconventionally, he still fit into his role as a composer because of his tireless devotion to music. By composing and directing constantly, Mozart engaged in identity-confirming behaviors. Composing well was more than a job for Mozart, it was his life’s goal.
Mozart was intrinsically motivated to compose. His goal of becoming the best composer was a self-concordant goal because it was self-driven. It was clear when Mozart was excitedly working on his Figaro opera that he worked to satisfy himself. Getting paid was a bonus. Mozart did not care that the King might not accept his version of Figaro, because it was life-giving work for him. Writing great operas allowed Mozart to undergo personal growth and contributed towards his subjective well-being.
When Mozart was forced to work on operas for money towards the end of the film, he was forced into self-discordant goals. These extrinsically motivated goals drove Mozart to drinking and unhappiness. Ultimately, the pressure from these self-discordant goals decreased his well-being to the point of death. Mozart had a free spirit, and the demands that others placed on him and the pressure to make money eventually became too much for his fragile being to handle.
I am really glad that I had the opportunity to watch this movie! Even though Mozart was kind of eccentric, I really liked his personality and all of the ways that it related to this chapter. Thanks to Mozart I now have an increased appreciation for classical music as well as a better understanding of how the self operates, motivates, and interacts with its environment.
Self, self-esteem, self-schema, self-view, self-confirmatory/self-discrepancy feedback, self-verification process, role, self-regulation, identity-confirming behaviors, intrinsic motivation, self-concordant/self-discordant goals, subjective well-being
Amadeus may have enclosed the widest range of emotion in any film we’ve viewed thus far. It is an incredible story narrated by Salieri depicting an aspect of Mozart’s life that had previously been unfamiliar to me. Salieri becomes progressively unpleasant throughout the movie and the dislike aimed at him grows stronger from the viewer. Mozart was an extremely gifted individual under chronic stress from his incredible talent.
Self efficacy is the belief in one’s own ability or competence to perform a certain task. Wolfgang’s self efficacy was extremely high as he had an insurmountable amount of previously favorable outcomes and accomplishment. His self efficacy grew with each new feat that seemed to present no challenge. With the notion that whatever he tried he could be successful at Mozart was more willing to put for effort and persistence in any new endeavor. The effort and persistence put forth by Mozart was overwhelming; he slaved away composing and planning day in and day out. All the effort put into his concertos complemented by the belief in himself lead to high achievement and recognition as the best composer of all time.
Autonomy was especially important in Mozart’s work and life. He enjoyed eccentricity and had a playful and vulgar humor. He did as he pleased much to the dismay of the council in Vienna, but always pursued control over what he produced. Every piece created was original, every opera he had a sole vision and was shocked when he was asked to remove the ballet portion of his adaptation of Figaro. He insisted it was “perfect” the way it had been written and was in disarray trying to restore his masterpiece. He sought control of his personal life and even though he loved his father tremendously was seeking autonomy over his life for once. He had been prepped and managed by his father most of his life and had loved his father for the devotion he had shown to his son but disregarded his requests to put off marriage as well as return home. “They love here!” he protests several times throughout the film.
Wolfgang’s need for competence was too very high. Although he possessed incredible talent and was invited to perform in front of many high ranking and influential members of society he still had a very high need to be recognized as brilliant. He took much personal bereavement when his opera was criticized by the majesty as well as the community at large. He himself believed that he was the greatest composer producing the most innovated and genius works known to man and had a strong desire to be recognized as such.
As I stated earlier, emotions are particularly prevalent throughout the film. Emotions are one type of motive and like all other motives they energize and direct behavior (Reeve, 2009). The basic emotions include; Fear, Anger, Disgust, Sadness, Joy, and Interest (Reeve, 2009). Fear is an emotional response that occurs when one’s interpretation of the situation being faced is dangerous and a threat to one’s personal well-being (Reeve, 2009). Fear motivates defense and is somewhat of an alarm or warning signal for oncoming harm. Fear resides within Salieri of Mozart’s extreme talent. He believes he is being mocked by God himself. Mozart threatens Salieri’s main goal in life to please God through his music. Mozart unveils the mediocrity that Salieri represents. Salieri cannot stand to have such a threat mock and belittle his very being so he reacts in a way to restore well-being. His compensatory actions consist of sabotaging and back breaking Mozart’s brilliance through his influence.
Anger arises from self-control as in the interpretation that one’s plans, goals, well-being have been interfered with by some external force or and can also result from a betrayal of trust (Reeve, 2009). Salieri’s anger is a repeating theme throughout the film. His anger is derived from the fact that Mozart has indirectly interfered with his plans, his goals, and his overall well being. Mozart’s existence and forthcoming presence shadows Salieri’s to the extent which Salieri denounces God; previously his biggest inspiration. To Salieri, God has betrayed his trust. He entrusted this “obscene child” to do his bidding and speak his voice. This being Salieri’s one aspiration it was a direct insult to him.
Disgust was common amongst Mozart’s many viewers including the pope, Salieri, the council in Vienna, and other figures in his life. Salieri was disgusted with the way such a brilliant young mind acted in public, the vulgar things he contaminated the council with, as well as the way he was continually upstaging him. Sadness arises from separation or failure. Wolfgang displayed tremendous sadness when he received word that his father and mentor had passed away. He produced his most dark, depressing, and ominous performance of his career. The eternal separation from his father drove him into a depression which leads to his continued alcohol binges.
Joy is brought on by desirable outcomes or success at a task (Reeve, 2009). Salieri post performance is a great example of joy. He is being commemorated for his vast achievement of the “best opera to date” by his majesty and being praised by his peers including Mozart. The joy and redemption he feel are apparent in his verbal actions as well as his facial expressions. Interest can create a desire to explore or investigate certain things that surround us that we perceive to be of importance. Both Salieri and Mozart shared a common passionate interest in music and composition. Mozart explored and broke boundaries due to this vast interest and Salieri was trying to study how Mozart continually put together sublime pieces of work and was constantly baffled at his capacity.
Amadeus was an atypical film for me but told a story much more alluring story than I had ever conceived. Wolfgang was such an eccentric character with such variety that he was easily comparable to emotion.
List of Terms: Self efficacy, Autonomy, Competence, Effort, Persistence, Anger, Disgust, Fear, Joy, Interest, Sadness
Amadeus displayed a wide range of terminology and gave descriptive examples of that terminology throughout the film. Of the numerous terms depicted, the first term that stuck of to me initially and throughout the film was mastery learning.
At the beginning of the film, Salieri, discusses how Mozart began playing masterful compositions as a young child. Saleiri stated that "While I was playing childish games, he was playing for kings, emperors, and even the Pope in Rome". The film displays his early work as gifted and impressively complex and shows Mozart as being blindfolded during his performance. During this time, it is also shows how Salieri had felt great envy for Mozart's talent. The display of Mozart's young talent shows that he is a mastery style learner. He continually creates impressive compositions throughout the film and shows off his skills in a variety of ways.
An additional way he displays his great compositional skills is the scene where Saleiri gives the emperor a musical piece to examine and play. After the emperor plays through the musical pieces once, Mozart states that he has it memorized and would like to play it. Silencing all doubt, Mozart began to play the piece without error and even adds parts to it. He adds these parts because he believed certain areas of the piece needed to be corrected. His ability to memorize compositions after one hearing shows that his style of learning is mastery and that he is very talented.
Another way that he displays his mastery style of learning in musical compositions is at the party that he brings his father to. While playing musical chairs and dressing up a hilarious unicorn, Mozart is unable to find a chair when the music stops and receives a punishment. His punishment was to play several songs while turned upside down. Although he was placed in an awkward playing position, he was able to successfully play music with great skill and impressed the other people at the party. He was even able to take requests from the people at the party and play several songs that he had memorized.
Mozart’s mastery skill of composing music resulted in a number of positive emotions. These emotions included happiness and interest. He was overjoyed that his music was greatly liked and gain great interest to create more pieces of art. These positive emotions resulted in him being more creative, highly sociable, and persistence when he was told his work needed to be changed. His persistence allowed him to continue to create meaningful compositions and resulted in his musical success. When face with a variety of critics, Mozart often silenced them by creating masterful works. As a result of his positive emotions, Mozart became motivated to continue his involvement in creating music and became satisfied with his creations.
Mozart’s acquisition of positive feedback and his achievement resulted in a continued pleasant mood. Although his mood changed during the end of the film, his overall mood throughout the film was one of excitement, joy, and eagerness. This mood resulted in Mozart being able to pleasurably engage in creating music. Receiving rewards such as feedback for his creations, he began to be driven and motivate to further approach music. This motivated allowed Mozart to compose some of his greatest works that display his passion and creativity.
During the later parts of the film, Mozart’s positive emotions transformed in to negative emotions. Due to the loss of his father and his financial setbacks, he found himself in a difficult place. The emotions he displayed included fear and sadness. Fear soon shaped Mozart into an alcoholic and created sadness on a daily occurrence. These negative emotions harmed Mozart’s general well-being and others began to view him as intolerable. A scene where he was viewed as intolerable is when he attempts to ask permission to teach a young girl his piano skills. The father does not allow the teaching due to Mozart’s inability to hold himself together and will not even lend him money. This scene was a very low point for Mozart and resulted in a decrease in drive and motivation. He nearly loses all motivation until Saleiri’s states the ghost-like figure has offered him a substantial amount of money to finish the piece that was recently request. In his impoverished and exhausted state, Mozart is extrinsically motivated to finish his composition to receive monetary rewards.
Another term shown in the film is self-efficacy. In particular, the self-efficacy of Mozart is displayed throughout the film. It is shown that Mozart has a very positive view of himself and that he can accomplish difficult tasks. One of the difficult tasks he accomplishes includes persuading the emperor to allow him to perform a certain opera. Although the music was banned, Mozart shows his unique interpretation of it and is able to perform it. This accomplishment encourages Mozart to continue to use his creativity when compiling operas.
Terms: mastery learning, self-efficacy, feedback, positive and negative emotions, extrinsic motivation, mood
Mozart is the model of self-efficacy: a child prodigy with a rich musical background accomplished by age 12. According to a jealous Salieri, his father had taught him everything. His ability to persuade the emperor of Vienna towards whatever aims he passionately envisioned was the source of controversy among the court. His self-efficacy afforded him choice: avoiding lessons and dedicating his life to composition and embracing modern values of individualism and materialism. Mozart’s eccentric behavior, arrogant self-promotion and avant-garde styling are all related to his mastery orientation, self-concept, identity, and agency.
Conversely, Salieri was the model of virtue, keeping his hands off girls, praying regularly and keeping the midnight oil burning. His purpose was to attain immortality through musical means, exchanging his “chastity, industry, and humility” in turn. His pessimistic explanatory style fosters a sense of learned helplessness in his own composing ability, the inadequacy of his effort, and the underlying mediocrity of his achievements; all of which are measured for him, personally, relative to Mozart. The consistent self is centered on pious obligations and observance of faith, self-reflection and reservation, yet Salieri’s possible self is always at bay; he struggles with the notion of God, instead, choosing Mozart, “an obscene child to be his instrument.”
The self-concept of God’s chosen one is characterized by perceived personal creative control and hedonic fulfillment. Mozart is overly self-acceptant with little concern for others’ inputs (except for his father to some degree and Salieri's while on his deathbed). His devotion to musical development and environmental mastery in this domain is unmatched by any of the other court counselors—Salieri included. Autonomy in producing his work is not subject to oversight in his mind, therefore, positive relations--with others adhering to the norms of aristocratic life-- is only remotely achieved with his intimates—father, wife, and son. His purpose in life is all things musically related with considerable time for self-indulgence (a live-for-today attitude, lacking anxiety about where the money was coming from and repaying debts). Personal growth is largely confined to his musical interests, made evident when his wife is persuaded to leave. Wolfy’s self-schema is such that outlandish behavior and humor are acceptable in nearly all social situations; mastery in musical composition and directing; and self-centeredness in intimate relations. Cognitive dissonance is rarely an issue for the composer: some amount arises with his father's visit and his demeaning talk of their way of life and rationalizing his wife’s absence by suggesting she is at a spa.
Mozart’s composer-identity reassures him to write (identity-confirming behavior) and avoid lesson-giving (identity-disconfirming behavior). His roles do not distinctly adhere to varying situations, considerable overlap exists among domains. While he is eccentric around his wife and other court officials, he tones it down a notch in front of the emperor. Faced with women, wine, and wild times he is the life of the party. His primary identity as composer overshadows all other roles and this is the only domain where he is predictably behaving “normally,” putting his effeminate laugh on hold to engage goal-directed behaviors.
For Mozart motive involvement and satisfaction result from his agency, illustrating the vast majority of his existence, if only in the domain of music and consumption. He devotes his time to solely pursuing his interests, exercising his skills, and developing his talents; whether that be shopping for wigs or getting white-boy wasted; masterfully transferring the arrangements in his head onto paper without error or hearing Soliari's song once, and, not only playing it flawlessly, but enhancing it with some ad lib; pushing the envelope by the quality and volume of his work-concertos, operas, symphonies, etc. As far as internalizing and integrating others viewpoints Mozart struggles to achieve compliance in behaving, thinking, and feeling at an integrated regulation level ("which [notes] ones do you have in mind [for removal from the song]" facetiously countering the emperor's request to get rid of some notes). Subsuming such outside input contradicted his own understanding of artistic exploration and development.
However, he possesses an uncanny ability to interact effectively with his social world when he so chooses: he is persuasive in campaigning his motives for Figaro's concepts and the shift towards fantastical operatic themes ("I'm a vulgar man but I assure you my music is not"). His self-worth and competence serve to reciprocally increase one another, largely forcing his interactions with others to appear aloof, accompanied by an overinflated sense of self. For Mozart, self-concordance hugely drives his efforts: because he wants to embodies his spirit. He personally strives to one-up himself every piece he writes and every performance he holds. Personal growth and subjective well-being are at the core of his work regardless of recompense: he does it largely for himself, if the audience does not like it he attributes their displeasure to external factors. His dependency on admirers to stay afloat is deplorable to his father upon visiting. As his wife becomes increasingly concerned with their finances he begins to develop some sort of internalized significance for income (though likely not frugality), if only to appease his wife and likely in response to the passing of his papa which leads him down a darker self-destructive artistic path: he is more focused, more involved, but it comes at the cost of his death.
For Salieri, the court composer, his own self-concept, identity and agency are contaminated by Mozart's accomplishments and deviance, and his own unidimensional worldview of God actively shaping the cosmos--his lack of personal control is therefore attributed to a higher power; there is nothing he can do because this is God's will manifest in an "unprincipled, spoiled, conceited brat". Though his self-schemas motivated him to push towards his possible self, attainment of such can/will never be realized. Emotions afforded Salieri the most consistent coping functions to reflect/contrast his self-worth. He ran the emotion gamut over the course of the three hours you get to know him although negative emotions are prominent. Threat and harm manifested in fear, sadness, anger, and disgust at various levels In Salieri's experiences with, and thoughts of, Mozart. His sense of purpose was constantly jeopardized by Mozart's stay in Vienna. Cognitive dissonance is at the core of his existence: he spends nearly the whole movie engaging in justification processes until the emperor informs him after his play that he is the "brightest star in the musical family" (new information). On the flip side, in one of the closing scenes a moment of mutual exchange is shared between composers for the first time and a different side of both characters surfaced. The ghostly image that has become Mozart longs for relatedness as he thanks Salieri for returning him home safely. In response, Salieri says Mozart's latest opera was the "grandest of them all yet," and the rest is history, or something like that.
Terms: self-efficacy, master orientation, self-concept, identity, agency, pessimistic explanatory style, learned helplessness, possible self, perceived control, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, autonomy, intimacy, personal growth, self-schema, cognitive dissonance, identity, roles, goal-directed behavior, motive involvement and satisfaction, internalization and integration, self-worth, competence, self-concordance, self-worth, personal striving, personal growth and subjective well-being, negative emotions, justification
The movie Amadeus had many of the concepts from both chapter 10 and 11 in our textbook. The concept of the self is prevalent anywhere and everywhere, but after reading these two chapters I now have a different lens to examine the self through. It was interesting to relate these things to the movie. There were examples of self concept, identity, agency, and self regulation. There were also examples of self-schemas and the cognitive dissonance theory. First, we see an example of self-concept with the Mozart defining himself as a composer. It is safe to say the old man telling the story also defined himself as a composer. This self-concept of being a composer by the old man shapes his identity. The old mans identity is a composer, he even says at one point he was “the most famous composer in Europe.” His identity led him to move to Vienna, which he calls the city of musicians. We see examples of Agency as Mozart develops potential at a young age. He plays in front of very important people when he was just a kid. His potential and ability to compose grew. We also see examples of self-regulation when Mozart judges himself and he becomes more and more famous. Not only does he observe himself but he also judges himself. There is even a part in the movie when he says “People love me here”. Which implies that Mozart has observed the way people feel about him.
The self-concept of Mozart is surrounded by his ability to compose. He knows he is good, so his concept of self revolves around that. Finally from this chapter, we see examples of cognitive dissonance theory. One example of this is Mozart wanting he self concept as being the best. Since a young child Mozart has been praised for his music and he did not want that to change. He was a hard working man and his work ethic stayed true throughout the movies. He valued quality work and he always put a lot of time into it. He really did strive to stay at the top. I would say although there were some low points in the movie for Mozart, overall his well being was good because he did strive to be the best.
There were also concepts from chapter 11 in the movie. Chapter 11 is about emotions so of course those would be present. The interesting this was thinking about emotions and taking a closer look at those. Some of the concepts from this chapter are feelings, arousal, purpose, and expression. Also, moods are present in the movie. Lets focus on emotions in the movie. There were many emotions throughout the movie whether it be people yelling an trying to get through a gate at the beginning, or Mozart’s emotions throughout the movie. Feeling and emotions go hand and hand so feelings were also present throughout the movie of course. Many of the emotions had personal meaning to Mozart throughout the movie. Evidence of this is changes in his character when times are bad. There were also examples of arousal throughout the movie. One example of this is when the old man says he started having “really violent thoughts”. It was emotions like this that gave the old man purpose to kill Mozart. The old man said, “that was God laughing at me through that absurd giggle.” Emotions like this were beginning to direct a goal toward hurting Mozart. Next, facial expressions and the social component were everywhere in the movie. Especially with the way Mozart’s character was. He was a man full of expressions, everything from his laugh to his personality. We also saw a very good example of a facial expression when Mozart’s wife gave the man original copies of his play. The man’s face said a thousand words because of the expression.
Finally, we saw examples of moods throughout the movie. We saw Mozart get in a bad mood and turn to alcohol as he stayed upset for a long while. We also saw a mood when Mozart was doing good and was on top of the world. Those were both very good examples of moods and how they can change.
The concepts I used are: From chapter 10, self concept, identity, agency, and self regulation, self-schemas and the cognitive dissonance theory. From chapter 11, emotions, feelings, arousal, purpose, and expression, and moods.
The movie Amadeus had many of the concepts from both chapter 10 and 11 in our textbook. The concept of the self is prevalent anywhere and everywhere, but after reading these two chapters I now have a different lens to examine the self through. It was interesting to relate these things to the movie. There were examples of self concept, identity, agency, and self regulation. There were also examples of self-schemas and the cognitive dissonance theory. First, we see an example of self-concept with the Mozart defining himself as a composer. It is safe to say the old man telling the story also defined himself as a composer. This self-concept of being a composer by the old man shapes his identity. The old mans identity is a composer, he even says at one point he was “the most famous composer in Europe.” His identity led him to move to Vienna, which he calls the city of musicians. We see examples of Agency as Mozart develops potential at a young age. He plays in front of very important people when he was just a kid. His potential and ability to compose grew. We also see examples of self-regulation when Mozart judges himself and he becomes more and more famous. Not only does he observe himself but he also judges himself. There is even a part in the movie when he says “People love me here”. Which implies that Mozart has observed the way people feel about him.
The self-concept of Mozart is surrounded by his ability to compose. He knows he is good, so his concept of self revolves around that. Finally from this chapter, we see examples of cognitive dissonance theory. One example of this is Mozart wanting he self concept as being the best. Since a young child Mozart has been praised for his music and he did not want that to change. He was a hard working man and his work ethic stayed true throughout the movies. He valued quality work and he always put a lot of time into it. He really did strive to stay at the top. I would say although there were some low points in the movie for Mozart, overall his well being was good because he did strive to be the best.
There were also concepts from chapter 11 in the movie. Chapter 11 is about emotions so of course those would be present. The interesting this was thinking about emotions and taking a closer look at those. Some of the concepts from this chapter are feelings, arousal, purpose, and expression. Also, moods are present in the movie. Lets focus on emotions in the movie. There were many emotions throughout the movie whether it be people yelling an trying to get through a gate at the beginning, or Mozart’s emotions throughout the movie. Feeling and emotions go hand and hand so feelings were also present throughout the movie of course. Many of the emotions had personal meaning to Mozart throughout the movie. Evidence of this is changes in his character when times are bad. There were also examples of arousal throughout the movie. One example of this is when the old man says he started having “really violent thoughts”. It was emotions like this that gave the old man purpose to kill Mozart. The old man said, “that was God laughing at me through that absurd giggle.” Emotions like this were beginning to direct a goal toward hurting Mozart. Next, facial expressions and the social component were everywhere in the movie. Especially with the way Mozart’s character was. He was a man full of expressions, everything from his laugh to his personality. We also saw a very good example of a facial expression when Mozart’s wife gave the man original copies of his play. The man’s face said a thousand words because of the expression.
Finally, we saw examples of moods throughout the movie. We saw Mozart get in a bad mood and turn to alcohol as he stayed upset for a long while. We also saw a mood when Mozart was doing good and was on top of the world. Those were both very good examples of moods and how they can change.
The concepts I used are: From chapter 10, self concept, identity, agency, and self regulation, self-schemas and the cognitive dissonance theory. From chapter 11, emotions, feelings, arousal, purpose, and expression, and moods.
Amadeus was a very different movie from what we’ve watched previously in this class. It was interesting however, but not so much that I would watch it again.
In this movie there were many displays of expectancy by both Mozart and Salieri. Two kinds of expectancies are efficacy expectations and outcome expectations and are there because it describes motivation to exercise personal control. According to our text, an efficacy expectation is a judgment of one’s capacity to perform a certain task. It is typically worded or viewed as “Can I do it?”. An Outcome expectation on the other hand refers to the expectation that one’s particular act or course of actions will lead to a certain outcome. This is typically viewed or worded as “Will what I do work?”. Both of these expectations are seen in Amadeus when depicting both Mozart and Salieri lives in various instances. For example from the time Mozart was very young until he died, his father had many outcome expectations instilled in his son. He would take Mozart around to perform for various people allowing him to play and to express what he had taught him from a very young age. Mozart’s father expected him to perform well because that is how he taught him. He wanted Mozart to be great. In a way he lived vicariously through his son and once he saw that his son was great it created certain physical, psychological and emotional benefits form himself and his son. On the other hand, Salieri had efficacy expectations. Instead of having someone there to encourage and push him, Salieri had to learn for himself that his actions would eventually lead him to become a well known composer. When he first started to appreciate music, his father was very against it and told him it wouldn’t get him anywhere. However Salieri knew that he loved music and that if given the chance he could possibly go far and become famous. He believed in himself enough to engage in a behavior as well as stayed persistent in accomplishing his goal. He had a lot of Self-efficacy in respects to this subject as well. He knew he had it in him to perform and compose. All he wanted was to be great and organized his skills to cope with the demands and circumstances that came his way so that he could become great. For instance he preserved his chastity so that he could focus on his work. Mozart also had self-efficacy but not as high as Saleiri’s. Mozart had superior ability but that is most definitely not the same as self-efficacy. It differs and is just as important as ability in that self-efficacy is the capacity to improvise and figure out ways around obstacles and the belief that one can do it efficiently where as ability is solely skills that are involved. Both are required for performance but often performance can be stressful and ambiguous making self efficacy necessary for functioning. Mozart had self-efficacy but more so relied on his ability making his composing difficult at times. Eventually he let the stressful situations get in the way it became his demise.
When speaking of sources of self-efficacy, Saleiri had two sources. He had his own personal history as well as observations of others. When he first figured out he wanted to become involved in music his father said absolutely not. Saleiri had to overcome this obstacle and keep pushing forward. Since he was less experienced when he first started out, each attempt at working with music built competence and increased his self-efficacy. This I believe was the most influential of the two sources simply because it was supported in an autonomic way. The second source was the of observations of others. At the time when Saleiri found music Mozart had just started out his musical career at a very young age. This was very interesting to Saleiri and eventually he came to the conclusion that if a young boy at the age of 4 could play and compose music, surely he could. So this drove him even further in his quest to become a great composer. This is also related to a vicarious experience. Throughout his life Saleiri watched Mozart as he composed several operas and songs. It was sort of the “You go first, I’ll watch” kind of a thing. It encouraged Saleiri to push farther in his expertise.
Terms I used were self-efficacy, personal behavior history, vicarious experience, ability, efficacy expectations, and outcome expectations