This week's topical blog will be devoted to your analysis of the movie The Fighter.
This movie has concepts from Chapters 10-13.
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. 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.
In this movie, the main character Mickey Ward goes through the process of goal setting. He had various goals, but one of them was to become a good boxer. This goal lacked goal specificity. It also lacked difficulty, because “good” could have different definitions. It was his family’s goal that he, or his brother, become the boxing champion. This goal was specific and difficult. These types of goals work to enhance performance and Mickey began to take his fighting more seriously. His mom got him into a fight that was supposed to be easy. This would be one of his first opportunities for feedback. He lost the fight horribly and this provided him with negative feedback. Feedback is the knowledge of results that allows people to track their progress towards their goals. This goal failure led to emotional dissatisfaction. Mickey wanted to quit and felt that he had let his friends, family, and city down.
Mickey felt more embarrassed about the disappointment he had caused his town than he did about his actual performance. This demonstrates his lack of one critical value in goal setting. Goal acceptance is the degree to which the individual feels that a goal is their own. Mickey felt that he was taking on the goals of his family and city. They wanted to see a winning boxer more than he wanted to be a winning boxer. Mickey then meets Charlene. Charlene points out these discrepancies and offers to help him find a trainer that will be more beneficial. Mickey then feels that he is taking more of the goal on himself. He is relying less on his overbearing family. Later in the movie, he takes a stand against Charlene and his family. Until this point, there had been a battle of control over Mickey’s actions. Both sides felt that it was their goal to become the boxing champion. Mickey lets them all know that it is his goal and not theirs.
The long term goal of becoming the boxing champion was not going to be an easy one to attain. It must be split into smaller, short term goals that allow time for feedback. His first step was training. After he won his first fight, he received positive feedback. This feedback gave him the motivation to keep training and eventually keep winning. To keep doing this, he had to complete the process of goal striving. Goal striving is the ability to keep working towards a goal, even when it gets difficult. Implementation intentions are a key factor in this. Implementation intentions provide the where, when, and why of the goal. They help individuals get started on their goal, persist during difficult times, and resume once an interruption occurs. Mickey’s implementation intentions consisted of his trainer and training. His trainer expected to meet him at the ring to practice on certain days and certain times. This training gave him the tools he needed to become a great boxer. He also enjoyed it, and this provided him with the “why” he was doing his goal. It wasn’t necessary that he become the boxing champion, simply working towards that goal was motivation enough.
During the movie, Mickey also worked to fulfill his psychological needs. The most important one was social relationships. In the beginning, his family and city was his source of social acceptance. He felt that when he let them down through boxing, he wasn’t good enough to be around them. This is because his relationships with these people were highly exchange in nature. An exchange relationship is one that exists in business. The feelings in the relationship aren’t mutually caring. When Mickey met Charlene, his view on relationships changed. She provided him with a communal relationship. In a communal relationship, both parties care for each other’s well being mutually. It is an unconditional relationship without deals or agreements. This made him realize that his relationship with his family and brother was unhealthy. He broke away from them until the relationship was in a better condition. He also got along better with his brother when his brother realized that his time to complete his goal was over. Nicky accepted that his new goal was to assist his brother in becoming a boxer. This provided for a better communal relationship between the two of them.
TERMS: goal setting, goal difficulty, goal specificity, feedback, goal acceptance, long term goal, short term goal, goal striving, implementation intentions, goal pursuit, communal relationship, exchange relationship
The movie the fighter is based on the story of Micky Ward and his boxing career. Micky's older brother Dicky was his trainer and the one who taught him how to fight. Micky is constantly living in the shadow of his older brother and desires to become a successful boxer. When Micky loses a match that he is expected to win, he experiences a discrepancy between his present state and ideal state. Due to this discrepancy, Micky sets a goal to improve his current skill level. He sets this goal in hopes of achieving his view of the possible self. The possible self is a self-schema that generates motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. The entire movie Micky is striving to become his idea of the possible self.
Micky satisfies his need for relatedness and intimacy by forming a relationship with Charlene. Charlene believes that Dicky is holding Micky back from attaining his goals. Micky experiences discrepancy again because he loves his brother but is tired of defending his brother who has become addicted to crack. This creates a state of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is tension that occurs whenever and individual holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent with one another.
A significant scene in the movie is when Dicky gets in a fight with a cop. Micky tries to help out Dicky and ends up with a broken hand. Following this, Dicky is sent to jain and Micky starts to separate himself from his brother in hopes of developing a sense of autonomy. This is shown when he tells his family that he needs to find out what's best for him and get a new trainer that will be dependable and pay him all year long.
Micky later mends his relationship with his brother and discovers that he he works best when he has everyone in his life: Dicky, charlene, and his new trainer O'Keefe. Micky goes beat the current champion and gains a title. This success satisfies his need for achievement.
One of the reasons why Micky might have enjoyed boxing is because he is a sensation seeker. This means that he has a relatively low level of arousal and is therefore attracted to risky activities that help to increase arousal.
Terms: Discrepancy, goal, possible self, cognitive dissonance, relatedness, intimacy, autonomy, achievement, sensation seeker, arousal, risk taking
The movie the Fighter was based on a true story that starred Mickey Ward and his brother Dicky Ward. This is based on Mickey’s boxing career and throughout the movie it shows many attributes to motivation; through his mother, brother, girlfriend, and coach. Chapters 10 through 13 show characteristics from the movie as well. Chapter 10 is about the self and its strivings. The four problems that come from the self are defining or creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. Mickey shows all four of these aspects. The first problem he has is shown right away in the film. Mickey doesn’t know who he is without his brother Dicky alongside him. When Mickey defined himself he always did so with including his brother. Once Dicky got locked up, Mickey decided to start creating his own career without Dicky standing next to him. This was very hard considering his mom and sisters were not happy with that decision. Relating self to society was also difficult for Mickey to do. Mickey lived a hard life before his career started by himself. He didn’t know that there was more out there then what his mother was giving him. He then realized when a coach asked him to come to Las Vegas to train there and get paid for it that there was more to what he was doing. This idea got struck down right away by his brother and mom though. Dicky told him that they would just get a better trainer where they are located so Mickey wouldn’t have to leave Dicky behind. Mickey discovered personal potential once his brother went to jail. He realized that he didn’t want the same drug addict life that Dicky had. He pursued his own path and became even better than his brother ever was. The fourth problem, managing and regulating the self, was accomplished by figuring out how to manage his time wisely with his career. His girlfriend was a major motivator. She pushed Mickey to do things he probably never would have done if he hadn’t met her. He learned to stand up to his brother once Dicky got released. He knew that, that was what he had to do to accomplish what he wanted to do. Mickey had a low self-concept at the beginning of the movie. Self-concepts are individual mental representations of themselves. He knew he was a good boxer but did not realize how well until he was pushed to see it through the eyes of others. He realized that his brother had a lot to do with holding him back and because of this his self-concept was low. Self-concordance asks the question; how do people decide what to strive for in their lives and how does this personal striving process sometimes nurture the self and promote well-being. This self-concordance model begins when the person (Mickey) sets a goal for which to strive (to win the championship). This model shows what the person wants and how to attain the goal which in return gives need satisfying experiences. Mickey found a sense of personal growth once his brother was away because he was getting better. He realized that he still needs his brother and would like his help, but that it is not all about Dicky.
Emotions are another thing discussed in the book. Emotions are more complex than what first meets the eye. Emotions consist of feelings, bodily arousal, social-expressiveness, and sense of purpose. A sense of purpose gives a goal-directed motivational state. There are two ways that emotion relates to motivation. Emotions are one type of motive. Emotions energize and direct behavior. In the movie when Mickey got mad about his brother always holding him back he started doing his own thing. His anger motivated him to do things on his own. His lust and love for his girlfriend Charlene also motivated his behavior for the better. Because his emotions for her were so strong he wanted to make her happy so therefore strived to do what was best for both of them. The emotion sadness that he expressed in the movie was also shown through all four ways emotions are expressed. He had a feeling of distress, his bodily arousal would have shown decreased heart rate and low energy level, his sense of purpose was wanting to take action to separate from failure, and last; his social expressiveness were his physical characteristics like inner eyebrows raised or crying.
This movie showed many different areas that motivated Mickey to achieve his goal to win Championship. It was a very inspirational movie. Coming from low-income/hard households and being able to strive for what you want to become and he accomplished that!
Terms: social-expressive, sense of purpose, bodily arousal, feelings, self-concordance, goal attainment, personal growth, self-esteem.
The movie fighter is about a boxer named Mickey Ward who wants to become a successful boxer and win a championship. He wanted to succeed this goal with the help of his brother Dickie who was a previous well known boxer. He stuggles with figuring out who he is in life and if he should stick with his family or go off on his own boxing career. One of the biggest psychological concepts associated with this movie is the story of Mickey trying to create a self for himself. Mickey is trying to create a self and the strivings to achieve this self. Mickey goes through the four main problems in creating a self for himself. He deals with defining or creating th self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential and managing or regulating the self. The self-concept is the mental representations someone has of themselvels. Mickey struggles in knowing who he is without being in the footsteps of his brother. Mickey always came second in this family after Dickie. Dickie was the number one priority and everyone believed Dickie knew what he was talking about and created an image for Mickey of himself. Once Dickie gets sent to prison, Mickey finally realizes that he needs to create an image for himself and that he needs to leave Dickie and his family behind. He needs to create a self image that equals the mental representations he has for himself. Mickey creates his consistent self by actively seeking out information consistent with self-concept and by ignoring information that contradicts their self-view. He ditches his mother and does things for himself. He then proves his self to society. Before he strived to be himself, he was hurt by the decisions made by his mother and brother and he made a fool of himself. When he went off to do his own thing, Mickey created a better image of himself and achieved proving his self to society by becoming a good boxer. The third problem was realizing personal potential. Dickie and his mom didn't care so much about Mickey and his potential even though they said they did. Mickey knew could and was a good boxer and had potential. Boxing trainers were coming up to him asking them to train with him because they saw the poetntial in Mickey. He took up better trainers offers and realzied that he needed to be surrounded by people that would help to maintain or achieve his self of becoming a good boxer. The last problem Mickey dealt with is the motivating and maintaining the self. He did this by surrounding himself around people that motivated him and encouaged him to strive for the self. Mickey's girlfriend was a good motivator for him and encouraged him to achieve the goals he wants. Mickey develops a forethought, then he engages in tasks and begins to perform and recieve feedback. Mickey recieves good feedback when he leaves his family management and he achieves more success on his own.
Terms: Self-Regulation, Self-concept, Consistent Self,
This movie was a great example of the concepts found in chapters 10-13. The Fighter is about Mickey Ward and his journey to become a champion boxer. Along with focusing on Mickey's journey, this movie also focuses on his brother, Dickie's journey from being a well known boxer to a crack addict and in the end getting his life back on track by being Mickey's trainer.
In this movie, which is a true life story, Mickey feels as if he needs his brother, Dickie, in his corner in order to be successful. He feels as if he can not win with Dickie. This can relate to when chapter 10 explains the different components that make up 'the self'. There are four categories that make up 'the self'. These include 1. relating the self to society 2. discovering and developing personal potential 3. defining or creating the self 4. managing or regulating the self. The aspect that focuses on discovering and developing personal potential is the aspect that Mickey was missing in the first part of the movie. It took Mickey learning that he didn't need Dickie in his corner to realize his own potential and to also realize that he had to focus on developing that potential. Whereas Dickie and his mother just focused on getting paid, versus developing skills. Because Mickey was lacking this, he was not becoming the person he wanted to be. This leads into chapter 10 discussing the six dimensions of psychological well-being. These six dimensions include self acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental master, purpose in life and personal growth. Mickey was lacking in many of these areas which lead to the unhappiness in his life. For example, Mickey had low self-acceptance. The viewer could see this in the scene where he didn't want to take Charlene out on a date in his hometown due to the embarrassment he felt about feeling as if he was a loser. However, once he started to get back into training without Dickie and his mother, he started to find his self acceptance and purpose in life along with having personal growth. One could see his happiness increasing.
Chapter 10 also talks about self-concept and self-schemas. A self-concept are individuals' mental representations of themselves from past experiences. People rely on feedback from others in order to develop their self-concept. In this movie, Mickey was receiving feedback from the matches he was losing and his family that bringing him nowhere. This led his self-concept to be a negative one. With a self-concept comes something that is called a 'consistent self'. A consistent self is when one acts in a way that will support the current self-concept. One can see this at the beginning of the movie where Mickey let Dickie and his mother run his boxing career, even though he knew they did not have his best interests in mind. However, this behavior was consistent to what people thought of him so he kept doing it. This was until he met Charlene. Charlene gave him positive feedback of believing that he could become something more. This helped Mickey's self-concept turn into a more positive one.
Chapter 10 also talks about cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when ones actions do not match up with ones beliefs. Mickey felt cognitive dissonance in the scene where Dickie arrives at the gym after getting released from jail. Mickey had already made a deal with Charlene and his new trainer that he would not train with Dickie or work with his mom again. However, during this scene, Mickey breaks down and confesses to wanting Dickie as a trainer. This showed that his actions of not training with Dickie caused cognitive dissonance due to his desire of wanting to train with his brother.
Chapter 11 focuses on emotions. This chapter explains that emotions relate to motivation. Emotions are one type of motive as they energize and direct behavior. One can see this in the movie after Mickie gets done watching the HBO documentary on Dickie's crack addition. During this documentary Mickey felt anger, ashamed and embarrassed for his brother and his family name. These emotions motivated him to go to the gym for the first time since getting his hand broken. It was because the emotions he felt that he was motivated to make a name for himself in the boxing business. This chapter also explains that emotions help humans cope with life events. One can see in this movie that Mickey used boxing to cope with the life events such as Dickie's crack addition and jail time and his crazy family.
Chapter 12 talks about the cultural similarities that surround emotions. This chapter states that emotions are universal. One can see that this is true when Mickey goes out of the country to fight for the title. Even though the scene took place in a different country and the two fighters came from different cultures, the expressions that the fans were making and the expressions that the fighters were making were the same.
Chapter 13 talks about personality characteristics. There are three motivational principles related to personality characteristics and they are happiness, arousal and control. This movie really depicts the principle of arousal. Arousal is all about the processes that govern alertness, wakefulness and activation. Four principles explain arousal's contribution to motivation. They include: 1. a person's arousal level is a function of how stimulating the environment is 2. people engage in behavior to increase or decrease their level of arousal 3. when underaroused, people seek out opportunities to increase their arousal levels because this will increase one's performance 4. When overaroused, people seek out opportunities to decrease their arousal levels because they decrease the level of one's performance. The relationship between one's level of arousal and their performance level can be seen in the image of the inverted-U. If arousal is low, so is performance. If arousal is moderate, performance is at its peak. However, if arousal is high, performance is also low. One can see the different levels of arousal in all the boxing scenes in this movie. When boxing in the gym, where there is not a lot of stimulus, Mickey is more calm and is not performing at his peak. However, when the environment has more stimulus such as fans, his performance is at it's peak.
The self, personal potential, six dimensions of psychological well-being, self acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental master, purpose in life, personal growth, self-concept, self-schemas, feedback, consistent self, cognitive dissonance, emotions, motives, personality characteristics, happiness, arousal, control, alertness, wakefulness, activation
The Fighter has many aspects that we have discussed about in class from chapters 10-13. When defining the self, one goes through four steps. The first is defining/creating the self. This would be in the beginning in the movie when Mickey defined himself with his brother, Dicky. He didn’t know what life would be like without Dicky so he always included him. He also always put Dicky’s needs before his own in hopes to please everyone. The second step is relating self to society. This would be after Mickey’s first fight and the trainer asked him to come to Las Vegas to train. His mother and Dicky shot down this idea and told him he couldn’t leave Dicky behind after all he has done for him. The third step, discovering personal potential occurred when Dicky went to jail and actually stayed in jail. He relied on O’Keefe to train him and surround himself with those who supported him. These people would be Charlene, his dad and O’Keefe. They encouraged him, motivated him and helped train him to be a better fighter. Mickey did this without the help of Dicky. The fourth step is managing/regulating self. Mickey did this by pursuing his career as a fighter. He had to divide up time between his family, Charlene and training. Mickey also didn’t let anyone get him down anymore and made decisions on what was best for him, and not for Dicky. In the beginning of the movie, Mickey had a poor self concept. Self concept is one’s mental representation of themselves. One develops their self concept based on experiences and reflections. Mickey defined himself as a good fighter, but not as good as Dicky. He also had a hard life and he couldn’t escape Dicky’s shadow. He was suppressed of opportunities throughout his life because his family focused on Dicky. However, once Dicky went to jail, he got to experience his own problems, training, fighting, and best techniques on his own. By doing this, he widened his self concept and developed reasons as to why he was a good fighter. The possible self is the response to social feedback and generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. Mickey wanted to be a better fighter than Dicky and prove that he could beat great fighters to the rest of society. He chose not to listen to those that didn’t believe in him and surrounded himself with people who would help him achieve is goal. Self regulation is the monitoring and evaluating of one’s ongoing effort to attain the goals one seeks through forethought, action and reflection. Mickey evaluated his efforts of training to be a better fighter with O’Keefe. However, when he won the fight with the side knockout, he realized he couldn’t have won without Dicky’s help. By reflecting, he realized he really did need Dicky’s training in the end, however, it wasn’t all about Dicky anymore. An emotion is the feelings, bodily arousal, and one’s sense of purpose. They help us adapt to opportunities and challenge during important life events. They motivate us to achieve a goal. Mickey had strong emotions in that he wanted to be a fighter. He felt that his sense of purpose was to become a better fighter than Dicky. His emotions of anger toward his family not like Charlene and favoring Dicky came in handy. This anger motivated him to achieve his goal of becoming a fighter. He wanted to prove everyone wrong in that he could be a better fighter. Everyone telling him he couldn’t do it, drove him more to achieve his goal. Our emotions also serve as social functions. They help us communicate feelings to others. This occurred all throughout the movie when there was a lot of arguing going on, but especially when Mickey confessed to his mother that he felt that he was being neglected in the presence of Dicky. After this break through, they had a better relationship throughout the movie. Emotions also influence how others interact with us. When the sisters constantly are angry with Charlene and call her a “skank,” they choose to physically fight one another. Emotions also create, maintain and dissolve relationships. Mickey was infatuated with Charlene and this is what created their relationship. Their relationship was maintained through the ups and downs of fighting and sharing their emotions with one another. Mickey was a sensation seeking individual in he engaged in a varied, complex experience despite the physical, social, legal and financial risks. Mickey engaged in fighting despite the physical beating he took to his body every time he fought. He also engaged despite the fact that his mother wasn’t speaking to him because of this decision. If he didn’t win fights, he wouldn’t earn money and wouldn’t have anything to live off of.
define self, creating self, self concept,self regulation, possible self, emotion, sensation seeking, social functions of emotion
The movie The Fighter contains some of the concepts from chapters 10-13. In the movie, Mickey Ward has to work to develop his self concept, which is a set of beliefs an individual uses to conceptualize his or her self, before he can become a successful boxer. Before his brother, Dickey, went to jail, Mickey didn’t really know who he was as a person or as a boxer. Dickey had always been the one training him and controlling which fights he gets into. Mickey did not have a self schema for going out and fighting on his own without his brother there. He was constantly told by his mother, “What are you gonna do without Dicky there?” Since he did not have a well developed self schema for this situation, he did not experience the benefits of a well developed self schema at first, which are processing information about the self with ease, quickly retrieving self related behavioral evidence from the domain, confidently predict his own future in the domain, and resist counter-schematic information about himself. He was unsure about how he would do without his brother, so he did not have a lot of confidence until he tried it and developed the self schema. The possible self is when self schemas generate motivation to move the present self towards a desired future self. Mickey wanted to become a great boxer, but at the beginning of the movie he was just a “stepping stone” for other boxers. This developed an extreme motivation to work hard so he could he reach his desired, possible self. At first, Mickey’s girlfriend Charlene is the only one who realizes how great Mickey could be and pushes him to reach his possible self. At one point in the movie, Mickey says that he is sick of being a disappointment. This shows even more how he was not happy with his current self, which motivated him to try to reach his possible self. Mickey experiences some cognitive dissonance when he receives an offer to train in Las Vegas and get paid for it year round. He feels loyalty towards his family so he is hesitant about accepting the offer, but he also wants to reach his goals and knows his family is holding him back.
Mickey’s mother and Dicky try to control his career by not letting him work with other trainers and deciding which fights he gets into. Mickey’s anger at Dickey and his mother for trying to control him motivates him to want to succeed even more. This is an example of emotion energizing and directing his behavior. At one point, Mickey says, “This is my fight, my shot at the title.” He even yells at Charlene and tells her that she is just like his family. The fact that Mickey becomes angry about everyone trying to control him shows that he has desired control, which is the extent to which individuals are motivated to establish control over the events in their lives. Once Mickey is able to work with everyone he wants to and in the way he wants to, he develops perceived control. Perceived control enhances performance, effort, concentration, and persistence in the face of difficulty. Mickey shows all of these qualities when he is fighting for the title. Almost everyone watching the fight believes that Mickey will lose, but it is because of his persistence in the face of difficulty and his effort that he is able to overcome his opponent and win.
Terms: self concept, self schema, possible self, cognitive dissonance, emotion, desired control, perceived control
The movie “The Fighter” shows a beautiful story of the main character Micky and his brother and his family. Besides the main plot which is boxing there are many other aspects that we can accord to our many discussions that we had in class. Personally, even though am not huge fan of boxing, I really enjoy the movie, the way how it was shown, the fight and the sport itself.
The movie shows some personal struggles, dealing with drugs ( Dicky), and how strong relations Micky has with his entire family. They all encourage him to keep going, when he had some moments that he wanted to give up. There are many intense moments in the movie, especially the involvement of Micky’s family in the whole process of becoming a champion.
According to our textbook, The Self and Its striving is clearly shown in the movie. The self-concept, what type of personality Micky has that let him keep going , trying to reach his goals even though so many barriers to do so, he is so determinate to win. Micky has a high level of autonomy; is self-determining, is able to resist social pressure to think and act in certain ways, regulates behavior from within, and evaluates self by personal standards. Also, we can say that he has positive relations with others, especially with his family who support him so much. While continuing watching the movie, we can observe Micky’s personal growth, we see his self growing and developing, he is open to new experiences, he has a sense of realizing his potential.
The movie is very emotional. We can see lots of anger, fear, sadness, struggling, shame, guilt, hope, but also many positive emotions such as joy, satisfaction, determination, high motivation level, pride love, friendship.
The movie shows that despite all the drama and chaos that is around Micky, at the end of the day he is a champion if he can step up and be one, inside and outside the ring.
Terms:
The Self, Self Concept, Self esteem, motivation, determination, emotions, autonomy, personal growth, positive emotions, negative emotions, hope, relatedness.
This movie is about Mickey Ward who is working on his career as a boxer. Mickey’s brother Dickey is his trainer and teaches him all he knows about boxing. Mickey is trying to be as good as his brother Mickey was a boxing. When Mickey aspires to be like his brother, he is working on his possible self which is when an individual observes the selves modeled by others. The individual sees the current self as his or her “present state” and sees the role model as a desired, future “ideal self.” Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Mickey is told he has an easy win and that his opponent is just out of prison and is just coming off the couch. Mickey experiences one of the six basic emotions when he finds out that his opponent is actually twenty pounds heavier than him and a good boxer. The basic emotion Mickey experiences is fear, which is an emotional reaction that arises from a person’s interpretation that the situation he faces is dangerous and a threat to his well-being. After Mickey’s loss, he experiences cognitive dissonance, which is when people’s beliefs about who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent and this can be an uncomfortable state to be in. To reduce his dissonance about the fact that he was supposed to have an easy win, Mickey hides from reality. He does not want to go out in public because he is very uncomfortable with his inconsistency of his present self, being a good fighter who should have won the boxing match. Also after Mickey loses this fight that was supposed to be an easy win for him, he constructs a domain-specific self-schema by looking back on this and reminds him that he lost an easy fight that should have been a victory. When Mickey loses, he is motivated to move from his present self to his future ideal self. Another scene in the movie when Mickey experiences one of the six basic emotions is when his brother Dickey gets in trouble with the police. In this scene Mickey is experiencing anger. The book describes that anger can arise from a betrayal of trust, being rebuffed, receiving unwarranted criticism, a lack of consideration from others, and cumulative annoyances. During this scene Dickey is caught by the police as he falsely portrays himself as a police officer catching men buy hookers off the street and taking their cars and money. Mickey comes to save his brother from being beaten by the police officers in the head and gets himself in trouble for fighting the officers back. When Mickey is released from jail, Dickey asks his brother to bail him out and Mickey reacts in a way that shows his anger and leaves his brother in jail without bail.
Dickey plays several different roles in this movie. He plays the role of his brother’s trainer or a boxer himself, a father, and an addict to drugs. Dickey acts very differently when he plays each of his roles. When Dickey is being a trainer or boxer, he is very dedicated and motivated to do the best he can but when he leaves the ring and turns into an addict he is a completely different person. As an addict Dickey is not being responsible or motivated. When being an addict compared to a father, Dickey is a completely different person. He loves his kid and acts in a different manor than when he is getting high on drugs.
Terms: Possible selves, present state, future ideal self, self-schemas, emotions, fear, cognitive dissonance, roles, and anger.
The Fighter was based on a true story about Mickey Ward and how he deals with his crazy family life and trying to keep a career in boxing. I feel that the movie had quite of few concepts from a lot of different chapters that could be applied here.
When watching the movie I feel that Mickey doesn’t have a lot of control over himself and his decisions and is the level headed one in his family because of his brother on drugs and his mom constantly down his throat about fights and his sisters seem all kind of stupid. For the self I feel that a lot of the six dimensions of psychological well-being, for instance autonomy because at the beginning his mom manages him and he is always waiting on his brother and always taking his advice, but towards the end he finds someone else the manage him and he eventually starts finding by his own rules and doesn’t want his brother’s help, which causes a very emotional scene. Personal growth, another one of the dimensions which I feel he is getting because one he is taking control of his life and he has Charlene by his side, which allows him to work on himself and learn to live for himself and not his crazy family. I think he strives for a possible self because he wants to see his daughter more often, but his ex is a total bitch towards him and tries at anything to make him look bad, but he strives to get a bigger apartment, so she can stay at this place. Also, I think to have a successful fighting career and he finally gets his attitude towards it in the right gear and when he has a possible chance to win a title, his ambition sky rockets and eventually wins the title at the end of the movie. I feel he has some dissonance-arousal situations because there is a point in the movie right after he just lost the first fight of the movie, he begins saying to his mother that he doesn’t think he wants to fight anymore, but his mother keeps digging and digging at him until he finally gives in and goes to do another fight.
Then, there were other concepts from older chapters that he follows the concepts for during the movie. For instance, negative reinforcement had a good influence on him for the fact that when his brother got taken out of the picture and was put into jail, he started training better and fighting the way he wanted. Also, positive reinforcement from when Charlene comes into his life and helps him make a turnaround in his life and shows him that his family’s influence isn’t very healthy. Then, punishment worked out for Dickey because when he had to finally go to jail, it had one forced him to become clean because he was going through severe withdraws in his jail cell. Even when they are watching the HBO special in jail, it had finally woke him up about his actions with drugs and that what he was doing wasn’t acceptable for him and his little boy back at home. Then, he even makes a huge revelation when he goes sees his old druggy buddies and just stops by dumps off the cake with them and walks away from them, showing he is getting his life back in order, so overall punishment had a lot of rewards for him.
Goals were also a big concept in the movie because he wants to have a successful job and fighting career, but also be better involved in his daughter’s life. He has a goal setting by him trying to make his life better and taking charge and going for a world title in boxing. He does have some goal difficulty when his brother is constantly in trouble and his mom telling him that he has a good chance to win a fight and then the fighter is bigger than him and he has no chance of winning. But when he finally gets in a roll of winning fights he gets great feedback that what he is now doing with his life is much better than the other way of his family managing him and his brother’s bad karma.
Overall in the end everything works out for the better for everyone and he finally has a good career in boxing and has a better relationship with his family and his girlfriend having a better relationship with his family too.
Terms: Six dimensions of psychological well-being, autonomy, personal growth, possible self, dissonance-arousal situations, negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement, punishment, goals, goal setting, goal difficulty.
This movie is about two brothers that both have a very similar dream, but in the beginning aren’t very similar in their personalities. Mickey being the more introverted and less outspoken brother while Dicky more of an extrovert and sensation seeking type. Mickey is training to get a boxing championship; his brother Dicky is his trainer. However, in the beginning there are a lot of discrepancies between the two brothers; Dicky reliving his glory days, and never one time with Mickey’s training due to his drug addiction. His whole life Mickey had lived under his brother’s successful shadow, trying to life up to his and their dream of being a championship boxer. Through some lost matches, Mickey’s self confidence, self-worth and self-concept have dropped off. A self-concept being a set of beliefs an individual uses to conceptualize his/herself.
Through the out the movie, we watch Mickey struggle with his possible self, the self-schema that generates motivation to move the present self toward the desired future self. His consistent self, is the self schema that directs the behavior to confirm the self-view and prevent episodes that generate feedback that might dis-confirm that self-view. This is where the trouble really starts for Mickey; his self-view is being threatened by his failures. He feels like a disappointment and even considers quieting boxing but his girlfriend and friends keep him in the game. He sees that his brother and mother have been a burden on him and holding him back, training with others he’s able to rebuild his self confidence. Mickey manages to overcome his cognitive dissonance, which is the state of tension that occurred when Mickey had two selves that were inconsistent. With his confidence improved and the issues that are brought to the service with his family are overcome, his emotional state improved as well. Emotions are a key factor in motivation, emotions are the one type of motive which energizes and directs behavior.
When it came to that end fight, the championship fight, Mickey showed his motivation, to get it. He showed that he had the perspective of control that he could win this. Perceived control is different in people’s performance experiences of possessing the needed capacity to produce a positive outcome. In perceived control, two concepts have to be reached in order for one to perceive to have control over the situation, 1.) self must be cable of obtaining the available desired outcome; 2.) The situation, in which one attempts to exercise control, needs to be at least somewhat predictable and responsive. Had Mickey not built up his confidence from starting in the low ranks, he wouldn’t have gotten to where he was. By the end match, not only did he have the self confidence in himself to win, but his family; brother and mother, his girlfriend and friends had confidence in him as well. He was finally stepping out of his brother’s shadow and finally looked at as himself, and making their dreams come true.
Terms: self-concept, self-worth, perceived control, consistent self, possible self, discrepancy, emotion, motivation, cognitive dissonance, self-view
Throughout this movie there is a troubling relationship between Mickey, Dickey, and their mother. When Mickey meets Charlene, she becomes his main motivator and is there providing encouragement.
Charlene is very persistent and wants to prove Mickey is more than a "stepping stone." Mickey forms a relationship to fulfill his need for intimacy with Charlene, who causes a rift in the relationship between Mickey and his family.
Mickey's brother Dickey has an addiction to crack cocaine which affected his boxing career. Dickey receives a dopamine release from the crack cocaine, and it makes it difficult for him to quit. Dickey is very autonomous throughout the movie, and is very selfish. Dickey promises to do things such as helping Mickey train and to be there for his matches, but he is caught up at the crack house to receive that release.
Dickey believes that the movie being made about him is due to his "comeback." However, he discovers that the movie is about his present self, which is the cocaine addict who threw away his career because of his addiction. This realization conflicts with Dickey's ideal self, which is that he was going to be fighting again and have a comeback in his boxing career.
Mickey experiences an extreme state of fear when he is told that he will be boxing someone who has 20 lbs. on him. He gets fed up with his mother and brother providing negative feedback, and eventually his father encourages him to go train with a guy named Sal. Mickey eventually receives a sense of mastery and achievement when he starts to enhance in his boxing career by winning the title fight in London.
Throughout this movie there was a strong emphasis on family, and the affiliation between Mickey and Dickey's boxing career with the family. Alice did not approve of Mickey being offered to train in Las Vegas. Alice wanted Mickey to stay affiliated with the family and train with his brother who proved to be unreliable.
Terms used: encouragement, persistence, intimacy, autonomy, dopamine release, addiction, present self, ideal self, fear, affiliation, mastery, achievement
One of the main characters in this movie is Mickey Ward. It is basically his process of trying to become a boxer with the help of his brother, mother, and other family members. Mickey constantly was living in the shadow of his brother with a desire to become a successful boxer. After Mickey loses a fight he was pretty much ensured to win he gets very discouraged. He experiences a discrepancy between his present state and ideal state. Because of that he starts to set goals for himself, something he was lacking prior to the fight. He sets these goals in hopes to view his possible self, which is a self-schema that generates motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. After this the movie is Mickey struggling to become the idea of his possible self.
After Mickey loses the fight he was supposed to win he gets really embarrassed. His family does not see him for a few weeks. The only person who sees him is Charlene. This is a good demonstration about his lack for a useful goal setting. Mickey only was doing what his family wanted him to do. When Charlene comes along she points this out to him and he starts to change. Also, he becomes happier because he starts to fulfill his need for relatedness and intimacy with Charlene. He gets a trainer and does things for himself and his career. Mickey starts to feel like he is making his goals more than having everyone else make goals for him. He becomes very good at this later in the movie. When Charlene and his family are fighting over him he tells them both to back down. He does not listen to either of them. He chooses to do things his way and continue to make his own goals. This in turn is giving him more of a sense of autonomy. He is lacking a lot of autonomy because he always does what everyone else wants. He never gets to decide what fight he fights or what he wants to do and how he wants to achieve his goal of being a successful boxer. Mickey started to choose not to listen to anyone who did not believe in him and only to the people who supported him and achieve his long-term goal.
Terms: Discrepancy, goal, possible self, relatedness, intimacy, autonomy, long-term goal
The Fighter is a movie about a boxer name Micky Ward. Micky was the younger brother of a Dicky Ward, also a boxer, who knocked out the all-time champion boxer Sugar Ray. Dicky stopped boxing because of his addiction to cocaine, but sill continued to “train” Micky. Micky was definitely living in the shadow of his brother’s fame.
Micky’s long-term goal was to make enough money boxing so that he could get a bigger apartment so that his daughter could live with him. Although this is a good goal, Micky did not set specific small-term goals to do it. He always said that he would just win the next one. Micky was often used as a stepping stone for the good boxers to move on so he goal became difficult to succeed. Another discrepancy in Micky’s goal was that he did not have a dedicated trainer. His brother was always late for their work-outs and would most always show up stoned. Once his brother went to jail and he got a new trainer, he started setting short term goals. His short term goals were to work out every day, to win matches against less-known people, to fight against well-known people, then to become a champion. Once these goals were set and talked about, Micky was able to make it happen.
Throughout the movie Micky was also trying to discover his “self”. From the day he was born, he was always living in his brother’s shadow. Everyone wanted Micky to win a big fight just like Dicky did. Micky did not have a very good self-concept because he could not live up to his brother’s successes in fighting. Micky would get incredibly embarrassed when he would lose a match and would instantly become an introvert. He would lock himself in his house and not talk to anyone. When Micky started dating Charlene, a bartender, she helped him to change his self-concept and his self-schema. He started viewing himself as a good individual and a good fighter… he no longer was just the brother of Dicky Ward. When Micky’s self-schema changed from negative to positive, it motivated him to fight in a whole different way. He was fighting for himself, not for anyone else. And in the end, it was enough motivation to make him win the championship.
Micky often times had a hard time at the beginnings of big fights. It often took him until round 7 or 8 before he would actually start to fight back. Just when everyone thought that he was going to be knocked out, he would start fighting back and usually would win. Micky’s motivation to fight back would come from his need to be in control of the fight. After 7 or 8 rounds of not being in control of the fight, it would frustrate Micky enough to be motivated to fight again…to fight for control and to fight to win. Micky’s need for control of the match was what also led him to become a champion.
Throughout the movie, it was easy to see that Micky had a great need for relatedness. His whole life, he did not feel like his mother had loved him as much as she loved Dicky, so he spent most of his life trying to show her he was just as good. When Micky got tired of trying, he found his need for relatedness in his girlfriend Charlene. Charlene eventually became everything to Micky because she gave him the love, support, and attention that he felt he never got from his family. This really upset his family because his family did not see that they were doing that to him. By the end of the movie, Micky’s need for relatedness was satisfied by both Charlene and his mother. His mother started to be supportive and kind and viewed Micky as an individual instead of a copy of his brother Dicky.
Terms Used: relatedness, goals, long-term goals, short-term goals, discrepancy, self-concept, self-schema, motivation, need for control, introvert
One of the main themes in this movie is the development of Mickey’s self throughout the story. Mickey had been living “in the shadows” of his older brother, Dicky, who had more success as a boxer. As a boxer himself, he hadn’t had the opportunity to experience any praise from his family, especially his mom.
Chapter 10 mainly discusses the self and the four problems with identifying the self: defining or creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. Once Mickey’s brother, Dicky is sent to jail on drug charges, Mickey is finally able to take a more active role in creating and defining his self because he doesn’t have to worry about his brother getting in the way. With his brother out of the way, Mickey also has the ability to relate the self to society, or make it more known who he is, what he does, basically what defines Mickey. In his training with O’Keefe, sans Dicky, Mickey is able to realize and discover his personal potential as a boxer. He had a consistent self that he wasn’t as important as Dicky, but more attention allowed him to realize his possible self of being more confident and important in other’s lives. His relationship with Charlene helps him better realize his possible self. She also was a key component in Mickey managing and regulating his self, giving him positive feedback and motivation to keep training hard and he will find a better life and be successful with his boxing career. Throughout the story, the audience sees the changes in Mickey’s self-concept. In the beginning of the movie, Mickey is hard on himself, critical, and looks for attention from his family. However, he doesn’t get attention because Dicky has had the more successful boxing career. However, as different events arise, Dicky’s arrest, Mickey’s personal training, and the development of his relationship with Charlene, Mickey is able to have a better mental representation of himself. His improved self-concept could be through of as a contributor to his ultimate success, boxing title.
Chapter 11 discusses the importance of emotions and their relation to factors such as motivation. Mickey had a lot of built up emotions from his past experiences with his family, especially his mom and Dicky. Living as less important than Dicky and the emotions elicited from this feeling motivated Mickey to train harder and work towards a more successful boxing career.
Chapter 12 focuses on aspects emotion, particularly the transference of appraisal and emotion. Dicky’s arrest provokes Mickey to evaluate his life and the influence Dicky had on Mickey’s life, specifically his boxing career. Mickey realizes how significant it is that he has the opportunity to be successful in spite of Dicky’s recent mess-up. This evaluation leads to motivation in Mickey and further to take action to train and work hard towards a more successful boxing career.
Key terms: personal potential, consistent self, possible self, self-concept, appraisal
The fighter is a movie that is based on a true story. The plot of the movie is basically about two brothers who are boxers. The oldest brother, Dicky, use to fight but then got caught up in drugs. His younger brother, Micky, is trying to make a life for himself and believes boxing is the way to go. There is a lot of turmoil and chaos in the movie but in the end, Micky goes on to be the world champion in boxing.
Because boxing is such a dangerous sport, I believe both Dicky and Micky are high in sensation seeking behaviors. Sensation seeking is a type of behavior that is related to both arousal and reactivity. For instance, Dicky prefers a continual supply of brain stimulation, whether this is drugs or fighting, and when he is not doing either of these things, he gets bored and seeks out ways to increase arousal. An example from Micky’s perspective is when he fights against the guy who is much bigger than him. Although there was motivation from his family to fight so they could get paid, I don’t believe he would have fought if he didn’t have a high need for sensation seeking. There are some draw backs from being motivated by sensation seeking behaviors. Often times these behaviors can lead people to engage in extremely risky behaviors, such as boxing, or even illegal behaviors. For example, when Dicky gets into a fight with the police officers, Micky goes outside the restaurant to help his brother. In turn, he ends up getting into a fight with the police and they break his hand.
One personality characteristic that is present in this movie in a lot of the characters is control. There are two different types of control. First, perceived control is defined as beliefs and expectations that a person has that he/she can change the environment so that desired outcomes will happen and undesired outcomes won’t happen. An example from the movie is when Dicky resorts to illegal activity so that he can get money so his brother won’t leave and go to Las Vegas to train with someone else. Because of Dicky’s need for perceived control he ends up getting arrested for pretending to be a police officer and assaulting three police officers. The second kind of control is desire for control. This refers to the amount of control one tries to establish over events that happen in their lives. One character in the movie that has this desire for control is Micky and Dicky’s mom Alice. She believes she is the only one who should manage Micky. When she finds out she is not the manager, she gets all of her daughters and they go to confront Micky about it. Another example of this relates to Micky. At the beginning of the movie he tends to listen to his family members and does what they tell him to. However, towards the end of the movie, Micky begins to exhibit a high-desire-for-control. This is evident when he talks to his father who sets him up with a new manager.
As with most movies, this movie has a few examples of affiliation and intimacy. At the beginning of the movie, Micky introduces himself to a female bartender names Charlene. The eventually become and items and exemplify the need for intimacy. Having a high need for intimacy causes a person to pay attention to warm, close and positive relationships with others. I feel like Micky has a high-need-for-affiliation with the people in his town. This refers to avoiding fear, disapproval and anxiety. Because he was losing so many fights at the beginning of the movie, he was not meeting his high-need-for-affiliation.
Another concept that was shown in this movie is appraisal. This is the idea that a person places an amount of significance on the different events in their life. After Mickey loses a lot of matches, he appraises boxing as not important and as embarrassing. When he finally gets a good supports group built around him, his appraisal of boxing is changed. An example from the movie is when Micky and Dicky are boxing together in the ring. After Micky knocks Dicky down, their mother rushes to Dicky’s side. Micky then expresses how important this event is to him and asks his mom if it can finally be about him. I think this shows the amount of importance he is placing on this event and therefore his appraisal of this fight is very significant.
Sensation Seeking, arousal, reactivity, motivation, control, perceived control, desire for control, affiliation, intimacy, appraisal
As I have mentioned on past movie posts, I really enjoyed this movie. Had I been watching it without the knowledge from this class I would have enjoyed it just as much but with the information from chapters 10-13, there is a bit more appreciation for the plot. Emotions run hot throughout the movie; there is a lot of anger, disgust, and sadness/distress, as well as a lot of joy. There are many, many scenes of anger, such as the one where Dick shows up at the gym and there is much heated arguing over how Micky will train for the title match. There are a lot of scenes of fighting, as described in the book, it’s the fight part of fight-or-flight and it only makes situations escalate as a passionate, illogical part of the anger emotion. There is one such instance where Dick and Micky get arrested and there’s a lot of anger there with the fighting and injustice of the police brutality against the pair. Emotions energize and direct behavior as motives in and of themselves and once Dick had started his escape from the cops and then his stand against them, it only fueled him more, and made him more angry and violent. Disgust is very well depicted, along with anger, when the sisters and Alice go over to Charlene’s house in an attempt to get rid of her in some way, which is exactly what the book defines disgust as. She is interpersonal contamination to Micky in their eyes and they seek to reject her at every opportunity. Sadness and distress is ultimately what I see motivating Dick to get clean. He sees his son on the documentary crying at his court appearance and he is also angry at the inmates for laughing. The combination of such intense emotions motivates him to alleviate such negative feelings. Up until that point, he hadn’t realized the adverse effect his drug use was having on his son and his family. His own distress at his actions was enough to get him to clean up his act. Joy is the last of the basic emotions I saw often through the film. When Micky wins that big title fight at the end, everyone is experiencing joy as being a part of something so positive. A desirable outcome the book says, Micky’s personal achievement, his success, and it indicates that all is well with his family then, they’re all sitting together and finally joined in wishing him well and celebrating his success. Joy increases social interaction and with the family and the others who helped Micky get there all being a part of that, it brought them all together and negates a lot of the previous hardships. All of these examples of emotion can be used as read-outs as well as motivators; they show things that are or are not “okay” with individuals or groups. They are all reactions to significant life events and some are biological but many depicted in the movie are cognitively based and are reactions to events based largely in the mind, “subjective appraisals of what the situation means”, as the book puts it so succinctly. The other major things I noticed were sensation seeking and arousal. With Dicky, his fighting, his drug use, almost everything he did was in search of the next increase of arousal. It caused him to struggle in many aspects to fuel his addiction but it gave him such a He struck me as being a sensation seeker where Micky was a lot less of that. Also, when the arousal of fighting and the emotions it caused for him was too high, Micky decided at one or two points that he didn’t want to do it anymore. Quitting was his way of decreasing his arousal and settling into a more satisfying medium level.
Terms: emotion, anger, disgust, sadness, joy, fight-or-flight, sensation seeking, arousal
Mickey went through a challenging stage in his life during this movie—the quest to find his personal self. On the journey to defining ourselves, one encounters four basic complications. They include self-concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation. Mickey goes through all of these steps during the movie. Self-concept is how one views themselves. At the beginning of the movie, Mickey struggles at constructing himself because he thought he needed Dickey in everything he did. The two of them had created an aspiration of Mickeys possible self, or future self, which comprised of Mickey being a great boxer. In reality his consistent self, as he was in everyday life, showed that he was not that great. This created a cognitive dissonance that motivated the two of them to work tremendously hard to create the boxer they strived for. Through this, Mickeys past experiences of fighting, or schemas, were all comprised with Dickey. Mickey generalized these experiences into the large idea that he needed Dickey when he was fighting. The second thing Mickey encountered was self-identity which is the concept of who we are within a society. As an identity, one holds a role in that situation that influences behaviors for that particular situation. Visibly, Mickey holds the role of a boxer throughout the movie. At the beginning of the movie, his role is challenged. He wasn’t able to win matches against other boxers giving him the motivation to restore his role as a boxer. In doing this, Mickey seeks out the action, or agency, to fulfill this. After his brother is incarcerated, he realized the negative impact Dickey has been attributing to his life and takes up an offer from another coach. Things are going well in this new state, and Mickey starts to monitor and evaluate the situation, or self-regulate. Mickey starts to realize that he needs Dickey around. Even after all the things they went through; Dickey will be beneficial to completing his goals in the future.
An emotion originates when an important life event occurs. As a motive, emotion is energizes and directs behavior. Mickey experiences anger, one of the six basic emotions, after watching Dickey’s show. Anger results from betray and trust of someone. Mickey’s was slowing growing every time Dickey stood him up at practice, and the poor life decisions Dickey was making. After watching the show, his anger erupts and motivates him to go back to the gym for the first time. Emotions also create a social function that Mickey experiences during the movie. These functions serve to balance our relationships in life. Mickey uses this to communicate his passionate feelings for Charlene as well as maintain his relationship with Dickey.
Mickey shows an ample amount of perceived control during his matches. Perceived control is the amount of control an individual believes they are able to exert over a situation to establish a desired outcome or prevent undesired outcomes. In Mickey’s matches, he believes that he will win which drives him to keep persisting through the hard times. He believed he controlled the ending result, which was him winning.When a person believes they have a lot of control over the situation, they try harder and persist longer than others. Their goals tend to be high. Mickey’s goals were nothing short of high when it came to competing against other people. He put in ample amounts of time practicing and exerting effort to reach his goals.
Self-concept, schemas, possible self, consistant self, cognitive dissonance, self-identity, role, agency, self-regualation, emotions, anger, social function, perceived control
Mickey is a great example for several terms that we have learned about in this semester. A more recent term that we discussed in class was that of sensation seeking. Mickey rates very high in sensation seeking like behaviors. This is evident in his love for fighting, getting the sensation from the adreline he feels while he fights. This is also evident in Mickey's risky behavior such as drug abuse. Mickey starts off the movie pretty heavy into drugs but as time goes on, we see Mickey getting meeting his sensation seeking skills by fighting instead of using drugs. I believe that Mickey experienced discrepancy in several ways throughout this movie. While Mickey was younger and real into drugs, his actual self did not match his possible self which caused cognitive dissonance. One Mickey meets Charlene and realizes that there is more to life than drugs, Mickey gets the motivation to move from his family and figure life out for himself. As he does, his self concept changees and he begins to realive that he does actually have control over what happens to him in his life, raising his perception of control.
Goal setting his also prevalent throughout this film. One reason Mickey is able to sort of exceed his family's expectations is because he set higher goals for himself than his other family members set for themselves.
Mickey expressed several social needs throughout this movie as well. Mickey had a high need for intimacy which is why he was so devoted to Charlene and he also had a high need for affiliation which motivated him to keep in touch with his family, mainly brother, and mend old problems.
As far as personality characteristics go, I believe that Mickey is an introvert, almost even a neurotic introvert. I say this because Mickey was quick to find the negative iin everything and he was also in a way, emotionally instable; being really happy when he was happy and really angry when he was angry.
terms used: discrepancy, cognitive dissonance, perceived control, intimacy, affiliaton, social needs, introvert, neurotic, possible self, actual self, goal setting, and sensation seeking
The fighter is a movie with many great detailed motivation and emotion concepts, especially covering chapters ten through thirteen. When we consider what the “self” actually is, means, and consists of, we are able to strongly identify how the two brothers, Micky and Dicky, differ in their self-concept. If we evaluate the idea of who we are, the relations toward society, as well as other defining characteristics encompassed by the definition of the self, these two brothers show definite opposites. In terms of self-acceptance, purpose of life, and purpose of growth, Micky places a greater value on what he views as his self, compared to his brother Dicky who is relatively low in each of these dimensions of psychological well-being. From the start of the movie there is an inevitable understanding of Micky’s self-concept, or mental depiction toward himself. Upon reflections through family ties, he continuously seeks the support and strength of his family to further pursue his boxing career. Though this proved to be difficult at times, he began to conform to the conscious decisions of his girlfriend to avoid the restraints that his family held him too, such as fighting someone in an upper division weight class. Micky incorporated his self-schema, which involved specific learned events, in making the decision on how to achieve success in his career as a professional boxer. He was able to evaluate his failures and attribute them to his family’s selfishness. Micky revealed himself as a determined fighter, somebody who refused to quit through difficulty. He exemplified a truly consistent self, not only in his persistence with boxing, but his family. Dicky was caught trying to evade his deviant drug abusing behavior from his family, and even still, Micky placed too high of a value on him to ignore the fact Dicky was too important a part of his own life, and his boxing profession. Micky and Dicky began to develop an identity within their community. Dicky was once seen as the ultimate fighting legend that knocked out Sugar Ray Lenard. Once his drug addiction became apparent to the community, he tarnished his identity society had once placed him in high standards. Ultimately, the effect on Micky was influenced by Dicky’s wrongful choices as well. He was being betrayed by a community for his brother’s actions. None the less, Micky had personal self-striving factors, ones within himself, that influenced his decisions to continuously work harder and harder each day to become the best he could be. With moments of conflict between his girlfriend and family fighting over what was best for him, it was his ultimate decision to engage in all the positive influences he sought to become the eventual welter weight champion. His dedication and continuous persistence shows he had a high self-regulatory mind set. He was carefully able to monitor his rewards opposed to his falters in self-growth. Upon reflection of his personal-self and the way his life was shifting, Micky was able to evaluate his past experiences and the social context of how his growth as a boxer was changing dramatically. During the progression of Micky’s fighting career, there was much emotion that was embraced within all surrounding members of the town. Negative emotions dwindled throughout his first few losses, and not until there was a mutual agreement between Micky and his family that what he needed to perform his best, they were able to experience a shift in emotional state toward a positive and enduring state. Fear and anger were among two of the most vital emotions experienced throughout the movie. Fear that Micky was being used and just a “stepping stone” for other fighters in an easy victory. As well as the anger between family and friends of Micky who shared obvious, but different beliefs in what was truly best for him in his development. Without being able to properly reveal his social functions, or the importance of communication and interaction, Micky may have failed. When Micky felt inner anxiety and the need to express his emotions and frustration, he was finally able to alter the mind set of his peers. Micky demonstrated this through both verbal and non-verbal communication. For example, when he yelled at his mother in the ring about how he needed his girlfriend and new management, or when he sparred with Dicky and punched him down as hard as he could to prove a point. There was a long lasting mood Micky had been experiences, something unlike the many emotional states he had experienced along the way. Micky was continuously in a dissonance that he was unable to balance, between social relationships that were failing to help him along his way, as well as his positive affect boxing gave him, especially as a winner. The secondary appraisal of those closest to him proved both beneficial and important in Micky’s own reflections of self. He was able to gain the trust of all those encouraging his boxing career in order to conform together as a unit which would stand together for his sole purpose. Unlike his brother, Dicky struggled to find the true meaning of life and what it was like to be a role model and supporting family member. Dicky, despite his drug addiction and lack of responsibility, did indeed show the emotion of happiness throughout the movie. Much of this was due to the dopamine experience and addiction from drugs that signaled his brain. Both Micky and Dicky showed signals of sensation seeking charismatics through boxing. For most individuals this sport would prove too arousing. Boxing was a way to prove self-worth, brought light into a new experience that was arousing for them, and fueled off the risk taking experience that getting beat up or knocked out involved. They showed astonishing biological facets that had driven these people to engage in such a highly arousing state that only few people would be able to manage. Dicky was the primary character that lacked control within his life. He was addicted, barely dedicated to his brothers training, and was unable to grip his life because of drug abuse. The problem with Dicky included his perceived control over the situation. The drug abuses made him think he was able to function and properly operate as he pleased, when the harsh reality was that it was taking over him. It wasn’t until he was locked up in prison and experienced the withdrawal symptoms; he was able to finally view the world through clear eyes again. He witnessed his own child crying on video, in jail, and changed his motive for life. He had a new found desire for control. Dicky changed his motivational behavior because of prison. With a clear mind set and ambition to provide for his child, he was able to set a high standard goal for himself, one he was likely to achieve. He gave up the drugs, made amends, and increased his self-esteem. He came to realize his true potential for life’s calling and succeeded in implementing his self-efficacy toward being a consultant in training his brother. This is where Dicky came to terms with his possible self. He realized the importance of family more so than the drugs that caused his life to develop in the destruction of those who loved him most. He was able to understand that he could benefit not only his son, his mother, and his sisters, but as well his brother in his goal achieving success as a world champion boxer.
Terms: self, self-concept, self-schema, consistent self, identity, personal striving, self-regulation, emotion, fear & anger, social functions, mood, secondary appraisal, sensation seeking, risk taking, perceived control, desire for control, self-esteem & self-efficacy, possible self.
The movie The Fighter is basically a story based around two brothers, Mickey and Dickey. Although there are many other characters in this movie, I think these two are the main characters and its their relationship that provides most of the plot.
Self concept is a huge issue within this film. Dickey's mental representation of himself is exaggerated. He thinks he is some great retired boxer. At the beginning of the film he is a crack addict and there is a film crew filming his life as a crack addict. Despite the fact that he is a crack addict, living in a slum and having little to nothing to do with his son, he thinks he is a fantastic guy and a local legend. His self schema is out of proportion. He thinks he is so great he doesn't realize his bad behavior and overconfidence is what is keeping his baby brother, Mickey, from achieving any great success with boxing. Near the end of the movie, he begins to realize who he really is. He cleans up in prison and there is also where he saw the documentary of himself as a crack addict. He seems to be generally disgusted with himself and when he finally gets out of prison he stays off of the crack and realizes that he wasn't that great of a boxer but Mickey could be. He finally has a self schema more fitting to who he really was. Mickey's mental representation of himself is underrated. He sees himself as the little brother living in the shadow of Dickey. He has a great deal of love and respect for him and really believes that he will become a great boxer if he listens to him. He lets other people push him around a bit because he is convinced his family knows what is best for him and just lets them call the shots. He does not have a good picture of his own abilities without his family.
Another concept is one of possible selves and cognitive dissonance. Throughout the movie you see the brothers struggle with who they are and who they want to be. Dickey, at the beginning of he film, thinks he is the crème de la crème . However, after prison and getting clean he realizes how much he has failed to be who he should be and it causes tension between him and Mickey as well as it seems to depress him when he realizes he has been wrong. Out of prison, he realizes he is seen as an arrogant jerk who neglects his child and brings everyone around him down. He realizes he needs to be a better person and even admits he was never the best boxer and wants to be there for his brother and help him do what he never got to do. Now that he can't be the best boxer and he will never get another match, he readjusts his possible self to someone who can be there for his family and be clean and happy. Mickey's possible self is a great boxer, its all he wants to be, its his passion. Every time he loses a match he gets more and more frustrated and irritated with his life. He can't seem to get ahead and he knows he is getting older and losing time. It was once he realized he had to lose the guidance of his family he begins to flourish.
This film is a good example of how people view themselves. Both brothers spend most of their lives living in a delusion; Dickey an amazing boxer and Mickey a baby brother. It shows how people can have diluted self concepts that can occur based on environment. Dickey's family let him have the exaggerated view of himself and allowed Mickey to stay at the bottom. I thought lessons on the self were best shown in this film.
Self Concept, Self Schema, Cognitive Dissonance and Possible Selves.
“The Fighter” was a movie about a man named Mickey who aspired to become a good boxer. Mickey was on a continuous losing streak. Mickey was trained by his brother Dickey, who was a well known boxer in the town. However, Dickey was addicted to crack and frequently showed up late to practices to train his brother. Mickey was managed by his mother, who liked to control all aspects of his life. Mickey received an opportunity to start training in Las Vegas, which sparked an interest in getting new management and training opportunities. Eventually, Dickey was sent to jail and Mickey began training with someone new, as well as being managed by someone other than his mother. The new opportunity earned Mickey a winning streak in his boxing career. After Dickey got out of jail, his family and new trainers came together and provide the needed support to help Mickey win a boxing title.
The movie captures the main concepts from chapter 10 regarding the self. In the movie Mickey had low self esteem after continually losing fights. According to chapter 10, the best way to increase another person’s motivation is to increase their self- esteem. Mickey’s self esteem was raised after he began to start training with a new crew which increased his confidence and allowed him to finally win fights. Training with a new crew improved his boxing skills, the new skills were responsible for were responsible for his success. Self esteem acted as a scoreboard to show Mickey how well things were going because increases in achievement produce increases in self esteem. Self concepts are individual’s mental representations of themselves. The self concept is developed from experiences and reflections of those experiences. Mickey had a poor self concept after continually losing boxing matches and began to think that he was meant to be a fighter. The development of a self concept relies on feedback. Mickey was receiving a lot of negative feedback after continually losing his fights. For example, there was a guy in the bar who made a comment to Mickey stating that he was going to lose his next fight. The negative feedback that Mickey was receiving from his environment created his negative self concept. Self schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. In regards to boxing, Mickey developed a domain specific schema by looking back on his previous experiences of losing. Mickey’s self schema changed once he started winning more boxing matches. Mickey’s self schema generated motivation to move his present self toward a desired possible self. Possible selves serve as attractive incentives to strive for. Possible selves are mental representations of attributes, characteristics, and abilities that the self does not yet possess. Eventually, Mickey’s motivation did move him toward his desired possible self of winning a title. Once an individual establishes a good self schema in a domain, they work to preserve it. After winning a few fights, Mickey continued to train hard and win fights to try and preserve his self schema.
According to the chapter, when beliefs about who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent, people experience a psychologically uncomfortable state know as cognitive dissonance. Dickey had a belief that he was still a great fighter and was his brother Mickey’s great trainer, who was going to train Mickey to become a professional fighter. However, Dickey was actually a drug addict who always was late to train his brother. Once Dickey was arrested and got to see the film about his crack addiction, he finally realized that his beliefs about himself didn’t match up to his behavior and he began to experience cognitive dissonance. When the dissonance is intense and uncomfortable enough, it serves as a motivator to decrease the uncomfortable feeling. Dickey began to realize in jail that he needed to turn his life around and began training in jail. When Dickey got out of jail he cut off his friends that used drugs and began a new and sober life, actually becoming a good trainer for his brother.
Personal strivings are what a person is trying to do. When personal strivings are no endorsed by the self, they generate conflict and pressure in the person. This conflict and pressure was clearly displayed in the movie when Mickey wanted to have someone besides his brother train him and he wanted to get a new manager. However, his mother wanted to remain his manager and his brother wanted to continue training him to become a better fighter. The more Mickey went against what he wanted, the more conflict and pressure it created for him. Mickey realized that he was getting older and didn’t have much time to become a professional boxer and eventually got a new manager and trainer.
Self regulation is another concept displayed in the movie. Self regulation involves mentally stepping back to monitor and evaluate how well things are going in your attempt to accomplish a goal. Self regulation involves forethought, action, and reflection. Mickey had to strategically plan out his plan for action before every fight, then actually take action by boxing, and after every fight he had to reflect about how his fight went and what improvements needed to be made. Self monitoring involves self observation in which an individual keeps track of the quality of their ongoing performance. Mickey was constantly monitoring his performance throughout the movie to understand what he needed to improve and what skills were working in terms of his boxing career. Gains in self regulation start by observing the behavior of an expert model. For Mickey his expert model was his brother Dickey and the videos that he watched of professional boxers.
Self esteem, self regulation, self monitoring, self concept, self schema, possible self, cognitive dissonance, personal striving, current self
The Fighter dealt with concepts from Chapters 10-13 and had a lot going on in the movie. As you met the main characters Dickey and Mickey it was easy to see that Mickey really had no sense of self. He had problems with self-concept, which is defining the self. He was used to his brother being the one who got all the attention for fighting and not him. In different parts of the movie Mickey had trouble standing up for himself or even sharing his own opinion. It wasn’t until Dickey went to jail that he really began to have a sense of identity, agency, and self-regulation. Identity is relating the self to society; this was shown by him actually interacting with people who were outside his family. He met Charlene, was asked by another man to come train with him in Vegas, and actually had someone training with him that was new to him. Agency is developing personal potential; this was show by Mickey not living in Dickey’s shadow. He trained hard and without his family his true potential was seen. Self-regulation is managing the self and I think Charlene really helped him do that. She helped him to stand up for himself and take more of a leadership role in his own life and decisions.
The four parts of emotion were seen throughout the movie from different characters. An emotion consists of feeling, arousal, purpose, and expressions. Feelings are subjective experiences and have a personal meaning. When the mother caught Dickey trying to escape the crack house she was very saddened and disgusted, that feeling was very personal for her because she did not want her son to be using. The mother was very angry when she found out that she would not be Mickey’s manager, she threw pots and pans a George, and it was very personal for her not to be overseeing a part of her son’s life. She also had an issue with control. Arousal is a biological activity, like a heart rate preparing the body for something. This can be seen by Mickey training for fights. He is preparing his body for the fights that are coming up. The purpose concept gives emotion a goal-directed focus or motivation. Mickey had a goal of wanting to become a great boxer on his own and not in the shadow of his brother. The facial expression component is a non verbal expression. This can be noted when Mickey was in his first match and lost horribly and was in a lot of pain, you could tell by his expression that he was in pain. When Charlene came over to meet the family for the first time you could tell by the sister’s expressions that they did not like Charlene.
The three aspects of emotion are biological, cognitive, and social-cultural. Emotions are what boost and direct bodily actions. This affects the automatic nervous system, endocrine system, brain circuits, processing information, and facial feedback. When either Dickey or Mickey were in the ring fighting or training I think all of these systems were impacted. In times of stress when they were fighting cortisol was probably released, they had the fight or flight response when against the ropes. Especially Mickey as he was shown against the ropes several times taking a beating and he would finally come out of it and fight. Their brains would have to process information when fighting as to which maneuver they were going to use against the opponent. In training Dickey taught Mickey to use the “head body head body” way of fighting his opponent. Lots of facial feedback was seen, if they had a hard hit you could see in their face it hurt or if they were angry you could tell by how the facial expressions were. In terms of the different types of emotion, when Mickey lost his match badly he was ashamed and didn’t look Charlene in the eye when he talked to her and you could see that he was embarrassed. When Charlene and Mickey were together you could see joy between the two and that they were happy. Many of the training staff were upset and disgusted with Dickey because he was always late or absent due to his crack addiction.
In terms of personality, it is clear to see that Dickey is an extrovert. He was pretty happy most of the time, probably because he was high, but he was highly sensitive to reward. For him reward came in praises for his previous defeat over Sugar Ray and probably all the crack he did, feeling of pleasure. Mickey was always in the shadow of his brother and because of that he was somewhat neurotic and did suffer emotionally because he was sort of forgotten about and not given a lot of praise or thought. It wasn’t until Dickey went to jail that things started to change emotionally for him. His reward became working hard and for that he would be a great boxer. Mickey and Dickey were both sensation seeking. Boxing can be a dangerous sport with intense sensations that takes physical risks in terms of head injury. Sensation seekers tend to seek out risky experiences and Dickey did so by engaging in drugs as well as boxing. It was clear to see that Mickey and Dickey’s mother liked to be in some control of her son’s lives. I think she had a weak and strong perceived control. She only half-heartedly engaged herself in Mickey’s boxing career, but in Dickey’s boxing career she had a higher perceived control. With Mickey she had more negative emotions because she became less a part of his career and she had anxiety and stress over it. Mickey’s desire for control went from low to high. I think it helped that Charlene motivated him to take control of his life and not let it be run by his mother or Dickey. In turn he made better decision for himself and wanted to control what happened to him and his boxing career. He put forth more effort when challenged, had high expectations for himself, and persisted in difficult times. He got over his broken hand, he got over his problems with his family, and he controlled his outcome.
ME Terms: Self-concept, identity, agency, self-regulation, feeling, arousal, purpose, expressions, aspects of emotion: biological, cognitive, and social-cultural, shame, joy, disgust, extravert, neurotic, sensation seeking, perceived control, and desired control.
The movie The Fighter shows a lot of the concepts from the Motivation and Emotion textbook. It’s all about Mickey Ward and his career as a fighter. Mickey and his brother Dicky were both fighters except Dicky got really into drugs because he had a negative self-concept about himself. Mickey looks up to his brother for the most part and envies him. Mickey would love to live the life Dicky did and be as good of a boxer as him, but then Dicky got involved with hardcore drug addiction.
One concept shown throughout the movie is goals. Mickey makes a lot of goals to become a professional boxer and eventually be able to beat his brother when he gets out of prison. He has a high need for achievement and makes sure he reaches his goals by practicing hard and trying to ignore all of the trouble his brother unintentionally puts him through.
Dicky has a problem differentiating between his present self and his ideal self. He feels as if he has reached his ideal self but in reality he is lowering himself and getting involved with drugs. This led to him being sent to prison and his family being very upset watching how he acts in public and on TV.
The movie also shows a lot of different personality characteristics. The most important one is control. Mickey doesn’t have much control over his own life in the beginning of the movie because he is more worried about living up to his brother and being as good of a fighter as his brother. He lives the most part of his life being in the shadows of Dicky and not really living for himself. Throughout the movie, Mickey learns how to gain his own control over his life and becomes extremely successful and eventually realizes he can be successful and achieve his goals of becoming an amazing boxer on his own without his brothers help.
Mickey also seems to have a high need for intimacy and close relationships. He introduces himself to Charlene at the beginning and she helps him through everything throughout the movie. Sometimes he feels as if she doesn’t mean much to him, but he realizes that she does in the end and she helps him become successful and not be let down by his brother and his bad mistakes.
Key Terms: goals, present self, ideal self, achievement, addiction, personality characteristics, control, intimacy, relationships
Micky was so connected to his family and so soft spoken that when it came to his brother’s plan of ‘a comeback’ he tended to follow in his steps. He was so introverted at times that he seemed content with his minimal attention from his family. In the beginning very one was so focused on Dicky’s up and coming ‘movie’ that they never really seemed to notice when Micky separated himself from them (or later in the movie when he was gone for three weeks). Micky really had to struggle with the discrepancies in his life (family fighting, brother addicted to drugs, daughter living with mother and can’t live with him) but in the end he was able to make is present state into his ideal state. One of the negative motivators that Micky had to deal with was the people in his life feeling disrespected when he had to cut them from his corner when it came to his boxing. There had never really been a competition between him and his brother, but being called and referred to a ‘stepping stone’ finally wasn’t enough. He became motivated enough to break away from his learned helplessness that he acquired after years of being a second stringer and having bad management. Dicky was never going to be able to make his comeback due in part to his addiction that took over his life resulting in him not being able to set general or realistic goals when it came to his boxing career.
Dicky’s view of himself in society was very overblown. He always identified himself as the town pride and joy when in reality he did nothing but make himself look like a fool. Mostly because he thought that just because no one ever said anything that nobody knew about his drug addiction. He was not able to self-regulate due to his drug addiction. Dicky’s only motivation to get clean while in jail was when he was finally able to see how his actions caused the people around him to suffer (seeing his son cry on TV).
Dicky and Micky’s mother had a strong need for power. She was able to impact situations by ‘putting people in their place’ (when she told her daughter she had no right to speak when she still owed her money). Her impact only seemed to extend to her children though. Her daughters followed her around and always had her back like baby ducks do to their mama at a pond. Alice, the mom, felt she had power in her house hold when she had control over her son by being his manager. By wanting to stay as his manager she was able to maintain her power. It was really hard for her to lose her influence when Micky decided that he was going to stay with his girlfriend and get a new manager.
Terms List: plan, introverted, content, attention, discrepancies, present state, ideal state, negative motivators, competition, motivated, learned helplessness, addiction, realistic goals, identified, self-regulate, power, impact, control, and influence.
The movie the fighter displays many of the concepts that we have discussed in class this semester. Between Dicky and Micky there are a lot of motivation concepts and emotion concepts as well.
Dicky has a serious gap between his ideal and actual self. We see this play out through the entire movie. The ideal self that he has had for his entire life is to be a champion boxer. I believe that on some level he knows that this will never happen, and because he knows that he will never be able to attain this notion of his ideal self he has turned to drugs. At some point in his life Dicky was very close to achieving congruence between the selves but at the time the movie depicts his chance has slipped away.
Goal setting is another major part of this movie. Micky and Dicky have both set the same goal at one point in their lives and that is to be the boxing champion of the world. We don’t know much about Dicky’s journey to achieve this goal but we get an intimate view of Micky’s. He has set a very specific goal and his goal has the other components that make up a good goal; it is difficult yet achievable and very specific. He knows exactly what he must do to make his goal become a reality. Through persistence, which is something that comes from proper motivation as we have learned throughout the semester, he is able to finally achieve his goal. The biggest problem in his career before he experienced success was that he did not accept the goal. I got the impression that he felt as if he was pursing this goal because it is what his family wanted to do. After he fought the man who outweighed him by 18 pounds he expresses a desire to give up and at one point in the movie, when his hand is broken, he does give up. However, we see him start training again out of his own free will. Nobody forced him to do it and to me this is the point in the movie where he accepts the goal of being world champion as a goal that he has set for himself, not the goal that his family and friends have set for him.
I don’t believe that it is fair to say that Micky has a high need for autonomy, but he does defiantly need some autonomy. When his mother and brother are managing and training him he has very little control over what is happening. We see this in his first fight when against his will he has to fight a much larger opponent and someone that he has not been training to fight. His mother and brother decided that he will fight because they want to make sure that they get paid. Once he has a say about who is in his corner he trains harder, fights better, and finally gets his shot at the belt.
An attribute that Micky is high in would be his need for intimacy and affiliation. He needs to be close with someone. In the beginning the person that he is closest with is Dicky. Once he meets Charlene he spends most of his time with her and refuses to let anyone disrespect her, including his family. It is very hard for him to tell his brother that he can no longer be in his corner. Once Micky’s mother knows that she can no longer be his manager their relationship suffers.
On a different note I believe that arousal has a large part to do with Micky’s early problems in the ring. We learned that arousal and performance share an inverted U shape. When his fights started he was so aroused and amped up that he was unable to produce at peak performance. After the fight had been going for awhile he had calmed down and started fighting as well as he was capable. In the beginning of the movie, when Micky is losing, he is always done relatively early in the fight. Once he is able to last past the first few rounds he in almost always successful.
Terms:autonomy arousal, performance, goal setting, specificity, ideal self, actual self, discrepancy
Throughout the movie The Fighter, I feel fighter Micky Ward goes through a problem with his self-identity. The movie begins with his drug addict brother, Dicky, who considers himself the town legend because of his past as a boxer. As the shadow, following in his brothers footsteps, I think it takes Micky awhile find himself.
Micky continually goes through periods of self-doubt and always has his brothers back, even when it’s not in his best interest. His family is the same way, always holding Dicky up as the shining light. Dicky’s addiction stalls Micky’s training and his mother’s high regard for only herself leaves Micky hanging; it delays his training and has him fighting fights he shouldn’t be in.
When Dicky gets caught on the run, Micky goes out to try and help him, leaving him injured and unable to fight. When he finally realizes his time is counting down, he finally decides to put his brother on the back burner and do himself for once. With the help of new management, a new girlfriend and a positive trainer, he builds his confidence and finds his sense of self.
After his first win, he realizes this is the fighter he wants to be and needs to do that without his brother. The motivation he experiences to become a better fighter is the path to becoming the ‘possible self’. He wants to be better than he was in the past and knows what he has to do to create that for his present state and future state. I feel that Micky experiences cognitive dissonance when his brother is released from prison and returns to the gym to help train, because though he’s promised to not work with Dicky and knows he’s bad news for him, he still resorts back to the instincts Dicky once taught him. He want Dicky to be in his corner, just because he is family he doesn’t want to turn his back on completely.
Micky gets dirty looks from the townspeople of Lowell after the HBO film airs, and it goes to show their assumptions of him after seeing what his brother is like. This may or may not give him the ammunition he needs to help him gain the skills for success. This negative outlook may produce something in him to make him more motivated to prove people wrong.
After Dicky makes everything better and reunites everyone back into Micky’s corner, it helps Micky truly develop his identity. He is courageous and respectable and finally gets a shot at the title – his main goal in becoming a fighter. This goal process created more motivation to stick together, to train in all the appropriate ways and helped everyone stay strong. The social relationships of the family, the girlfriend, the brothers... all parties included, were all stronger and more unified. I think all the characters dealt with a little self-regulation in order to accomplish their goal: Micky getting the title, Alice letting her pride down, Dicky staying clean, etc. Everyone finally understood their role in the process and things were more positive than they were in the beginning.
Terms: self-identity, self-doubt, confidence, sense of self, motivation, possible self, present state, future state, cognitive dissonance, assumptions, success, identity, social relationships, self-regulation, goal, role
It seems during Micky’s creation and development of the self, the internalization of his family’s value of boxing, especially his brother’s love of the sport, greatly impacted his discovery and development of his own boxing talents. This prompted him to spend a great amount of time on progressing his boxing skills and reaching for more feedback. Once he realized the feedback he was getting was positive, it prompted him to make boxing part of his self-concept which already seemed to include the importance of family in his life. It seems Micky’s self-schemas of being a good athlete and loyal family member, especially brother, directed his behavior in ways that produced feedback which confirmed those self-schemas and allowed him to experience self-confirmation. Micky appeared to run into some difficulty when trying to preserve his self-views as not only a boxer, but a loyal and appreciative family member as well. These roles were somewhat competitive with one another. In the beginning of the movie, his family doesn’t seem to be completely thoughtful and understanding of what needs to be done in order for him to better his boxing career, but because his role as a brother and son is so important to him, he doesn’t want to risk cutting ties with them by ending their roles as part of his boxing team. In his attempt to maintain his self-schemas, he discredited feedback which described any discrepancy within either of the two mentioned schemas. He questioned validity, judgment, and relevance of feedback, particularly in the beginning of the movie, and others who believed his brother was not a positive figure in his life. Eventually Micky’s self-concept certainty was not so high after struggling with his fights and arguing with his family. When potent feedback occurred, especially when his brother was imprisoned, his self-schema regarding a positive relationship with his brother weakened and seemed to prompt a self-schema change.
Later in the movie, it seems Micky attempts to reestablish his previous roles, and perform identity-restoring behaviors. His previous identity-inconsistent behaviors, like agreeing to not allow his brother to be part of his training, was confronted and changed. This seemed to recreate the identity (loyal brother) Micky previously perceived he entailed. He also attempted to restore his identity as a successful boxer by partaking in identity restoring behaviors (winning an international title).
(which he did. :D--- Loved this movie!)
Self, Internalization, feedback, self-concept self-schemas, self-confirmation, roles, discrepancy, potent feedback, self-concept certainty, identity-restoring behaviors, identity consistent behaviors
In The Fighter, Micky experiences a variety of control concepts and situations. Micky begins with a low sense of perceived control. He attributes anything he has accomplished to his brother, and doesn't have a strong sense of identity. In his first fight of the movie, what was predicted about the other fighter turned out to be untrue (he was not, in fact, out of shape, 'just off the couch'). Because of this and his low perceived control, his usual strategies and plans became more simple with fewer fallback strategies. His confidence was lost quickly when things started to turn bad, and is generally discouraged. All of this contributed to his performance suffering dramatically. All of these are attributes of a person with low perceived control. Micky also has a low desire for control. He allows his family to make the majority of his decisions when it comes to fighting. He seems dissatisfied with the situation, and deep down he wonders whether or not his family is actually helping or hindering him. He is offered to train with a different agent and discontinue letting his mother and brother manage his boxing career. He declines, hesitant to leave his family and make such a big change. Over time, he is convinced by his girlfriend to take the agent's offer. His girlfriend supports him individually rather than the familial support he receives from his mother and brother. She helps him to take the steps to go on his own, which raises his perceived control as well as his desire for control. He begins to make more choices for himself, rather than to make his family happy. He begins to exert more effort and become more focused, focusing on his plans and strategies when he fights. In a particularly tough fight, instead of losing his confidence and failing to have a fallback plan, he changes his strategy to one he learned from his brother and wins the fight. His ability to stay in a positive emotional state and monitor his own problem-solving strategy is very indicative of high perceived control. One side factor that does help with his higher perceived control is that his situations are somewhat more predictable than that first fight. Predictability and responsiveness are important in exercising control. His desire for control is noticeably increased when his brother visits him in the gym after being released from jail. Micky stands up to both his family and his girlfriend and his trainer, stating that he doesn't want to choose between them, he needs to have all of them to succeed. Instead of allowing himself to be pushed around or guilted into one decision or another, he voices his opinion. Even after his girlfriend and trainer leave, he doesn't allow his family to put his brother first. He assets that he will not stand this treatment, and generally shows his increased desire for control in his own life. In Micky's final fight, his perceived control is struggling. He is convinced by his brother that this is his fight and that he can do it. This motivates Micky to believe that he is capable of obtaining his available desired outcome, and that he can interact with his environment to achieve this outcome. He avoids high desire for control liability, and does not develop an illusion of control or develop performance inhibiting reactions. Instead, he optimizes his control beliefs and wins the fight, keeping his plans and strategies in mind with his high perceived control. Micky learns to find his own sense of control so that he can influence the outcomes in his life.
control, perceived control, low perceived control, high perceived control, strategies, desire for control, high desire for control, low desire for control, desired outcome, control beliefs.
The film The Fighter contains a wealth of material that can be related to concepts from our textbook. Much of Chapter 10 is ripe for being utilized to interpret the movie. Both Micky Ward and his brother Dickie Eklund have a great deal of difficulty with the self, and for nearly opposite reasons. Dickie achieved a deal deal of fame in their hometown early on his boxing career, and due to his personality characteristics, this notoriety ultimately lead to his downfall. Dickie is an affect-intense individual who is clearly a sensation seeker. It can be assumed that his desire for novel experiences was fulfilled by his rise as a promising young boxer, but at some point he got involved with the wrong crowd and began smoking crack, yet another novel experience. Athletics and illicit drugs typically do not go hand-in-hand, so his boxing career quickly began to suffer. However, Dickie still had his fight with Sugar Ray Leonard to hang his hat on. As his addiction worsened, he grew to be more and more in denial about his present self and continued defining his personhood as the “boxer who knocked down Sugar Ray.” Though unhealthy, embracing his status as a “has-been” allowed Dickie to assume a more positive self-concept and to relate to members of the larger community. The drawback is that it causes him to lose touch with the reality of his situation – he has completely immersed himself in the belief that he was a great fighter to avoid the cognitive dissonance that would come with acknowledging his actual situation. The lack of self-regulation induced by his crack addiction has severely reduced his desire to fulfill any personal potential he may have had.
When it comes to issues involving his family, Micky tends to border on neuroticism. Since he is fairly open and forward in pursuing Charlene I would not say that he is a complete introvert…but it would definitely seem that way when comparing him to his brother. As you would expect, these habits lead to unhappiness and a general stagnation in his career. Micky has trouble defining and creating a self within his sport because his family suffocates him. His brother hogs all the attention and provides inconsistent training and negative distractions. Because Micky cannot even light a candle to Dickie’s one meager accomplishment in the eyes of his mother, Micky descends into more neuroticism. This is demonstrated by his first date with Charlene – he goes to an obscure movie after a humiliating loss just because he did not want to be seen by his peers. Micky’s problem is not like that of Dickie – he has not developed a complex that keeps him from forming constructive self-schemas. Micky trains hard and makes all the right decisions – save one. He lets his family dictate his fights and training methods, thus interfering with his ability to achieve the goals for which he strives and bridge the gap between his present self and ideal self. In other words, for Micky it is not a lack of motivation that hinders his progress, it is an ability to make the tough decisions that would allow him to move forward. Charlene’s extroversion initially aids Micky in standing up to his family and gain some happiness and agency, and then once Dickie is sent to jail, he is able to get a taste of what it is like to achieve some of his potential without being impeded by his family. A fantastic analogy for Micky’s ability to break this cycle is provided by the music underlying the introduction to his final fight – “here I go again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever known”. Though Micky does not completely discard his family, he does find a way to compromise between their desires and other strategies that he knows can also prove effective in the ring.
Terms: self, affect-intense, sensation seeking, present self, ideal self, self-concept, cognitive dissonance, self-regulation, goal striving, neurotic, introvert, self-schema, goal setting, extrovert, agency, happiness
Micky is a hard-working boxer. He wants to become an even better boxer than he is currently in order to win a championship. He sets a goal for this future possible self—a champion fighter. Micky has a fragile self-concept. Though he has the competence to become his idea possible self, his role as Dicky’s little brother is well established in his family’s minds (especially his mother) and in his own. Micky looks up to his brother (even though he’s a crack addict) because he is his big brother and because he was a good fighter before the drugs. For a while Micky took the back stage to his brother, even though his brother wasn’t a fighter any more, perhaps feeling less important. This was one of his self-schemas around his family domain. He regulated this family domain self-schema for so long until Charlene was able to help him realize that he didn’t deserve to be treated the way his family did. This is the point where he decides he wants to change his identity from Dicky’s little brother, to plain “Micky”—the fighter.
Charlene also helps with another improvement in his Micky’s life. Charlene and Micky start to form a relationship. They meet each other’s intimacy need and give each other feelings of happiness. They have formed a great bond, which is apparent when Micky defends his girlfriend to his mother and sisters and tries protecting her from them. This was illustrated in the scene where Alice and the sisters go to Charlene’s house and Micky’s sisters attack Charlene. Everyone is angry at each other. Emotions are flaring.
The relationship between Micky and his mother is a very interesting one. She loves him, but until he gets mad and tells her he wants attention while he’s in the ring, she mostly focuses on Dicky—his drug problems add to her motherly fixation. She wants to be his manager and gets mad when he wants to go in another direction. She has a strong desire for control and gets anxious when she does not have that controlling roll in his life anymore.
Dicky is pretty messed up. He definitely has a high need for arousal and feels under-stimulated. He used to get stimulation from boxing, but after his peak in the sport, he began doing drugs and now relies on that to arouse him. He seeks sensation by taking risks in other areas of his life. He sets up a trap to be able to mug people when they stop to get some time with a woman on the street. He might have a low level of MAO, with relatively high levels of dopamine and relatively low levels of seratonin. Dicky has a very construed self-concept. He thinks he is still a great boxer and is about to have a comeback. His environment (mostly his family) does not help to correct this disillusion. His self-concept is not corrected until Micky has corrected his own.
Terms used from the chapters: self-concept, self-schema, role, self-regulation, possible self, happiness, identity, control, arousal, MAO
This movie had really good examples for the material presented in chapters 10-13. The Fighter is about former boxer Dicky Eklund and his 10 year younger half-brother Mickey Ward. Dicky believes the TV crews are filming his come back while in reality they are there to document his fall into drug addiction. Mickey is the family's last hope for a boxing world title but because he is managed by his mother and trained by his crack addicted brother, his career seems to be stalled. But when the really big fights start its Dicky's advice that helps Mickey become world champion.
Chapter 10 discusses our self-concept and its effect on motivation. Mickey developed a negative self-concept because he realized he was losing matches and his career was stalling. These are examples of feedback which we use to build our self-concepts. When the feedback we receive form our environment is negative, we develop a negative self-concept. Before Mickey met Charlene, he had developed a ‘consistent-self.’ This caused him to continue to act in ways that perpetuated his negative self-concept. He did this by continuing to rely on his mother and brother even though it was obvious that they did not have his best interest at heart. Once he met Charlene he started to receive positive feedback from her. This changed his self-concept and inspired him to set higher goals than before when he had a negative self-concept. His positive self-concept made him believe that he was good enough to be better than his current state.
In the movie, Mickey doesn’t want to take Charlene out on a date in his hometown because he felt like a loser and was embarrassed. This shows Mickey had low self-acceptance, or low positive evaluations of oneself. Self-acceptance is one of the six dimensions of psychological well-being. The other five are: positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental master, purpose in life and personal growth. However, once he raised his self-concept through more focused training, it seemed as though he had taken a step closer to self-acceptance and was happier for it.
Emotions and their relation to motivation is the focus of chapter 11 and there are many examples that relate back to this chapter in the movie The Fighter. While Dickie watches the documentary on himself he is obviously experiencing emotions of anger and shame. He is especially angry about the documentary because he thought it was about his come back. Anger is the most passionate of the basic emotions and it is also the most dangerous. Anger episodes can lead to expressions of aggression, like those seen when Mickey uses boxing to deal with his life events and family problems. He uses boxing to deal with these unpleasant emotions and displace the frustration he feels from them. But these negative emotions actually have a positive effect on him. The shame motivates him to get back into the gym for the first time since he broke his hand and quit fighting. The negative emotions he experiences due to the documentary make motivate him to change his behavior and move away from actions that bring him shame (drug use) and toward those that will bring him self-respect (working out).
The main topic discussed in chapter 13 is personality characteristics and their relation to motivation. There are three motivational principals related to personality characteristics. These are happiness, arousal, and control. Arousal is the one we see most prominently in this movie. One might argue that Mickey, as a boxer, and Dickie, as a former boxer and drug addict, are sensation seekers. A sensation seeker is a person who is always trying to find ways to increase their arousal level. These kind of individuals are willing to take part in risky behaviors. They will eat spicy foods, go parachuting, engage in illegal activities, many sexual experiences, and abuse drugs and alcohol. It is believed that sensation seekers are like this because they have lower levels of monoamine oxidase (MAO - enzyme is involved with the breakdown of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin) than others. They have high levels of the brain’s ‘feel good’ chemical dopamine, and low levels of the brains inhibition chemical serotonin.
personality characteristics, MAO, sensation seeker, emotions,self-concept, self acceptance,feedback consistiant self, six dimentions of psychological well being
From the start of the movie there is an inevitable understanding of Micky’s self-concept, or mental depiction about himself. Micky revealed himself as a determined fighter, somebody who refused to quit through difficulty. He exemplified a truly consistent self, not only in his persistence with boxing, but his family. By incorporating his self-schema (which involved specific learned events), he was able to make the decision on how to achieve success in his career as a professional boxer. He was able to evaluate his failures and attribute them to his family’s selfishness.
This movie displayed a wide variety of emotions. There is a lot of anger, disgust, and sadness, as well as joy. One of the scenes that showed anger is where Dick shows up at the gym and there is a heated argument over how Micky will train for the title match. When it comes to anger, it is for the emotion to allow a situation to escalate into an event that produces a fight-or-flight response. In one such example, Dicky is caught in a prostitution scam and decides to run (flight). When cornered, he begins to fight with the cops. Hearing the commotion, Micky runs to his brother’s rescue. The cops, already angered by the situation Dicky put them in, see Micky and assume that he is there to fight them. Thus, the shove against the car and break his hand. Disgust is very well depicted, along with anger, when the sisters and Alice go over to Charlene’s house to confront her in an attempt to get rid of her. Sadness and distress is what is motivating Dick to get clean. He sees his son on the documentary crying at his court appearance and he is also angry at the inmates for laughing. The combination of such intense emotions coupled with the cognitive dissonance he is feeling motivates Dicky to take action to change his current self-concept. Up until that point, he hadn’t realized the adverse effect his drug use was having on his son and his family. When he realized that his behavior was affecting his own family, it created cognitive dissonance or tension about his belief in protecting his family from harm. His own distress at his actions was enough to get him to clean up his act. The final basic emotion seen in the film is joy. When Micky wins the big title fight at the end, everyone is experiencing joy as being a part of something so positive. Joy increases social interaction. We see this in the scene following the big Title fight when the entire family gathers together to celebrate Micky’s success. All of these examples of emotion are not only motivators, they also served as communicators. By interpreting the expression of someone else’s emotions, the people within the film (along with the audience) where able to interpret whether things were okay or not okay.
The other major things I noticed were sensation seeking and arousal. Through drug use, fighting, along with other behaviors, it is quite apparent that Dicky was attempting to increase his level of arousal. It also made Dicky come across as a sensation seeker.
Terms: self-concept, consisten self, self-schema, emotion, anger, disgust, sadness, joy, fight-or-flight, cognitive dissonance, sensation seeking, arousal,
The Fighter is a movie about Mickey Ward and his boxing career. Throughout the movie, Mickey goes through the process of goal setting to achieve his long term goal of becoming a Champion Fighter. Long term goals are much harder to accomplish than short term goals. Because of this, he starts out by setting short term goals with goal specificity of winning his next scheduled fight. He strives to achieve this by training hard and specific for the challenger’s style. The first fight we see is supposed to be an easy win but with a last minute change in the fighter he loses the fight horribly and receives negative feedback. Feedback is a crucial part of achievement so as a result Mickey wants to give up on his goal. This causes him discrepancy with his present state and his possible self.
After he loses his fight, he begins to develop an intimate relationship with Charlene. With the help of Charlene he begins down the right track with a new training team and with every new fight he comes up against he accomplishes his short term goals and receives positive feedback. To keep his motivation up, he has to complete the process of goal striving. Goal Striving is the ability to keep working towards a goal especially when it is difficult. It is also important to have implementation intentions. This provides the specificity of the goal or the where when and why. For Mickey this was his training plan and his trainers that were around him. Mickey had to be at the gym at a certain time every day and go through his required work outs given to him by his team in order to be successful. When he had the support of the training team he was successful. Another big part is that was the why of his intentions, was that it made him happy and feel a sense of achievement.
He also satisfies his need for autonomy because he is succeeding without the help of his dysfunctional family which includes his brother who was also a fighter but failed due to drug use. Mickey has an exchange relationship with his family which is all business more than caring and support. When he meets Charlene he develops a communal relationship. A communal relationship is mutually caring for each other’s wellbeing. Throughout the movie Mickey experiences cognitive dissonance with the relationship with his brother and his career. He knows that his brother is constantly high and not reliable but tells himself that he needs him in order to be successful. In the end his brother becomes clean and is able to help him reach his full potential.
Goal, goal striving, goal specificity, positive and negative feedback, long term goal, short term goal, communal relationship, exchange relationship, discrepancy, possible self, present self, cognitive dissonance, intimacy , achievement, implementation intentions
The Fighter is a film about the life of professional boxer Micky Ward and his half-brother Dicky Eklund, whom was known as “The Pride of Lowell, Massachusetts” for his boxing, before becoming addicted to crack cocaine in the 1980’s. For my blog, I have decided to relate topics from chapters 10, 11, 12, and 13 to the character of Dicky Eklund.
Chapter 10 lays its focus upon the self and what it strives itself towards. To start, I will view Dicky’s self-concept of himself, that is, his mental representation of himself. Dicky views himself as a boxer on a comeback and does not let his drug addiction become a strong part of his identity, even though it is clear to others that it is. Since Dicky has created this sort of self-schema of himself as a successful boxer and, “The Pride of Lowell”, he acts in such a way as to preserve this view of himself, often times restating to others whom he is and that he is being filmed by HBO for his boxing comeback. Since Dicky’s self-schema of himself is so well established, he becomes more and more resistant to information contradicting his self-schema as the film progresses. Another aspect from chapter 10 that is relevant to Dicky is the concept of identity, how one relates their self-concept to society. When people’s actions are identity-confirming, social interactions tend to flow smoothly. However, since Dicky’s actions are not congruent to his identity, he often times has problems socially interacting with others. This can be seen with Dicky’s interactions with his family, when he is unable to recognize his drug use as becoming part of his own identity. It isn’t until we see Dicky in prison watching the movie on his own life that we see Dicky finally come to terms with his own drug use and integrate it into a part of his self-concept, which happens to have a profoundly negative impact on his own self-esteem as one might have guessed.
Another important aspect of the movie The Fighter can be seen within chapters 11 and 12, which both deal with the concept of emotion. It is believed that there are three aspects to emotion – biological, cognitive, and social-cultural aspects. These emotions are important because they allow us to adapt to many different situations by affecting the autonomic nervous system, the endocrine system, neural circuits within the brain, the rate of neural firing of these brain circuits, as well as facial feedback systems. Many emotions hold a biological aspect such as joy, fear, anger, disgust, distress, contempt, shame, guilt, and surprise. Many of these emotions are displayed by Dicky within many different parts of the movie. Surprise can be seen by Dicky when his mother shows up to the house where Dicky smokes crack-cocaine. Aside from surprise on Dicky’s face, he also has fear shown in his face within this scene, where he tries jumping out the back window in order to avoid a confrontation with his family. Anger is shown as an emotion to Dicky during the scene where his brother Micky tells him that he made a promise not to train with Dicky any longer. Dicky is angry at this and can be seen unleashing upon the lockers within the locker room of the gym his brother trains at. Dicky is also seen showing positive emotions such as joy when he is in prison and learns over the phone that his brother has stuck to Dicky’s strategy and won the fight because of it.
Chapter 13 deals with personality characteristics such as happiness, affect –intensity, risk-taking, and desire for control. It should be pretty obvious to many that Dicky is a high sensation-seeking and risk-taking individual (due to not only his drug habit, but also the sport he chooses to engage himself within), which may have a biological basis within his brain due to low levels of serotonin. Dicky may also be seen as an individual having low levels of perceived control. This is due to Dicky often times not being there for his brother due to his drug addiction as well as Dicky often times engaging in criminal acts for money that often times show to be unsuccessful in the end. When looking at the concept of happiness, one could make the argument that Dicky isn’t very happy due to high-levels of neuroticism and an inability to regulate his own emotions effectively. Happiness is seen to be associated with two different personality characteristics – extraversion and neuroticism. Since Dicky is often times seen as neurotic, he must have a strong behavioral inhibition system, which would make him highly responsive and sensitive to signals of punishment within the environment. Dicky is also seen as being a high-affect intense individual, often times going through emotional high’s and low’s throughout much of the film – at one moment being on top of the world, and the next being on the floor. This contrasts itself to affect stable individuals, such as Dicky’s brother Micky, whom often has a stable emotional pattern in day to day life as the film progresses.
In conclusion, the movie The Fighter is not only inspiring by the feats that Micky Ward is able to accomplish, but more so inspiring by the feats his half-brother Dicky Eklund is able to accomplish despite his misfortunes with crime and drug use.
Terms
Self-concept
Identity
Self-schema
Self-esteem
Emotions
Happiness
Affect-intensity
Sensation-seeking
Desire for Control
The Fighter is an academy-award winning movie based on a true story. The film revolves around two boxer brothers, Mickey and Dickey. Dickey is Mickey’s older brother, trainer, and major influence on his life. The story focuses on the brother’s relationship, Dickey’s troubled past, and Mickey’s rise back to the top of the boxing world. Throughout the story, the characters exude several tendencies that the book describes throughout chapters 10-13. I will highlight just a few.
It becomes apparent right from the beginning of the film that Dickey is troubled. Smoking constantly, waltzing around like he is drugged out of his mind, always running late, and jumping out a window are all signs that he is cuckoo. Dickey clearly has a distorted self-concept. A self-concept is a collection of self-schemas that are domain specific. Dickey has rooted strong self-schemas in himself that he is a hometown hero and legendary boxer. He is still consumed by his fantasizes about the peak of his career, when he knocked out legendary boxer Sugar-Ray Leonard. He consistently uses this as credibility, trying to maintain his “consistent self” as a hometown hero.
Self-schemas generate motivation in two different ways: maintaining your consistent self (like Dickey) or striving for a potential self (like Mickey). The movie details Mickey’s quest to be both a better boxer and a better person. His view of his future self is that of a champion; and he stops at nothing to reach that goal.
As the film progresses, Mickey engages in self-regulation. This process involves “the person’s metacognitive monitoring of how his or her goal-setting progress is going.” Mickey, with some guidance from his girlfriend, makes some difficult decisions to help him progress towards his ultimate goal of becoming a champion. The most prominent action of self-regulation is Mickey’s decision to disconnect professionally and personally from his family. With his brother in jail, and his mother being a control freak, his family ties were hindering and detrimental to his career.
Mickey consistently shows signs that he has a high desire for control. Individuals who show this need wish to establish and maintain control over the outcomes and events of their lives. When this control is perceived to be lost, they distress. For example, when Mickey finds out shortly before a fight that the opponent has changed, he becomes quite distressed. He had been preparing to fight a specific person, so when his opponent is different, he feels like he has lost control of the situation. Later, after he loses the fight, he becomes very down on himself and shelters himself in. He doesn’t call his girlfriend, because he is embarrassed about the fight. Depression is another common reaction of High-DC individuals.
As Dickey is released from jail and cleans up his act, Mickey goes on to win the title. This inspirational film has many examples of the importance of self-regulation and how a person’s destiny can be determined by having control over the Self.
TERMS: Self-concept, Self-schema, consistent self, potential self, self-regulation, control, perceived control, desire for control