Topical Blog due Tuesday 2/21 @ midnight

Good Will Hunting is a movie about an intellectually gifted, yet troubled young man who struggles to find his place in the world. Through the guidance of the people who care about him (including his best friend, lover, and therapist) he eventually comes to terms with his past, so he can use his talents to create a better life. This movie is a perfect example of psychological and social needs, because Will is an extraordinary man living in an ordinary environment, which demonstrates his deficits of these needs.

I chose to concentrate on the break up scene between Will and Skylar, because it demonstrated a lot of the material covered in the book, and it was quite moving. It begins with Skylar asking Will to come to California with her, and Will reacts with doubts about their future (“We might be in California next week, and you might find out something about me you don’t like”). Will says he can’t go to California because he has a life in Boston. Skylar takes it as Will’s way of saying he doesn’t love her, but Will denies this. So, Skylar asks him what he’s scarred of that’s keeping him from leaving his safe environment and taking a risk with her. Will responds angrily that she’s just using him for a fling, and there’s no future with him, because she’s rich and he’s poor. She tells him the money isn’t an issue, and she isn’t the one lying (referencing to Will’s brothers). This hits a nerve in Will, causing him to shout the truth about his childhood (being an orphan and past abuse), in which Skylar tries to reach out to him. However, Will brushes off her attempts and tries to leave. Skylar stops him and says she loves him and wants to help, but she’ll leave him alone if he doesn’t love her back. As she tries to kiss him, Will says he doesn’t love her and leaves. The scene ends with Skylar crying alone.

As in my previous movie review, I’ll examine their behaviors step by step from the scene (rather than the order or terms presented in the book) and expand on them using class material. First, Skylar asks Will to come to California with her, which would be a major step in their relationship. This demonstrates a need for intimacy, because she has developed a caring relationship with Will and wants to increase his willingness to exchange with her. Yet, Will reacts with doubt, so he is not trying to satisfy an intimacy need, but rather avoiding it. A major reinforcer for Will’s behavior comes from a previous experience of being abandoned (orphan) and not being accepted (abuse in orphanages). These previous experiences were aversive punishments, because they decreased Will’s behavior to attach to others by presenting negative things when he did so in the past, which provided him an incentive to not go with Skylar to California (or get too attached to her) to prevent another negative experience. Will’s behavior is also consistent with the trends of individuals who experienced aversive punishment in the past (negative emotion and trouble forming relationships).

Since Skylar’s need for intimacy was not met, she reacts with fear and anger towards Will. She takes a shot at his competence by accusing him of being afraid of leaving his safe haven to take a risk, and that she is scared as well but has better competence, because she is willing to try. Will has achievement and competence issues coming from unsatisfied needs. For instance, he doesn’t have to compete with people at his level, and avoids entrepreneurship, which creates a non-nurturing environment for achievement. Also, he doesn’t seek out a career that would optimally challenge him (creating flow) and has poor failure tolerance, which creates a non-nurturing environment for competence.
This upsets Will, so he says that she isn’t hurt, because she was just using him for a fling (she had an extrinsic motivation to be with him by using him to satisfy her needs), and she belongs in a rich world without him. This was an accusation that Skylar was satisfying a power need (using Will), and she is not hurt in an intimate way (which would make him feel less sympathetic since he was being used). Skylar denies this by saying she is rich from her dad’s death, and the money isn’t as important to her as a relationship (she has an intrinsic motivation to be with him). This line demonstrates the opposition power has with intimacy, because intimacy involves self-sacrifice, which Skylar is willing do for Will. Furthermore, it also demonstrated how power can be increased by sacrificing intimacy. Skylar then retorts that she did nothing wrong, and Will is the one lying to her.

Earlier, Will said he had twelve brothers and three lived with him. However, his friend accidently revealed later that Will lived in a one-room home, exposing Will’s lie to Skylar. When she brings this up, Will reacts by angrily telling her the truth; he was an orphan and he was abused. This reveals an explanation of his issues with intimacy and competence to Skylar, who continues to try to satisfy her intimacy need with Will by telling him she wants to help him. However, Will sees this as a violation of his autonomy. A lot of people (an M.I.T. professor, a therapist, and now his girlfriend) are starting to interfere in his life to get him to do stuff he doesn’t want to do, because they think it would be best for him. However, autonomy is the one thing Will has, because he lives according to his own standards, in spite of the numerous opportunities possible for him, so he is used to a very autonomy-supportive environment. But his perceived choice starts to become less flexible, creating an autonomy-controlling environment, which Will resists (as people tend to do).

In an attempt to regain his autonomy, Will tries to leave but is cornered by Skylar, who is still trying to establish intimacy with him. She recognizes his need for autonomy and says she will leave him alone if he doesn’t love her. This allows Will to regain some autonomy by giving him a choice in the matter (as well as his freedom if he says he doesn’t love her) and is accepting of a negative response. Although Will is allowed some autonomy, his avoidant behavior with intimacy and competence is still powerful, which leads him to tell Skylar he doesn’t love her and leave. Although we later learn Will had a need for intimacy for Skylar, this scene leads us to believe he saw their relationship as more of an affiliation need (relationship with another without the emotional exchange). Skylar reacts to her failed attempt at intimacy by breaking down emotionally.
Overall, this scene demonstrates Will’s needs in conflict with Skylar’s needs. Will has a need for autonomy but has issues with intimacy and competence, which leads him to misinterpret Skylar’s needs for intimacy with needs for power. Furthermore, Will is like an implicit theorist in that he gives little effort, because he doesn’t think it will lead to improvements and doesn’t want to risk his competence. This is shown in his break up with Skylar, as well as little need for power and achievements. I was happy to see that Will ends up working through his issues, and realizes he can have autonomy and intimacy with Skylar if he is willing to test his competence at the end.

Overall, the movie was better than I remembered when I watched it a decade ago. Also, it did a better job demonstrating the material (as well as more material) from the book than Cast Away. I enjoy movies in which the charter has an internal social or psychological struggle, because they relate to issues in the audiences’ lives, but provide a much more interesting plot than real life.

Terms: Psychological needs, social needs, intimacy, avoidance behavior, reinforcer, aversive punishment, competence, achievement, need satisfaction, competition, entrepreneurship, optimal challenge, flow, failure tolerance, nurturing environment, autonomy, autonomy-supportive, autonomy-controlling, perceived choice, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, power, affiliation, implicit theorist, effort

The very first thing I noticed about this movie is that Will solved the first problem because of his intrinsic motivation. There was nothing externally motivating him. He didn’t tell anyone he did it and even left his friends at the bar to go and solve it. He did it because it felt good and he felt the need to finish and solve it. He didn’t show up the next day to receive a prize or take credit for answering. Once he was caught, he left the scene right away. He didn’t want to take credit for the success he had done.
On the same note, there were are few scenes that he was extrinsically motivated and showed a high social need for affiliation. There was the scene where after the bar and he got into it with the guy that went to MIT about the girl. After they left the bar and he got her number, he walked by the guy and showed him the girls number that he got. He wanted some sort of acceptance from his friends and had to show them he was “cool” and could hurt this guy by showing him the number he got, and using the reference to apples like “how do you like them apples?” this could also fit into his psychological need for relatedness. He has a need for social interaction and the need to belong.
Because of his tendency to avoid failure, he has never really gone to school. He learns through reading and teaching himself. In his meeting with the admissions counselor or dean, he puts him down and says things that no one else would ever say to someone in that position. Its like he wants to be told no, that way he won’t have to possibly fail.
I also noticed earlier in the film that his need for intimacy was somewhat low. He told her how he doesn’t really date, but yet wanted to kiss her. Robin Williams character even calls him out on this specific thing while sitting on a bench in the park/ He tells him that he may ask him about love and he can recite a sonnet, but cant tell him what it feels like to wake up to the woman he loves more than he loves himself. He says he may have had sex with a few girls and could tell him who is favorites are, but has no idea what it means to really believe in love. This is a good example and very true about the way Will really feels. I love the scene where Robin William’s calls him out! Nails everything right on the head.
The next time they are in their therapy session, he talks about his date he went on last week and he talks about how perfect she is, but he isn’t going to call her. His reasoning for not being sure if he is going to call her is because then he will realize that she isn’t perfect and he doesn’t want to ruin the idea and image he has of her now. This again is a wonderful example of his avoidance of failure and his low need for intimacy. At the same time, Robin Williams is showing these same needs, he doesn’t want to get remarried, probably for the avoidance of being hurt again, and cant see himself with anyone else ever again, because of his low need for intimacy. Yet, a few sessions later, he talks about how and when he knew that is wife was the one, and he told the story about how he missed a baseball game, but he has not a single regret. His need for intimacy used to be extremely high, now, not so much.
I also think that Will’s (girlfriend) in the film had some intrinsic motivation too. Will was answering a lot of her questions and solving things she had for homework, and she could have just left it at that, but she insisted that she wanted to learn it. She had a high need for competence.
This is a great movie for many examples from these previous chapters. I enjoyed watching it again. I rented it from Family Videos.

First off - I love this movie! One of my absolute favorites, so I thoroughly enjoyed watching this for class. It surprised me how much of our M&E material I could apply to this movie. Watching it in this sense made me realize why Will Hunting had the behaviors he did. I liked being able to put terminology to it.

One of the very first things we see in the movie is an MIT advanced mathematics class taking place. The professor states that there is a problem in the hall and the person who could solve it would be privileged to do research with him. We see a young man, Will Hunting, as a janitor cleaning the hallways when he stumbles upon this board. The first time walking by he examines the problem and then walks away. A few minutes later we see him solving the math problem. This demonstrated several things to me. He is obviously very intrinsically motivated to solve the problem. This is when a person engages interest and exercises their capacities to seek out and master optimal challenges. Will was doing this for the fun of it. This could also be seen as competence, the need to interact effectively with the environment and exercise skills to seek out challenges. Will wanted to improve his personal development by giving the math problem a shot. Whether it was actually challenging or in fact, very easy, he was completing it to prove to himself that he could do it. I also found it interesting that he chose to be a janitor at MIT - one of the most prestigious schools for advanced mathematics and more. Will could have been a janitor anywhere, especially somewhere closer to home so he wouldn't have to pay so much to commute everyday. This is still another example of why he was intrinsically motivated. It wasn't because of any extrinsic motivators because that involves incentives and consequences from the activity. Will wasn't trying to do it to receive anything from anybody. It was purely a personal goal.

Another really moving part of the movie is the multiple therapy sessions Will has with Sean. The first few sessions were very rough. Sean tries to simply have a conversation about anything and Will constantly tries to change the subject. Of course this is the 5th therapist that Will has seen now because he makes a mockery of their practice and doesn't believe it would actually help him. Back to Sean and Will - the next few times are harder to sit through. Will is stubborn and doesn't say a single word throughout the entire time. Sean just sat there waiting for Will to talk, he couldn't be the first to say something, it needed to be Will. Props to Sean for his patience, that takes a special person. Finally, Will breaks the silence with a joke and from there it sparks conversation and the beginnings of trust between Sean and Will. Again, a couple psychological needs are seen. These show how an organism initiate interactions with the environment and adapts/changes/grows with it. When Will is constantly avoiding questions and sitting there in silence I think it is a form of autonomy. The need to experience self direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of a behavior. It was his choice and control. Sean knew this and waited for him to make the decision about talking and really getting down to business. It could also be that Will was extrinsically motivated to talk because he knew this had to get reported back to the judge. Will didn't want to go back to jail for the fight. Maybe once he realized that Sean was a no bulls!$# type of person he better try harder to avoid a bad report.

The last point that I wanted to touch on was Will's relationships with several different people throughout the movie. I feel like this is one of the biggest parts that can go in several directions. First, the relationship Will has with his friends. I would rate Will high on relatedness with his friends/brothers because of what he would do for them and vice versa. Relatedness is the need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people (warm, caring relationships). I think to some degree he forms communal relationships with the 3 main friends we see, especially Chuckie. Will fights for Chuckie (physically), they work together with the construction company, they are spending all their free time together at the bars at night, Chuckie picks up Will every morning and brings him coffee,they tell each other the truth on things. That is part of a communal relationship where you take on other people's beliefs, values, and perspectives in conjunction with your own. On the other hand, there is Will's relationship with Skylar. Skylar is a senior at Harvard University and meets Will at at bar on that side of Boston. He ends up getting her number and they start dating. You really start to see that Will cares about her and possibly loves her but won't admit it to anyone for fear of rejection, hurt, and failure. Will constantly has his guard up - for example, he doesn't tell Chuckie when he goes to see her and he won't introduce Skylar to his 12 (foster) brothers. This definitely represents the social need of affiliation and intimacy. Affiliation is the need to establish, maintain, and restore relationship with others mostly to escape negative emotions, such as loneliness. It was very obvious that Will was doing this with Skylar. He was so afraid that she might leave him because that was all anyone had done in his life. He thought that he could only rely on himself so he never allowed anyone to get close to him. He also lacks intimacy. He wants it but again fears that it will only hurt him in the end. Intimacy is a social motive for engaging in warm, close, positive relationships producing positive emotions and holds little threat of rejection. When he is with Skylar is barely lets himself go to completely experience this need. In his eyes he sees their relationship as perfect just the way it is and he doesn't want to learn more about her or himself because it might ruin what is there now. It is not safe to do so. It is also why Will couldn't say "I love you" to Skylar in the break-up scene.

I think Will learned a lot from Sean, Professor Lambeau, and Chuckie. They were all pushing him to become something better than a janitor or construction worker. He had such a gift but didn't want to publicize it for fear of failing in the eyes of his friends, girlfriends, mentors, or colleagues. I think Chuckie is really the one who opens Will's eyes. Chuckie tells Will, "you owe it to me, because I will still be here in 20 years....but you're too much of a pussy to cash in a winning lottery ticket." Will's brain is his winning lottery ticket out of Boston for a better life. This really raises Will's achievement rating. All the sudden he has the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence whether that means he fails or succeeds. So he takes the big leap and heads to California (we assume to be with Skylar) and to do something great with his genius mind. Achievement becomes greater than fear and he makes the decision to leave town "to see about a girl."

TERMS: intrinsic motivation, competence, extrinsic motivation, psychological needs, autonomy, relatedness, communal relationship, affiliation, social need, intimacy, achievement

The film Good Will Hunting reflected the material we learned from class and the text, especially the psychological needs, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as social needs. The character Will, demonstrates many avoidant and deficient behaviors that developed from negative past experiences, like being and orphan and being abused. Throughout the movie, with the help of Sean, Skyler, and Chuckie, he receives guidance and positive reinforcement, which will let him pursue the future meant for him. Since Will demonstrates a lot of these features, I will spend most of this assessment discussing evidence of each.
First I will discuss Will’s problematic childhood so we can further understand his present behavior. During the movie, it comes out that Will was an orphan and suffered from child abuse. His caretakers were using ineffective punishment strategy, like physical abuse. Given that, Will developed side effects such as negative emotionality, impaired relationship skills, and negative modeling. His negative emotions are mainly displayed by fear, anxiety, and aggression towards interpersonal relationships. His impaired relationship skills are made clear with his relationship with Skyler and Sean. And the negative modeling is portrayed through his violence and several assault cases.
The opening scene of the movie, where Will writes mathematical equations on the chalk board, introduces his intrinsic motivation. This brilliant mind would rather work construction and custodial work than go through with his interest for math. It also shows that Will does not perceive money as an external motivator, or incentive. This is also apparent later in the film when Professor Lambeau sets up meetings with prestigious companies and Will turns them down. This situation is also an example of hidden costs of rewards. Since Prof. Lambeau imposes himself onto Will’s life and makes him pursue this talent, the extrinsic factor of money or prestige undermines his enjoyment in his talent, and example of unintended primary effect.
Since Will had a troubled childhood and extreme cases of disattachment, he developed an avoidant or deficient social need of affiliation or intimacy. Affiliation is rooted in the fear of interpersonal reject, so instead of searching for relationships, he avoids them and pushes people away who get too intimately close. Will has a disoriented view of affiliation and intimacy. He was never able to experience the approval, acceptance, and security in interpersonal relationships. For example, in the scene where Skyler invites Will to come to California they get into a fight and break up. Skyler was trying to satisfy her need for intimacy by taking their relationship a step further, but Will could not believe that it’s what she truly wanted, and that she’ll discover things about him and dump him. He tells her the truth about his childhood and even though she says it’s okay because she loves him, Will cannot believe her and leaves. Will was avoiding his need for intimacy. The therapist in the movie, Sean, tries to develop trust with Will in order to teach him to let others in and that it’s okay. For example, the scene where Sean is speaking to Will about his past and repeats that it’s not his fault is a way of Sean trying to break that defense Will put up. All these years Will has been repressing his feelings and avoiding intimacy and he believed what happened to him during childhood was his fault. Sean makes him see that it’s really not, and implies Will is better than that. In a way, the therapist opened the doors for Will in order to start developing the affiliation and intimacy skills he needs. At the end, it worked and Will let out his emotions. This is an example of the fear and anxiety people manifest and seek others to comfort those negative emotions. Sean was able to get Will to let out those feelings, and in return Will was able to turn to Sean for comfort, turning into the desire to affiliate with people for emotional support.
Even though Will had a lack of affiliation and intimacy, he still had high relatedness with his group of friends. Will was able to develop communal relationships with these people because they all suffered together in the past and have been the only people loyal to him. What Will was missing with other social groups, like a relationship with a girl and even a family, he gained through this group of friends, especially his best friend Chuckie. Chuckie and Will have a tight social bond. It was clear that he cares about Will’s well-being. For instance, after the break up with Skyler, the two of them are working construction and taking a break. Chuckie tells Will that he hopes every day that when he picks him up from work that he would be gone, because he knows Will deserves a better life than working construction the rest of his life. And later, Chuckie gives Will his own car so he can make the decision to leave and pursue a better future with his geniusness.
Another character who I thought was interesting and clearly showed some of his own psychological and social motivational problems was Professor Lambeau. This character displayed a high social need for power, a high need for achievement, and high competence with a fear of failure. First, he demonstrated his need for power by his leadership, aggressiveness, his occupation, as well as his prestigious possessions, like his medal he won. The Professor has underlying needs for dominance, reputation, and status. He tries to control Will’s future and present behavior by using his status to his benefit. Professor feels threatened by Will’s knowledge because before he came along, the professor thought he was the dominant mind. He also feels threatened because Will doesn’t display a high social status or prestige as the professor worked hard for. The professor displayed his fear of failure when he was arguing with the therapist about Will when he basically said there is no room for failure. His fear of failure is making him escape from feeling challenged by Will. He also has a tendency to avoid failure in order to preserve his self-esteem, social respect from his colleagues, and to avoid embarrassment that someone is actually smarter than him. In reality, professor Lambeau fails to see that failure leads to success. Nonetheless, this character has a high need for competence and clearly enjoys the challenge of his profession. This need is supported by positive feedback. Sean reminds Lambeau that he wasn’t as intelligent as he is now, which is an example of the comparison from past performance to present performance which is a source of positive feedback. Lambeau also compares his performance with his other colleagues and perceives himself as better than the others. The professor expresses his need for high achievement through performance achievement goals. The professor desperately needs to be better than others and makes it seem easy to succeed. It seems he transformed to a person who enjoyed doing mathematics intrinsically, until rewards came into play externally motivating him to outperform others as if it were a competition. He made the transformation of following mastery goals to performance goals over the years as he tried to climb to social status latter. In the scene where Sean and Lambeau are in the bar and Lambeau asks the bartender if he ever heard of three people, he lists a couple well known people and then says his own name, to which to bartender says he’s never heard of. Lambeau was trying to make the point that he isn’t well-known as much as he’d like to be.

TERMS: psychological needs, social needs, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, positive reinforcement, punishment, modeling, interpersonal relationships, incentive, hidden costs of rewards, unintended primary effect, avoidant, deficient, affiliation, intimacy, relatedness, communal relationships, power, achievement, tendency to avoid failure, competence, performance goals, positive feedback, competition, mastery goals

Good Will Hunting was a very good movie that had many motivational concepts in it. The movie is about a kid named Will who is an orphan and also a mathematical genius. He grew up and lives in South Boston and he works at MIT. The whole movie is about people trying to get Will to use his gift and do something with his life. There was a lot of psychological and motivational concepts that were easily seen in the movie.

The first thing I am going to talk about is intrinsic motivation. There were a lot of scenes that portrayed intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the propensity to engage one's own interests and to seek out and master challenges. We seen this pretty early in the movie when Will solved the very hard math problem on the board in the hallway. He could of walked by it and not do anything about it but he did. So he went home and solved it on his mirror and came back to the school and solved it on the board. He didn't have to solve it but he did because it was a challenge and he had a psychological need to solve it.

Extrinsic motivation could be seen in the movie also. Extrinsic motivation involves things like environmental incentives to do something and could be things like money or praise. Throughout the whole movie you could tell that Will was not very extrinsically motivated. At any point he could go work somewhere and make a lot of money. But instead he worked as a janitor and didn't care about money or other incentives. On the other hand, Professor Lambeau seemed to be extrinsically motivated about a lot of things. He earned a field medal and he seemed to adore the fact that he got one and didn't care about doing much good with his knowledge. He always seemed to be trying to manipulate Will into doing what he wanted. He also used extrinsic motivation to try and get people to solve the difficult theory problem. He talked about things like praise and recognition to get people to try and solve the problem instead of having people do it for the fun of it.

Autonomy was a very important concept in the movie. Will didn't have an idea of what he wanted to do but he wasn't going to do something just because everyone else wanted him to do it. Sean was trying to get Will to go in whatever direction that Will wanted to go in instead of telling him what to do. He wanted Will to initiate himself into something. He would always tell him that nothing was off limits and he could do anything with his skillset. Professor Lambeau was trying to regulate Will's self-direction and trying to tell him what to do.

Competence is maybe the easiest concept to see in the movie. Many of the people in the movie were very smart. From Will to Professor Lambeau to Sean and to Skyler, most of the characters were very smart. Most of the movie revolved around MIT and Harvard. One scene that showed competence very well was when Skyler was trying to study and Will wanted to take her out but she said that she needed to do the work and she wanted to learn. What Skyler was trying to do was master some challenges and try to learn for herself instead of having Will do her work for her. Relatedness can be seen very well in this movie too. Relatedness is the need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people. Will and Skyler exemplify this very well. They both were displaying relatedness but Will had a very hard time dealing them getting very close because he was worried about abandonment. Sean and Will also developed a very close relationship throughout the movie.

Finally, I could see achievement in the movie. Achievement is the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence. There was one scene where Will solved a problem while another person in the room couldn't. The guy was very embarassed and one of Lambeau's associates consulted him and said something like he was a very intelligent man to him. The guy felt very ashamed because he wasn't able to achieve the answer that he wanted. Will didn't think much about the achievement but the guy felt really bad because he couldn't do it.

Terms: Psychological Needs, Competence, Achievement, Relatedness, Autonomy, Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Standard of Excellence, Needs

This movie is an excellent example of the chapters 5 through 7. I have never even heard of this movie before but I was really impressed with the way intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, our psychological needs and our social needs were all portrayed in this movie.

Right off the bat, I noticed at the beginning of the movie how Will had an intrinsic motivation for mathematics. Intrinsic motivation is to engage in one's interests and to exercise one's capacities and in doing so, to seek out optimal challenges. Clearly, Will was finishing these math problems because he had an interest in them and they came easily to him. I think he enjoyed doing them but didn't want praise or any attention from completing these hard math problems. By him doing so, that shows that he was intrinsically motivated whenever he finished a problem. In intrinsic motivation, you also have a psychological need when you nurture and support this certain area, which can lead to a sense of satisfaction when people engage in interesting activities.

Will was a very lucky guy. He encountered many benefits from his autonomy support. His autonomy supporters, were his friends, therapist and his mentor. Autonomy support, is a style of motivating that teachers, parents, therapists and doctors use. I also believe, that Will looked up to his friend Chuckie and he gave Will some good advice at the end of the movie that really helped Will, so I included Chuckie as a autonomy supporter as well. Autonomy support enhances development and each one of Will's supporters wanted him to development into a better person. Leaving his past in the past and moving forward. Will's mentor saw something in Will that nobody else ever saw him in. He saw how brilliant Will was at math and that he had a gift. He wanted to help Will use his talent. Sean, the therapist saw a good in Will as well. He helped Will become a better man and helped him follow his heart and really find what he enjoyed in life.

Friends played a huge role in this movie. Will had a need for relatedness. Relatedness is a need to establish emotional bonds with others. He needed his close bond with his friends because those are the only people that have been there for him his whole life. He couldn't reply on anyone growing up because they all treated him wrong.

I also believe Will had a social need for affiliation. Affiliation is establishing, maintaining, and restoring relationships with another person. Throughout the movie this is a social need that Will had struggled with but we saw that Will had overcome this need by the end of the movie. We noticed that when people started getting close to Will he would pull back and put his guard up. For example, when Will broke up with Skylar. Ultimately, I believe he broke up with her because he was scared he could actually love her, and again she was going to move to California. He might of them felt a sense of abandonment (which he has felt his whole life). By the end of the movie we saw the whole affiliation cycle of establishing a friendship or bond, maintaining that relationship and restoring that very same relationship. Will developed and grew a lot throughout this movie so I think it's a great movie to show for the chapters we discussed in lecture and the readings we did for class.

Terms: intrinsic motivation, psychological needs, social needs, autonomy support, relatedness, affiliation

I have always enjoyed the movie Good Will Hunting and found it even more interesting to watch now after some psychology courses because it made even more sense. Will Hunting is a good example of someone who does not use their full potential to benefit their well-being and self-purpose. Chapter 5-7 discuss psychological and social needs that are apparent throughout the entire movie. Will seems to be extrinsically motivated but in a negative way. His external environment gives him reason to act out violently by instigating fights, drinking alcohol, and disrespecting the people around him. When Will is given the chance to bypass jail time to work on math problems and see a therapist, it is clear that he is stubborn and doesn’t take the opportunity seriously. The first therapist that meets with Will tells him that the “pressure is destroying your potential.” The pressure he is talking about is coming from Will’s environment, thus causing him to respond negatively. Will Hunting’s need for autonomy is high in the sense that he is self-motivated to solve the mathematical equations without the need for his environments approval. He juggles two jobs as a construction worker and a janitor and lives the life of a low-class citizen, yet he hides his genius talent from his environment. This relates to the class because it shows that Will doesn’t need to be reinforced to solve math problems, he is self-motivated to. This means that his need for competence is low because he doesn’t wish to engage or interact with his environment to be motivated. He didn’t seek out the challenge to solve those two equations in order for his environment to notice, he simply did them for his own well-being. Relatedness was visible a lot during the movie. Will seems to relate to Sean mainly because he is the first therapist that can actually get through to them. During their first session, you can tell that Will starts to open up after he sees Sean’s military photo and book collection. The two seem to share similar characteristics such as an abusive past and high level of intelligence so they can easily relate to one another. Because of this strong need for relatedness, Will actually listens to what Sean has to say instead of shutting his outside environment out like he had been doing his whole life. During a meeting in a park, Sean lays into Will for being an arrogant child and tells him that his knowledge only consists of facts and no real emotions or experiences. He tells Will that he doesn’t know what real loss is because he has never loved anyone more than he loves himself which shows his level of self-direction. I liked when Sean compared the situation to Oliver Twist. Will and Oliver are both orphans, but just because Sean read the book Oliver Twist doesn’t mean that he truly knows Will Hunting. Throughout the movie is becomes apparent that the two men somewhat counsel each other. Will can read Sean just and well as Sean can read Will, so they seem to help each other along the way. For social needs, Will doesn’t seem to has a high need to achievement. He is a janitor at a prestigious university and yet has the intelligence to be a student there. Achievement goes along with impressing yourself and others and that wasn’t something that Will seemed to strive for. Along with this, his need for affiliation was also low, because until the end of the movie, he wasn’t worried about pleasing anyone not even himself. The need for intimacy comes up a lot when Will is at his therapy sessions with Sean. Sean shares a lot of information with Will about his widowed wife and how in love with her she was and I think that helped Will take a chance with Skyler and increase his level of intimacy.

Overall, I believe that any movie shows principles related to motivation and emotion because the purpose of a movie is to portray real life and in real life motivation guides our every behavior. Will Hunting improved his self-perception and well-being by the end of the film by allowing himself to increase his need for relatedness and trust his environment. I think the movie did an amazing job of showing us that intelligence is not just bought with tuition and that no matter what school (if any school at all) and no matter the background or past experiences, people can still succeed and be knowledgeable.

Terms: extrinsic motivation, autonomy, competence, relatedness, achievement, affiliation, intimacy, motivation, emotion, psychological needs, social needs, self-motivated, self-directed

This was my first time watching the film Good Will Hunting; I was very surprised about the way in which the film progressed. Will is a very intelligent man who struggles to obtain and develop positive relationships with others. This movie is perfect when reflecting on the psychological and social needs and how we react with our environment. In his environment there are numerous punishers and reinforcements which ay times do not work in his favor. Throughout the film Will illustrates to us the perfect example of someone who struggles to fulfill their needs and then shows that when these needs are developed we are able to strive in our environment and life.

Initially at the start of the movie I believe that Will is extrinsic motivated. He holds a job due to the environment and social context which he lives, without money he would be unable to support his habits of drinking and smoking. While the overall way motivation I sense from will is due to social context and environmental incentives. The first scene of Will working as a janitor in the college and he proceeds to examine the math theorem I find that he is intrinsically motivated. He takes interest in the problem on the board because he seeks an optimal challenge. He also finds a vast interest in reading a lot of material, this is illustrated through his home environment and his knowledge expressed throughout the movie. His knowledge shows how he is able to self-motivate and he finds and internal reward of achieving this amount of knowledge. During the first math theorem scene Will shows the amount of competence he has. The psychological need of competence is not really recognized by him though, while he desires his ability to complete this problem he struggles with fulfilling other needs. Another display of Will’s competence is when the professor gives him problems and Will expresses to him that they are too easy. He is able to complete these tasks but still desires more optimal challenges to feel as if he is succeeding in his need of competence.

Initially when I saw the court scene I realized that for Will previous run-ins with the law and the effect of being punished was very minimal. The fighting and trouble with the law which is occurring in Will’s life is support for the Person-Environment dialectic, where the environment acts on the individual and he has to react, this relationship goes back and forth between the environment and the individual. There was no punisher present because the probability of the future behavior did not decrease. This current case of fighting was now punished but due to Professor Gerald Lambeau’s interest in Will’s exceptional intelligence his punishment is therapy and working with the professor. Will and Sean were introduced due to this arrangement; I would like to discuss the relationship between Sean (Robin Williams) and Will (Matt Damon). At the beginning of the relationship Will and Sean struggle to be on a level of therapist and patient. Will does not want go to a therapist but he has no autonomy in this situation, I believe this is why Will struggles to open up at first. But Sean does a wonderful job of giving Will the choice to being discussing his life, fulfilling the psychological need of autonomy. Sean, the therapist, has a very autonomy-supportive style where he is able to listen to Will and give him the choice to participate in the session. Due to the positive support from Sean the relationship between Will and he is beneficial, Will engages in conversation and the plus side of this is Will is able to develop and reach his full potential in intelligence.

Both Sean and Professor Gerald Lambeau support Will’s competence. The difference between Sean and the professor is the way in which they attempt to structure Will’s environment and future. The professor desires that Will become fully involved in a job which will challenge his ability, but Sean struggles with professor doing this because Will still doesn’t fulfill his social and psychological needs. The relationship between Skyler and Will struggles to develop because Will does not want to fully develop the affiliation and intimacy needs. Skyler struggles with the relationship because Will does not have mutual development of the relationship due to the lack of intimacy during his childhood. For Will he would be evidence against what the book says, he doesn’t show fear of being isolated because he has always been separated and abused. The relationship between Skyler and Will is considered a communal relationship because they both care about each other’s well-being and want to support each other. I feel that the relationship between the professor and Will is more of an exchange relationships because he somewhat uses Will for his ability to solve theorems. For Will and Sean the relationship starts as more of an exchange relationship but then turns into a communal relationship because they talk with each other and their difficult lives.

Will and Sean were able to discuss the difficulty of abuse and lack of intimacy Will had to go through while an orphan. It was brought to our attention that the abuse and mistreatment Will went though was internalized, he believed that this abuse was his fault and I believe this was one of the main reasons why he could not fulfill his needs. Once Sean got through to Will that the abuse and mistreatment was not his fault Will was able to leave his familiar environment and pursue Skyler. This shows that Will is going to attempt and fulfill the need to intimacy. The ending when Will gave Sean the note about going to see a girl was my favorite part, it shows that he is able to finally see that the achievement he gets through math is not the only need he should fulfill. The importance of developing positive relationships for Will is something he has not had for most of his life.

Terms: Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, optimal challenge, autonomy, affiliation and intimacy, achievement, competence, relatedness, communal and exchange relationships, person-environment dialectic, social needs, psychological needs, structure, motivation, social context.

In the beginning of the movie, the professor informed his students that anyone who could complete the math problem that took some of the greatest mathematicians 2 years to figure out, they would go on to fame and fortune, and their work would be published. These three factors display examples of incentives, positive reinforcement and extrinsic motivators. Even when some of the most prestigious students couldn’t figure out the problem, Will completed it without a degree of any sort and didn’t care for these tremendous incentives. This avoidance behavior can be explained through external regulation of motivation. Although the outcome seemed desirable, Will was afraid of the consequences. In this case he thought consequences would be sitting behind a desk all day doing elementary math. Despite the fact that many people spent years earning a degree in mathematics, spending over $100,000 on their education to get where Will was without any training; he saw the incentives as a punishment rather than a reward. Will didn’t think it was necessary to spend money on college when he could acquire the same knowledge at the library. However, he was intrinsically motivated to continue to learn, although he had no intention to earn a degree, or get a job with higher pay. It wasn’t until the professor gave him an ultimatum that extrinsic motivators started to play a role in his life, such as privileges. Overall he stayed intrinsically motivates because he wasn’t concerned with the external influences. Along with this, he had no need for competition because he knew he was smarter than nearly everyone he worked with at Harvard. Introjected regulation nearly summarizes Will’s behavior throughout the movie. He was self-endorsing other people’s demands and motivated through guilt. The only reason he was going to therapy and working with the professor, was because it was a better option than jail.

When considering Will’s psychological needs, social support and intellectual stimulation were the two prominent needs displayed. Clearly, with his difficult past it was hard for him to trust anyone other than his 3 friends. Even when he started hanging out with Skylar, he was submissive and dishonest, but he continued to hang out with her because of his social needs. Will portrayed the ultimate autonomous behavior. He made all of his decisions on his own, and didn’t care what anyone else had to say. Although the professor meant well, he was pressuring Will to become a mathematician, whereas his therapist promoted an autonomy-supportive atmosphere.

Surprisingly, the book says everyone wants and strives to be competent, yet Will had the upmost competence but didn’t want to utilize it. This can partially be explained by failure tolerance. Will didn’t doubt his competence, but he was afraid of failure. As he stated in his interview with NSA, even with the most desirable job in the world, he would feel like he was failing his neighbors. People that work hard for their money and get punished because of a formula he gave the government to bomb a certain village, which in turn would affect possibly thousands of people he never met. Will also displayed the tendency to avoid failure when he broke up with Skylar. He even told his therapist that he didn’t want to call her because at that point she was perfect and he didn’t want to ruin that. What he didn’t mention was that he was afraid she would find something wrong with him. Once he realized that his childhood experiences weren’t his fault and he deserved to have a better life, he revealed a tendency to approach success when he took the initiative to apply for a job or drive to California to apologize to Skylar.

Terms: incentive, positive reinforcers, extrinsic motivators, punishment, reward, intrinsically motivated, extrinsic motivators, privileges, competition, introjected regulation, autonomy, psychological needs, social needs, intellectual stimulation, autonomy-supportive, competence, failure tolerance, tendency to avoid failure, tendency to approach success.

In the beginning of the movie, the professor informed his students that anyone who could complete the math problem that took some of the greatest mathematicians 2 years to figure out, they would go on to fame and fortune, and their work would be published. These three factors display examples of incentives, positive reinforcement and extrinsic motivators. Even when some of the most prestigious students couldn’t figure out the problem, Will completed it without a degree of any sort and didn’t care for these tremendous incentives. This avoidance behavior can be explained through external regulation of motivation. Although the outcome seemed desirable, Will was afraid of the consequences. In this case he thought consequences would be sitting behind a desk all day doing elementary math. Despite the fact that many people spent years earning a degree in mathematics, spending over $100,000 on their education to get where Will was without any training; he saw the incentives as a punishment rather than a reward. Will didn’t think it was necessary to spend money on college when he could acquire the same knowledge at the library. However, he was intrinsically motivated to continue to learn, although he had no intention to earn a degree, or get a job with higher pay. It wasn’t until the professor gave him an ultimatum that extrinsic motivators started to play a role in his life, such as privileges. Overall he stayed intrinsically motivates because he wasn’t concerned with the external influences. Along with this, he had no need for competition because he knew he was smarter than nearly everyone he worked with at Harvard. Introjected regulation nearly summarizes Will’s behavior throughout the movie. He was self-endorsing other people’s demands and motivated through guilt. The only reason he was going to therapy and working with the professor, was because it was a better option than jail.

When considering Will’s psychological needs, social support and intellectual stimulation were the two prominent needs displayed. Clearly, with his difficult past it was hard for him to trust anyone other than his 3 friends. Even when he started hanging out with Skylar, he was submissive and dishonest, but he continued to hang out with her because of his social needs. Will portrayed the ultimate autonomous behavior. He made all of his decisions on his own, and didn’t care what anyone else had to say. Although the professor meant well, he was pressuring Will to become a mathematician, whereas his therapist promoted an autonomy-supportive atmosphere.

Surprisingly, the book says everyone wants and strives to be competent, yet Will had the upmost competence but didn’t want to utilize it. This can partially be explained by failure tolerance. Will didn’t doubt his competence, but he was afraid of failure. As he stated in his interview with NSA, even with the most desirable job in the world, he would feel like he was failing his neighbors. People that work hard for their money and get punished because of a formula he gave the government to bomb a certain village, which in turn would affect possibly thousands of people he never met. Will also displayed the tendency to avoid failure when he broke up with Skylar. He even told his therapist that he didn’t want to call her because at that point she was perfect and he didn’t want to ruin that. What he didn’t mention was that he was afraid she would find something wrong with him. Once he realized that his childhood experiences weren’t his fault and he deserved to have a better life, he revealed a tendency to approach success when he took the initiative to apply for a job or drive to California to apologize to Skylar.

Terms: incentive, positive reinforcers, extrinsic motivators, punishment, reward, intrinsically motivated, extrinsic motivators, privileges, competition, introjected regulation, autonomy, psychological needs, social needs, intellectual stimulation, autonomy-supportive, competence, failure tolerance, tendency to avoid failure, tendency to approach success.

In the movie, the main character, Will, is an orphaned young man with much potential but quite a past that keeps him from reaching it fully. While watching the movie I found that each of the characters that were shown more often had very strong needs that were represented. The math professor had a very strong social need for achievement as well as a higher need for power. In a few scenes these were very obvious. There is one particular scene that shows his need of achievement and mastery. Will is in his office and shows him a proof that he has solved. The professor questions it and does not quite want to believe that he could be wrong and that Will is correct (and better/ more competent) in mathematics than he is. He even says to Will that it is hard for him to sleep at night knowing that there is someone like him (Will) out in the world, and that is wasting his potential.

As I have stated, there was also a need for competence. Being a professor at MIT and winning awards for his math he believes that he is the most capable of this and he knows what would be right. The math professor also, in my opinion showed a higher need for power. In some of the later scenes in the movie when he is discussing what Will should do with his life, with Sean, the counselor, he seems as thought he is trying to exert power over the situation. He believes that all Will needs is direction and he does not have much choice around that. The professor makes sure of this by setting up interviews for Will, keeping him involved in solving the proofs, and constantly interfering with his counseling sessions.

Will thought he knew what he wanted out of life and for his future, but it wasn’t until talking with Sean that he figured out he needed to take a chance. Will in the beginning of the movie had a very low need for intimacy. He was avoidant in his attachment and would push others away so he did not need to feel the hurt and pain when they left him. When he met Scarlet he started to open up, but still kept up his defenses. Will showed that he did have a psychological need for relatedness through the constant interaction with his friends. He was only willing to be intimate with others that had proved themselves trustworthy enough to be there. That sense of relatedness was also what was going to keep Will in Boston and grow old with his friends until the day he died.

He was a very complex character in that he knew how to work others. In the scene with Sean in his second counseling session, he does not speak a word. This was Will trying to keep is autonomy through the long process of staying out of jail. He knew he did not have to speak if he did not want to, which is exactly what he did. His sense of autonomy and competence was also shown when he left the bar early in the night to go home to figure out the math problem. He was intrinsically motivated to go home and do the math. He had no other reason to do the math proof other than to gain some sort of competence from completing it.

Will also shows his autonomy when he chooses what he wants to do with his life and he sticks to it rather than listening to the professor. I thought it was interesting in the movie how Sean believed so much in Will to do the right thing for himself that he supported him in whatever decision he made. In the text this was called autonomy supportive motivating style. He was motivating Will to do the right thing, but listening to what Will wanted and needed and he supported that.

Overall, this movie did a great job of presenting a lot of the information from our text. I felt as thought there was an underlying theme throughout the whole movie of autonomy (Will have control of his own destiny), competence (the professor needing mastery), relatedness (the constant battle for Will between opening himself to others), as well as many of the social needs as stated in the post.

Terms: psychological needs, social needs, competence, power, achievement, intimacy, relatedness, intrinsic motivation, autonomy, autonomy-supportive motivating style, mastery goal

There are many different forms of extrinsic motivation in the movie Good Will Hunting. Extrinsic motivation creates the start of an activity based out of environmental factors. There are four kinds of extrinsic motivation: external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and integrated regulation. Will Hunting starts seeing a therapist because he is ordered by the court to do so. This is an example of external regulation. External regulated behaviors are done to satisfy an external demand. Introjected motivation is a “because I should” motivation. Will asked Skylar to spend time with him. She was reluctant because she said she really needed to get some homework done. She really didn’t want to do her homework instead of relax with Will, but the idea of needing to do homework and study has been pushed onto her by her parents, professors, and fellow students that she starts to adopt the idea as her own. Sean continues to meet with Will even after their disastrous first appointment because he saw something special in Will. Sean thought it was important that he keep meeting with Will. This is an example of identified regulation. Identified regulation is motivation that arises from a feeling of the behavior being significant. . Sean stands up for Will when Jerry is trying to push him too hard into conforming to what Jerry wants for him. Sean says he is sticking up for Will because it is just who he is. This is an example of integrated regulation. Integrated regulation is the motivation to make actions reflect a person’s own values. Amotivation is the absence of motivation. Will sent Chuckie to meet with businessmen for a job offer because he did not value the idea of working for that company doing tasks he found unimportant. Intrinsic motivation is enjoyment and interest that causes a behavior. Will reads so many books because he enjoys it. He peruses knowledge because it satisfies him. That displays the idea of intrinsic regulation.

Will shows the psychological need of relatedness through out the movie. He pushed away Sean and Skylar when they were getting too close because he had been affected psychologically by not forming emotional relationships through his childhood when he bounced from foster home to foster home. Will had a rocky relationship with Skylar, which demonstrated more of his need for relatedness. He doesn’t tell her the truth about his dark past because he was afraid that she would reject him. He didn’t want to leave Boston to go to California with her because he did not want to leave behind the close emotional relationships that he has had with his friends for such a long time. His need for relatedness wins out when he moves to California to “see about a girl”.

Terms: Extrinsic Motivation, External Regulation, Introjected Regulation, Identified Regulation, Integrated Regulation, Amotivation, Intrinsic Motivation, Intrinsic Regulation, Psychological Need, Relatedness

Good Will Hunting is an excellent story of the intellectually extraordinary man Will Hunting. This movie is riddled with more than enough examples of what our class and textbook has been discussing in terms of types of motivation, psychological needs, social needs, and rewards/punishers. Examining this book as a college level student who is tuned into the ideas of motivation and emotion it is very easy to tell that Will has serious needs that are not being satisfied in an environment that inhibits that. I have picked out a few examples that we have discussed to talk about in this blog.
The first thing I noticed about Will is that he does not do the intellectual things he does to gain social acceptance from others or to find their praise( an issue I will address later. His psychological needs for autonomy and competence and endless. The whole premise of the movie is the idea of the kid not wanting to be constricted by those around him. He loves his own choices and will not see it any other way. Pick almost any situation and you will see his autonomy. The right to speak in court when most will just sit and listen, his choice to talk to his therapist, his decision on a job and whether or not to show up was all his will(pun intended) He made the decision to rebel against the constraints placed on him by people he did not believe to be his superiors or equals for that matter.

Next was the fairly obvious idea of competence. Will was obviously extremely smart and competent in several ares. He also did not need people telling him he was competent because he knew he was. His need for challenges were boundless. The movie told us that he read several book and the material didn't matter because he just wanted to be competent. Skylar even made it clear when she said that, "nobody does organic chemistry for fun." He really doesn't either, but he loves the feeling of competence it gives him. Even in his love life he loves to be challenged and says so himself. He says he is afraid to get involved with someone and one day find out that they are boring and he doesn't feel attracted anymore. Skylar becomes that for him because she challenges him to think about himself and try to be competent and know who he is.
In the manner of competence another idea comes to mind and that is the concept of praise. Everyone loves to be praised for the work they, but only if it is genuine and not backhanded. The textbook talks about how praise can be great unless it is turned into a controlling phrase. The professor does this several times to him and one time of note is in his office with Will when the equation he solves is burned up by the cigarette. He tells Will that he HAS to put his talent to use and that he SHOULDN'T waste a gift. This phrase is praise because he is telling him how smart he is and he later tells him he could change the world. This sentiment is not seen by Will because all he sees is the controlling manner of the professor telling him what he has to do. This undermines the praise and also preys on Will's large sense of autonomy. Sean takes Will's intellect and praises him in an extrinsically motivating way. He explains to him that he is bound by nothing and that the world is his and nobody can tell him what to do. Will replies that there is honor in the lowliest jobs and the professor replies with the the idea that there is no honor in keeping talent away from the world. This hits Will hard because it is praise that is very extrinsically motivating for him and eventually turned into self-determined intrinsic motivation.

The next idea that I found was that Will needs a sense of relatedness. He refuses the help of every therapist because none of them treat him like a person, but rather just another patient. This becomes very clear when Sean begins to tell Will that he can know everything in the world, but he will never know what it is like to experience it. He knows about Michelangelo but has never smelled the Sistine Chapel. It is then that Sean tells Will that he can't know what it is like to be an orphan just by reading Oliver Twist. This brings Will in close for relatedness and eventually they both share their stories of abusive fathers and Will finds that he has that in common with someone he can trust and relate to and his need for the relatedness is filled.

Will's final example from our text is his need for psychological achievement. He is very troubled and very disturbed. Clearly he is very brilliant and a great problem solver. However, he has never been able to solve the problems that are going on inside his own brain. He sets up several barriers like his smart-ass remarks and his ability to change the subject so quick it is hard to make a comment about anything. It is only when he opens of to Sean that he is able to tell his story and listen to the Sean about why he is here and what his life means. He eventually tells him that none of his abuse was his fault and that is the day that good Will Hunting finds psychological achievement and starts his on the path to his new life.

Terms Used: Autonomy, competence, praise, self-determined intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, relatedness, Psychological achievement, barriers.

First off, I would like to mention that I forgot how good of a movie Good Will Hunting is. Even though the movie is sort of old, it kept me very interested.
Will really has no autonomy in the beginning of the movie. He has no self-direction or goal in his life, he has no idea of what “he” wants to do. Will is ruled by the momentum of his life. Ever since he was a child he has been controlled by his environment and has never been able or taken the initiative to create a different life for himself. So, instead of getting out of his current life he sticks with it because that’s all he knows. Obviously, Will is searching for something more in his life. That can explain why he ends up at MIT as a janitor. This is where the tide begins to change for him.
Will has some intense psychological needs. A need for knowledge is the most prominent need that he has. Will constantly reads and solves everything in sight. Intrinsically motivated, Will tries to learn everything he can. Will finds this fun and seeks to do it without receiving any kind of reward and with what seems to him as little effort put forth to do so.
Will has been at the mercy of social needs his whole life. Deprived of intimacy, he relies solely on affiliation needs which he gets from his friends. As an orphan, Will received little love if any. Basically, he is numb to intimate relationships and turns to avoidance behavior whenever it gets close to him. This can be shown when he meets various therapists including Sean. Will also tries to escape when his relationship with Skylar gets serious. Chuckie, his best friend, along with his other pals, provide a brotherhood that allows Will to feel a part of something. This satisfies his affiliation need. His friends provide him with security and he knows that they will be loyal to him whatever happens, unlike the people that have been in Wills’ life in the past.
Wills’ life really starts to get turned upside down when he is facing jail time for getting into a fight with an old enemy. Will is now given various incentives and is extrinsically motivated to do what is asked of him in order to stay out of jail. A possible incentive could be that Will gets to stay out of jail and another is that he gets to see Skylar. Another could be that he gets to practice his mathematical skills at a prestigious school with a highly skilled professor. An extrinsic motivation would be therapy which Will sees as a complete joke and unnecessary but he must do it in order to remain a free man.
By practically being forced into therapy, Will is forced to become intimate with his therapist, Sean. This results in anger at first but then he finally sees the light as does Sean. They both have deep issues and needed each other to figure themselves out. Once Sean and Will have their breakthrough, Will realizes his Love for Skylar and proceeds to have an intimate relationship with her. Chuck has a large portion to do with Wills’ realization. Everything else has been made clear to Will and all he needs is that last little push which is bluntly provided by Chuck. Chuck lets Will know that not only would he be wasting his god given talent but he would be bringing shame to his coworkers if he continued to work there. Chuck isn’t trying to be mean to him, he just wants what’s best for his friend. Chuck instills a sense of achievement in Will. Will then decides to have a higher need of achievement and pursue some of the greater things in life such as a job and a life with Skylar.
Despite the many different issues that are made visible with Will throughout the movie, there is actually a lot of other interpersonal battles going on within the heads of different characters within the movie. Sean is battling a fight with the fact that he lost the love of his life, his wife. Sean is intrinsically motivated to help Will because he sees a lot of himself in Will. Helping Will out helps him figure himself out. Sean is extrinsically motivated to work as a professor. It’s clear that he has no will at that point to teach, he just has to in order to pay the bills. In the end he realizes this and takes some time off to travel and find himself. Prof. Gerald Lambeau also hits the wall mentally. His whole life he has been at the tip of mathematical excellence and then some kid comes along and makes it all look so easy. Gerald feels like a failure and wishes he never met Will. His need for achievement drops and he feels incompetent when it comes to his profession. Gerald recovers well and realizes that it’s alright if he isn’t the best. He proceeds to help Will succeed even though Will has treated him terribly. Gerald also reconciles his relationship with Sean which helps both of their affiliation needs.

Terms: Autonomy, Psychological needs, Intrinsic motivation, Social needs, Intimacy, Affiliation, Avoidance behavior, Incentives, Extrinsic motivation, Achievement, and Competence.

The movie, “Good Will Hunting” gives excellent examples of many of the concepts found in our textbook. After watching it I found there were instances of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation was apparent when Will chose to solve the difficult mathematical problems without any external rewards or outside motivators. He simply did the problems for his own pleasure, or possibly to satisfy his own competence need. In doing this, Will also achieved mastery of the skill he has set out to accomplish.

I think power had a great deal to do with this movie. Will, having grown up disadvantaged as an abused orphan, was pushed around, put down, and made to feel weak. As he got older, he began to express his strong need for power by fighting. This was shown when Will convinced his best friend Chuckie to stop the car so he and the other three friends could beat up a group of men which included the one guy who had beat Will up when he was in kindergarten. I could tell that because of his position growing up, Will tried to take advantage of every opportunity to hold a power position over others, leading to a possible rise in self-esteem and confidence. Another example of Will striving to gain power over someone else is the confrontation in the bar with the “Harvard plagiarist”. The college student obviously isn’t as smart as he claims to be and is put in his place by Will, who again gains the spotlight.

Another aspect of the film semi-related to the need for power is the fact that Will has been socialized by abusers, causing him to use violence to gain respect and to problem-solve life events. Also because of this socialization, Will internalizes his need for achievement. He acts like it’s not important to solve mathematical problems that only he and a few people in the population are able to do.
Will displays a strong need for relatedness, as he is shown with the same three buddies on a daily basis. As a child he was abandoned, so he feels the need to be surrounded by those who he knows won’t leave him. They are his security blanket, so to speak. He trusts them, which Will does not do easily due to his rough upbringing. When it came to Professor Lambeau, Will displayed mistrust at first. This was especially clear when the professor mussed Will’s hair in an affectionate way, causing Will to look sharply at him with shock. Will seemed to have a huge problem with intimacy as well. Not only did he try to keep every counselor at bay with his crazy tactics and sarcastic demeanor, but he attempted to push away the one person who had grown to love him. Although I feel that Will did long for the intimacy with Skylar, as well as others, his trust issues were too strong at first for him to overcome. Professor Lambeau claimed Will was a genius, but very defensive, and needed someone who could get through to him.

This brings me to the extrinsic motivation the professor tried repeatedly to use to get Will to take jobs which would end up giving the professor himself some tenure for his “discovery”. He kept trying to convince Will that his gift should be shared, and that he was special, he would have high status and make lots of money doing what few people could do.
Another example of intrinsic motivation is when Skylar tells Will she does not want the answers to her homework simply because she wants to learn the information. She must realize that if she gave in and got the answers from Will, she could get rewards such as more free time to have fun and an easy grade without doing the work. Instead Skylar chooses to master the homework herself, gaining competence.

Lastly, Will is pushed by his counselor Sean to utilize his autonomy, decide what he wants out of life for himself, and do things because he wants to not because he is told to. He eventually learns this as we see at the end of the film when he turns down the job for the girl. In doing that, Will also fulfills his need for intimacy he has been suppressing.

This was a very good movie (I hadn’t seen it before) with a lot of emotion and discovery. Robin Williams' part was excellent.

TERMS: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, rewards, competence, autonomy, relatedness, intimacy, power, mastery, socialization

I had never seen this whole movie, so I was excited to finally have the excuse to watch it. The scene I chose to use for my analysis was the scene in which the professor and Sean argue about Will. Sean defends Will and is looking out for his well-being. The professor is not. He states that Will needs to do something with his life so he doesn’t become washed up. The professor does not seem to care about why Will does not want to a job or even about what Will wants at all. Sean brings up Will’s needs for intimacy, reciprocity, and belonging. He tries to explain to the professor why Will is acting the way he is. The professor does not seem to care about what he is saying and focuses solely on his desired outcome.

The professor is not aware that Will is intrinsically motivated to solve the problems he is presented with. Will understands, or “gets,” the problems, and is able to solve them quickly. This demonstrates his competence. Will also enjoys his autonomy and volition. A job would violate his sense of freedom. Also, with a job, he would be expected to meet certain requirements and his autonomy would be limited. When the professor introduced a job as an option, Will was turned off because his intrinsic motivation was being undermined. The money was offered as an external motivator, but it did not motivate Will, so he did not accept a job position. Will gains a sense of self-worth from being able to solve the challenging math problems. The professor was also trying to control Will’s behaviors. He tried to pressure him into accepting a job offer. He was not supportive of Will’s needs or desires. Further proof that the professor was trying to control Will’s behavior can be seen through his reliance on the external motivator of money.

On the other hand, Sean was autonomy supportive. He defended Will and took his affect and point of view into account. He acknowledged and accepted Will’s negative affect and overall lack of emotion. He took the time to understand why Will was the way he was. Will was lacking a sense of relatedness in his life. He did not have much positive interaction with anyone besides his friends. He had high-quality relationships with his friends because they cared for, valued, and accepted each other. Also, there was a sense of reciprocity in their relationships. They supported one another and spent a lot of time together. If these friends had not been meeting Will’s needs for relatedness, he would have ended their friendships. As it was, Will clung to his friends because they were his only source of intimacy and love.

Will had a high need of achievement because he needed to show his competence. Affiliation and power were not big social needs for Will. He did not care about either one. Will had a high social need for intimacy but had trouble finding that intimacy. He pushed people away before they had the chance to push him away. He surrounded himself with his friends because they were loyal and had proved to Will that they would stick around. He felt secure in his relationships with them. Will was abandoned by his family and was an orphan. He was continually abused and did not receive reciprocal love while growing up. He found his friends, and stuck with them ever since.

Will came to trust Sean. Sean had gotten past his barriers and had touched something in Will. Will became aware of his tendency to push others away. Sean recognized what Will needed and proceeded to tell him that his past was not his fault. Will rejected Sean’s words, but Sean persisted. Will said, “Not you.” This signifies his trust in Sean. Will dreaded Sean leaving him. Eventually, Will gave in and embraced Sean. He felt like Sean understood him and greatly appreciates the help he has given him. Sean gave Will the affection that he had been lacking. Will comes to admire Sean and highly regards his opinion. Overall, this movie was a great example of many motivational and emotional concepts.

Terms: intrinsic motivation, competence, autonomy, volition, external motivator, relatedness, reciprocity, intimacy, achievement, belonging, trust, affection, social needs, autonomy-supportive

I saw many concepts in Good Will Hunting that I feel are worth discussing and the first would be Will’s intrinsic motivation. Will was a janitor at MIT, which was a forty-minute commute from his house. As it was stated by his therapist in the movie “you can be a janitor anywhere, why ride the train for forty minutes to do it at the most prestigious technical school in the world?” That was a very good question by his therapist because it related to his intrinsic motivation. What really drove his behavior? It wasn’t the money because he could work at the construction site with his best friend and get paid just as much. It can’t be seen in the movie but we can assume that Will took great pleasure from working at MIT and being among the most brilliant men and woman of the world. Intrinsic motivation is defined as the tendency to engage one’s interests and to exercise one’s capacities and this is exactly what Will did in the movie. He was interested in the work of these professors and students so he took a job where he could be surrounded by their work.
Another example of intrinsic motivation that I saw throughout the movie was his reasons for reading so many books. He was quite possibly the most intelligent man in the United States in this movie and it came with no formal training. He could quote textbooks like it was something that he learned in third grade and I spent a little time asking myself why someone would read so many books. Will was not enrolled in college, didn’t have a high skill job, and wasn’t getting paid to read the books so why do it. There was no extrinsic motivation to make him read the books. The only answer I had to this question was he was intrinsically motivated. Something inside of him drove him to read so many books because he found it interesting or challenging.

Another important concept of motivation and emotion that I saw in the movie was that of power. Power is defined as the desire to make the physical and social world conform to one’s personal image. I saw several instances of Will’s sense of power at work in the movie and I feel like the playground scene was quite important. In this particular scene, Will and his friends beat up a guy that Will knew in kindergarten. The only reasoning behind this decision was that this kid beat Will up in kindergarten. Now, 15 or so years later, Will is in a position where he can regain the control of the situation. So he and his friends beat the living crap out of this innocent man and Will gets sent to jail. Was it worth it to do such a thing? I really can’t tell you what Will was thinking in this scene, but it can pretty much be said that he wanted this man to know that he will no longer be taken for granted.
Aggressiveness seems to go hand in hand with power and that too was evident in this scene. Aggression is often used as a means for involving and satisfying power needs and studies show that men high in power strivings get into more arguments and participate in violence. That is exactly what happened in this scene because the situation could have been resolved by an exchange of words rather than a playground brawl.

Affiliation and relatedness seem to be related concepts in this movie. Affiliation is described as establishing, maintaining, or restoring a positive relationship with another person. Relatedness is the psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people. Both of these terms are present throughout the entire movie. Will has three close friends that support his decisions and want what is best for him. Will also enjoyed his time with them and he stood up for them when they needed it. Its hard to say how Will would have acted if he didn’t have these friends to fulfill his needs of affiliation and relatedness but it is safe to say that the story would have turned out quite differently.

Autonomy is present throughout the entire movie and Will has a very strong need for autonomy. Autonomy is basically doing what you what when you want. That is Will in a nutshell. He did what he pleased, said what he wanted, and lived his life the way he saw fit. This of course changed throughout the movie as Will took on more responsibilities and as Lambeau started to guide him down the right path. Lambeau arranged job interviews, made him go to a therapist, and made him solve math problems. Will fought Lambeau at first but near the end of the movie he broke down because he lost his sense of power.

Intrinsic motivation, behavior, extrinsic motivation, power, aggressiveness, affiliation, relatedness, autonomy

I have to say that I loved this movie. It was my first time watching it, but like all great movies it captured the essence of human nature. The film depicts a young man, Will Hunting, who is intellectually gifted but is troubled by his past and has no direction for his future. Will faces many obstacles in the film, including a lack of challenges and an aversion to intimacy with his girlfriend, Skylar. I will briefly describe a scene and then examine what motivational concepts were displayed in each.

The movie begins with a scene in a classroom in MIT. Professor Lambeau, who is a well-known mathematician, tells his class that he will put a problem on the board and that any student that can solve it will be given the chance to work with him. Will Hunting, who is a janitor in that particular building, sees the problem on the board and solves it. In this relatively short scene, multiple motivational concepts are displayed. Professor Lambeau is offering an incentive to his students to solve the difficult theorem by offering a perceived reward, which is having the privilege to work with a well-known scholar. While extrinsic motivation such as those techniques can increase the wanted behavior, it can actually reduce the intrinsic motivation of the student. Will Hunting, on the other hand, has a lot of intrinsic motivation when it comes to solving difficult problems. This motivation is probably derived from a psychological need for competence, or mastery of a particular skill. Due to his high level of competence need, he does not need the incentive in order to complete the task.

The next scene of was the break-up scene between Will and Skylar. When Skylar asks Will to go with her to California, Will responds with hesitance and withdraws from her. When Skylar reaches out to him, Will only shuts her out further and tells her that he does not love her and leaves. This scene is important because it demonstrates wills aversion to intimacy. This aversion is probably due to his troubled past because he has learned to associated pain and hurt with close, intimate relationships. The consequence of his abusive childhood is that Will is unable to put down his barriers to form an intimate relationship with Skylar. Because intimacy is a social need, multiple aspects of one’s life, including developmental influences, cognitive influences, and socialization influences, influence it. From his environment, Will has learned to not form close, intimate relationships with other people because he is likely to get hurt. Luckily, Will is later able to face the demons from his past and allow himself to take a chance on his relationship with Skylar.

The last scene I will analyze was the dramatic scene in Professor Lambeau’s office where Will burns the theorem that they had been working on. This scene was significant because it highlighted the differences between Will and Lambeau. While Will is gifted and the answers come naturally to him, Professor Lambeau has to work for the answers and struggles with some of the problems that come to Will effortlessly. It seems that because Will is not challenged by the problems put before him he not motivated to solve them. In order for flow to be achieved, Will needs to be faced with optimal challenges, which is well beyond that of a normal human being. Since Will is not being optimally challenged, it seems that he is not getting as much psychological benefit by completing the tasks but rather sees it as a burden. On the other hand, Professor Lambeau is extremely upset with Will because he has been given a gift that he sees is being wasted. He tells Will that, “most days, I wish I never met you.” While Will seems to be motivated by competence, Lambeau seems to be motivated by achievement, or recognition by his peers for his accomplishments such as the medal he received. Fundamentally, the two men are getting their motivation from two different sources: one from the internal (Will) and the other from the external (Lambeau). Ultimately, Will decides what is most important to him is not the same as what is important to his mentor. Will decides that his need for intimacy (or his relationship with Skylar) is more important than his need for achievement (or a successful career as a mathematician). His therapist, Sean, helps him see that in order to be truly happy, it is best to follow one’s heart and seek out the things that are intrinsically motivating rather than was is deemed important by everyone else.

Terms: incentive, reward, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, psychological need, competence, intimacy, consequence, social need, flow, optimal challenges, achievement

The first time I saw this movie, I simply thought it just a good movie. However, after watching the movie with psychological needs in mind, I am now think it is a great film. This film shows a variety of different needs and how they affect the everyday lives of people who are not having their needs met.
One of the greatest examples of a psychological need throughout the entire movie is Will’s need for autonomy. This is shown very clearly when one looks at the choices Will is making. The first time this became apparent in the fight scene. Will sees a man who used to beat him up while he and his friends are at a little league game. Will does nothing besides pointing him out to his friends. Later, he corners the man and beats him up in a deserted basketball court. I felt he made the choice to wait so that he could justify his choice to himself.
For Will, life is all about being able to do whatever you want whenever you want. This is noticeable when you look at the struggle he had when Gerry pushed him to get a “real job”. At the begging of the movie, Will is working a low level janitorial job. This job requires very little from him and would be very easy for him to walk away from. By not being attached to his job, his only motivation for working is his decision to come into work. This reinforces his personal autonomy.
When Will is with Skyler, he feels more quasi-needs because of his desire to impress him. This is shown when it becomes apparent that he doesn’t want Skyler to see his house. Skyler makes Will feel the need to be better than what he currently is. Skyler appears to be the only extrinct motivation that affects Will.
Will’s relationship with Skyler threatens his autonomy because he starts thinking about what she wants, instead of only what he does. Skyler needs to go to California and asks Will to go with her. She asks him to go with her because Will fulfills her personal need for intimacy. This need scares Will because he has never acknowledged his own need for intimacy. Since he feels threated, Will ends his relationship with Skyler.
One of the things that drives Will is his fear of failure. Will chooses to avoid certain challenges with certain behaviors that don’t give him the option of failure. By staying at a job that is not challenging and breaking up with Skyler, he removes the chance that he may fail.
His relationship with Skyler is repaired after Will comes to terms with his own social needs. This happens in Sean’s office, when Sean tells Will repeatedly that “It’s not your fault.” Hearing this helps will realize his own personal need for affiliation. By recognizing this social need, he is able to accept his feelings for Skyler.
One the main themes throughout the entire movie is how important it is to recognize your personal needs and how they affect your life.
Terms: psychological needs, autonomy, reinforces, motivation, intimacy, failure, behaviors, affiliation, social needs, quasi-needs, extrinct motivation,

I will go in depth of the concepts of mainly chapter seven in Good Will Hunting. The story line is surrounded around how smart Will is that he proved the math theory. He is intrinsically motivated to work on it. Will is a janitor that worked on the theory on his own time for his own sense of accomplishment. This also ties in with achievement. The bar scene from the beginning displayed the need for power. Will was impacting, in a negative way that the guy trying to prevent Will’s friend from hitting on Skylar was trying to seem smart. Will called him out on it though.
When Will spoke about having dates to Shawn, he was expressing a high need for affiliation. Will seemed like he was trying to prove that he had dates to not get negatively judged. Competence is displayed also, when Will was talking to Skylar at her dorm about going on a second date. He has a low level of competence because he seemed to not know how to handle the situation. Will acted awkward and shy, however he did show up and insisted on a date and fixed it.
Intimacy was shown quite a bit during the movie. Will becomes close to Skylar and Shawn, which he then becomes distant and pushes them away. He has low levels of intimacy mainly, where he forms close relationships with Skylar, but freaks out about going to California with her. She tells him she loves him and he gets cold and replies, “I don’t love you.” At the end of the movie Shawn repeats “it’s not your fault,” which ends up breaking Will down. His level of intimacy increases and he goes to California to find Skylar.

Terms used: intrinsic motivation, achievement, power, affiliation, competence, intimacy

Good Will Hunting shows how an emotionally damaged, but extremely intellectual young man fights for autonomy and competence. He also has strong social needs for intimacy though he disguises it well. Every scene of this movie shows how someone’s psychological or social needs are or are not being met. The movie is about the struggle to fill the need deficit.

As will bounces through five different therapists he shows that he is in control and has the freedom to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. He makes it clear that he has autonomy or freedom in deciding what information he provides and how he gives up or discloses this information. He doesn’t want to trust so he has the freedom not to. He feels seems to act like his competence of the intellectual world and his freedom or autonomy in his decisions is all that he has in his life.

When the professor starts to offer him jobs and try to set everything up for him, he begins to lose a sense of control or choice. His autonomy is threatened and he shows control by sending his best friend to the interview and turning down the professors help. He also tells the professor that he doesn’t want to do the math anymore because it insults his competence. The math is too easy for him and he doesn’t feel like he needs to do it. He shows both his autonomy and competence as he burns the paper that symbolizes an understanding of something that only Will has and his control over what he does with that understanding or intellect.

Also, his interactions with his professor and the jobs that his professor tries to set up for him may show that he has a low-level of achievement. He has no competition for his competence. That is his competence in intellect is rarely challenged (later I will talk about how Skylar challenges his competence in terms of emotionsthat is separate from his intellectual competence). Will is so smart that he doesn’t feel like he needs to work toward achievement. Things just seem to happen for him intellectually. He needs a challenge, competition, a push toward entrepreneurship.

Will being an orphan also has the social needs of affiliation and intimacy. He has the need to affiliate with other as he constantly hangs out with his friends in his free time. He associates with his three buddies and I believe that, without them, he would not be able to function well. He wants to have good relationships with other people; he just simply doesn’t know how to trust because of his past.

His pursuing of Skylar also shows that he (perhaps on a subconscious level) desires to be close to another person or be intimate. He wants to have exchanges with someone based off of how he reacts his therapist when he references his wife. Will does not understand how anyone could care about someone so much. By talking to Shaun he realizes that he wants to have something like what Shaun had with his wife. Will’s desire for intimacy hits clear view when he leaves the note at the end that said, “I have to go see about a girl”. If will didn’t have the need, want, or desire to have exchanges with Skylar or to have intimacy, he would not have gone to California after her.

This need for intimacy is also shown through Shaun. He talks about how he skipped an amazing baseball game to attempt at a possible, intimate relationship. He also tells about how it was the most amazing part of his life to share all of those exchanges with her. He wouldn’t have traded his intimacy with her for the world. Clearly at the point that he went to meet his future wife, he had a very high need for intimacy. Even now that she is dead, he still seems to hold on to his intimacy with her, yet he doesn’t desire to have similar exchanges with anyone else.

Skylar also shows the social need for intimacy. When she gets close to Will she asks him to come with her to California. This is a huge exchange of faith and a big leap of trust in the relationship. She desires to continue their exchanges and build their intimacy. As part of the exchange she needs to have will tell her he loves her and show her feelings in return. Skylar’s asking Will to come to California and tell her that he loves her is a very clear display of her need for intimacy.

In terms of Will’s reaction to Skylar asking him to come he shows that fear. This response is because he has been abandoned in the past which affected his competence in terms of relationships and intimacy. He believes that she will leave him like everyone else and he will enter into a place where he has no autonomy or control over whether or not he’s abandoned.

Will also frequently displays power needs as he challenges all of his therapists to the point of getting them to quit. He also shows power by burning up the math problem that only he can solve. He further displays that he needs power by choosing when to speak and what to speak about. He is completely silent during an entire session with Shaun just to show that he has power. He also is very upset when his power is threatened. That is when he thinks that Skylar is just using him as a fling and a way of showing her power and control. He constantly struggles to satisfy his social need for power.

Will struggles with a low need for achievement and high needs for intimacy, affiliation, and power. He has strong psychological needs for autonomy and competence and throughout the film he demonstrates his efforts toward satisfying all of his needs.

Terms: autonomy, competence, social needs, intimacy, psychological needs, deficit, affiliation, entrepreneur, achievement, challenge/competition, power.

The movie Good Will Hunting stars a kid from an iffy neighborhood in Boston who is a super genius. He is a mathematical protégé who is flying under the radar because of his rough past and poor financial situation who is working at a very prestigious school. He is discovered one day proving a very mathematical theorem that no one in the class could. With his ability and his opportunity he could have accomplished many feats amongst Ivy League scholars and other geniuses of the world but he chose not to. Throughout the movie Will is intrinsically motivated to pursue higher education, a girl, and community with his friends.
In this paper I would like to attempt to apply the concepts of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation throughout the movie. Very early in the movie we see a scene of this. Will is mopping the floors at a prestigious school and stopped early so that he could prove a theorem on the black board that the professor had placed there. He had memorized the problem, took it home, wrote it out and solved it on a mirror in his room. Now it is clear that Will was intrinsically motivated to do this. Intrinsic motivation as defined in class is an inherent desire to engage in one’s interests and to exercise and develop one’s capabilities. We find out as we go through the movie that math comes extremely easily to Will. For him these problems on the blackboard were an optimally challenging task for him to do. He wasn’t paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to school; he didn’t have pressure from his parents or professors. Intrinsic motivation tends to increase persistence, creativity, conceptual understanding and optimal functioning of well being. Now Will was certainly demonstrating all of these plusses of intrinsic motivation. These problems required a unique way of thinking that only a few people have the ability to do, which was inspired by Will’s intrinsic motivation. He not only understood the problem in front of him but he understood math as a whole and why things work the way they do. This was all before Professor Gerald Lambeau got a hold of him; that is not to say that Lambeau was all bad for him. I mean, he did bail him out of jail, which was a good thing, but this action unexpectedly put some extrinsic motivators in place for Will to adhere to. For Will, his incentive was to avoid jail time by showing up to do math with Lambeau once a week and to meet with a therapist. People are driven by outside forces including consequences. If Will failed to follow the requirements of his parole he would be sent back to court and possibly to jail. Now extrinsic motivators tend to not have the same positive effects that intrinsic motivation has. At first Will negatively reacted to the therapy and was willing to do the math, which he even found entertaining. However, his areas of interest quickly shifted because of outside factors. He was no longer enjoying tackling math problems because they came to easily to him, even though they were impossible to almost everyone else around him, he had attained an extreme level of competence that even led to boredom. Math and knowledge in general now failed to meet his psychological needs. At the same time as math was going out the window relationships were coming through the back door.
His therapist, Sean Maguire, was the first to bring to Will’s attention how little he actually knew about life. When in the park he exposed this weakness by acknowledging that Will was a genius and could scientifically/logically explain almost anything, from art to string theory, but what will lacked was life experience relating to anything. Maguire said that Will may even have been laid before but he didn’t know love, openness, or intimacy. This is understandably so when we learned about Will’s past foster home experience which included severe abuse. Will’s first chance to experience intimacy is with a girl named Skylar. They hit it off at first, both being smart, attractive, and enjoying each other’s company. But when the relationship started to get serious Will freaked out, and pursued a performance-avoidance goal, in that he was afraid of what might happen if things didn’t work out with Skylar, just like every other relationship he had experienced, and that motivated him to forcibly end the relationship. However, after first establishing a strong relationship with Sean he realized that he could do the same with Skylar and he desperately craved that intimacy. What he craved was a deep emotional connection with someone that he deeply cared about who cared equally as much about him…intimacy, not affiliation. I think Will would say screw affiliation; he just wants Skylar and Sean. The extrinsic rewards, promise, and achievements that waited for Will in the math world were not enough to motivate him to stay. In the end he was intrinsically motivated to pursue his social need for intimacy which was with Skylar in California.
Terms: intrinsic motivation, optimally challenging, persistence, conceptual understanding, optimal well being, extrinsic motivators, incentive, consequences, psychological needs, intimacy, avoidance behavior, performance-avoidance goal, motivation, affiliation

After watching the movie Good Will Hunting, I was able to relate several scenes to the Motivation and Emotion class. The main characters name is Will and he is a math genius, but from a poor neighborhood. Since he is from a poor neighborhood, his chances for success and being noticed are slim.

The first concept that I recognized in the movie was intrinsic motivation. For Will, he definitely is intrinsically motivated. The job he chose to pursue was being a janitor at a prestigious college. For some it could be aversive to be surrounded by people that have been granted more opportunity by having access to money. However, Will gains recognition after he was observed solving a difficult math problem outside of a math class. This demonstrates intrinsic motivation because he was not actually enrolled in the class, he would not receive credit or a grade for the work he was doing. He was solving the problem to better himself, even if he was not praised for his brilliance. Solving the problem by himself would be enough of a reward. Although Will demonstrated intrinsic motivation, he also showed characteristics of the Atkinson model in the tendency to avoid failure. He obviously was a genius in many ways; however the fear of failure kept him from taking chances. This fear was so strong for him that he eventually shut everyone out of this life that was rooting for him.

Autonomy is also a big part of this scene. Will is aware of his independence and that he is in control of his life. Through this control he demonstrates the choice on whether or not to complete the equation. By choosing to complete it, he is portraying independence that others students have not quite acquired. The other students in class may still have a strong sense of autonomy, but they are being extrinsically motivated by the professor, their parents, fellow classmates, etc. The students are also technically enrolled in the class, so they are extrinsically motivated to do well and pass the class otherwise their money would be wasted.

Competence is another characteristic that Will demonstrates in this scene. Competence is the ability of an individual to perform a job properly. This is often defined by a set of defined behaviors that provide a structured guide enabling the identification, evaluation and development of individuals. Even though he is not recognized as a student and granted the same rewards, he wants to be competent and gain intelligence. He is striving to interact with his surroundings and improving his psychological needs. By improving his psychological needs, he is able to be more well-rounded and happy.

When Skyler invites Will to come to California and they get into a fight and break up demonstrated the concept of affiliation and intimacy. Skyler wanted to take their relationship to the next level and Will was in disbelief. He was worried that she would learn things about him that she didn’t like and this would eventually lead to her dumping him. This fear stemmed from Will’s troubled childhood. After he explained to Skyler why he was so concerned, she attempted to comfort him and say that she would love him no matter what. Will continued to push Skyler away, avoiding intimacy. Sean, Will’s counselor, tries to teach Will that it is okay to let people in and that not all people are bad. Even though Will believed what happened to him was his fault, Sean constantly enforced that it was not. Eventually Sean got through to Will and he started to understand it was not his fault. This ultimately allows Will to start accepting intimate relationships, affiliation and expressing his emotions.

Will demonstrates psychological achievement through the majority of the movie. He has a past that haunts him and he wasn’t able to communicate his pain to groups he was affiliated with and his intimate relationship with Skyler. Although he was brilliant, his psychological needs were not being fulfilled. Will was able to interact with people, but not very effectively. He would come up with witty comebacks and change the subject when something was brought up that he did not want to talk about. As mentioned above, Will begins to listen to Sean and realizes his past was not his fault. By finding the strength to move on and accept what happened, he was able to demonstrate psychological achievement.

Terms: aversive, intrinsic motivation, Atkinson model, tendency to avoid failure, reward, independence, autonomy, extrinsic motivation, competence, psychological needs, striving, affiliation, intimacy, avoiding, enforced, relationships, emotions, psychological achievement, effectively, fulfill