PSYC FPX 2520 Assessment 2 Social Psychology in the Movies

Social Psychology in the Movies

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Capella University

PSYC-FPX2520

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Social Psychology in the Movies

The action of the film Remember the Titans takes place in the state of Virginia in the early 1970s, when this state was struggling with the school desegregation efforts. The movie is rooted in the real events to demonstrate how the T.C. Williams High School football team was taught about human integration to overcome racial issues. Coach Herman Boone comes out to lead the integrated team in spite of being racially integrated. It is about the difficulties and prejudices of the players and coaches, who, however, with the help of perseverance, self-improvement, and hard work, come together and succeed. It is a heart-rending example of racial assimilation, co-operation, and the ability of sports to transform.

Interpersonal Relationships

The concept of intergroup conflict could be applied in Remember the Titans in terms of the relationship development between coaches Herman Boone and Bill Yoast. Boone, a black person, is made head coach, and Yoast, who is a white coach with strong connections on the team, is replaced. This brings about professional conflict, since the identity and position of Yoast are at stake. The two first collide as a result of the differences in race, power, and experience, which is the idea of the role identity theory, whereby the identities of professional people influence their interactions (Stoute, 2021). The conflict between the two on the grounds of leadership by Boone is based on personal and social factors related to the racial affiliations of the two.

Nevertheless, the desire to win the championship at the season stage leads to cooperation and respect for each other. This change concurs with the theory of contact, which implies that, likely to eliminate prejudice, significant, lasting contact among various groups can occur. Through their collaboration in achieving the same goal, Boone and Yoast start to view each other as individuals rather than being coach and challenger. Their mutual efforts do not just benefit the team but also assist them in overcoming the resistance, at first demonstrating how intergroup collaboration can break down personal and work-related boundaries (Stoute, 2021).

This change is reflected in the development of the players. They are at first separated on racial lines, but they are brought together as they work on their shared purpose. It is a process that indicates the superordinate aims, in which there is a common goal despite the differences in groups. By the time the movie comes to an end, the coaches and players have overcome racial boundaries, proving that when people work together and face similar challenges, they can become united, eliminate stereotypes, and help each other grow as individuals.

Teamwork

The interdependence concept in Remember the Titans plays an essential role in the creation of the success of team as it stresses the importance of the team members to depend on one another in order to meet the shared objectives. In the initial stages of the movie, the Titans face racial issues and personal issues and cannot work as a unified group (Feasel et al., 2023). Nevertheless, as Coach Boone underlines all through the film, the players should have trust in each other and cooperate on and off the field. Indicatively, Boone subjects the players to integration during training camp, which means that the players need to interact and be dependent on each other despite the differences. This interdependency in the practices, especially in the hard drills, contributes to them breaking personal barriers and creating stronger connections. This is through these experiences that the players start to realize the worth of working as a team, and the success of the team is ultimately dependent on how well the players can work and help each other. This development points to the fact that interdependence turns a group of people into a team that is cohesive and efficient (Feasel et al., 2023).

Conversely, the film also exposes the adverse consequences of groupthink, in which the urge towards agreement and unity in a group kills critical thinking and results in improper decision-making. At the beginning of the movie, the resistance shown by the players to the leadership of Coach Boone lies in their unwillingness to adapt and follow the new approaches. They hold on to the old ways of doing things, which disregard the strategies of Boone. As an example, the team members cannot cooperate effectively and perform poorly when they encounter a problem in the first instance of the game, in an individualistic approach. The turning point is, however, reached when the players start accepting the differences among one another and opening their minds to the guidance of Boone. Another important point in this change is the moment the team, headed by captain Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell, overcomes their racial differences and establishes a closer connection. They know that remaining in traditional ways because of groupthink will never ensure advancement. The actions of the players to free themselves of these restrictions and adopt a new way of doing things, as suggested by Boone, promote effective communication and enable them to deliver to a greater extent. This change demonstrates the anti-progressive nature of groupthink and the need to have a variety of opinions to help teams achieve their potential (Rowhea Elmesky and Marcucci, 2023).

Finally, Remember the Titans demonstrates that the success of a team depends not only on the ability to collaborate but also on the ability to defy groupthink. The movie shows that teamwork takes open communication, the ability to trust each other, and being ready to break the traditional rules to achieve a similar goal. Once the Titans know how to trust one another and accept new ideals, they will be able to overcome all the obstacles that have separated them and finally succeed.

Social Factors

Outgroup bias has been relevant in Remember the Titans, where it influenced the relationship between the Black and the White players in the new football team that was formed as a result of integration. First, the White players are suspicious and doubtful of the respective abilities and intentions of their Black teammates, whereas the Black players are suspicious and doubt them. This racial prejudice poses a serious obstacle to efficient teamwork and destroys the potential of a team (Ertorer, 2024). As an example, in the initial stages of practice and games, participants often challenge their opponents because of their racial background, and this does not allow the team to operate as a team. It is the entrenched bias that kills teamwork and leads to a lack of coordination, which is how the out-group prejudice can compel the group to break down and work as a team when they should.

Nevertheless, the contact between groups also has a transformative role in lessening this outgroup bias as the season advances, especially via equal-status interactions and mutual objectives. The most effective forms of intergroup contact are cooperative tasks where people have to support and understand each other, according to research (Beelmann and Lutterbach, 2020). This mechanism can be traced in Remember the Titans, in which the preconceptions constituted by the players are, over time, lessening as the players unite to achieve a common goal: to win the championship. As an example, even in extreme training and matches, players such as Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell start to look past their racial background and see in them the personal traits and efforts of their team members. Their teamwork, which is necessitated by the desire to achieve success as a team, helps them eliminate racial stereotypes and establish stronger and more supportive relationships. This change shows that personal contact and common purposes can be used to decrease out-group prejudice and to enhance group processes.

The movie also demonstrates the perception of outgroup homogeneity, according to which players at first perceive each other as the members of a monolithic group instead of individuals with different personalities and capabilities (Beelmann & Lutterbach, 2020). At the beginning of the movie, the White players presuppose that all the Black teammates are the same, which generates additional mistrust and separation. Such perception eases complicated social processes in the team and strengthens negative stereotypes. Nevertheless, these cognitive biases are broken as the players get to know one another, as they get closer to each other. As an illustration, the players often get to interact more personally and come to know more about each other, like their backgrounds, and they should know that they have a lot in common than just their race. This increased awareness can contribute to increasing the effectiveness of teamwork in addition to more inclusive and positive relationships, which can be reflected by the power of diversity embracing that can not only bring an individual to heights personally but also to success as a team (Banaji et al., 2021).

Conclusively, Remember the Titans is a perfect example of how stereotypes and prejudices, which are based on the out-group bias, can be defeated by intergroup cooperation and common goals. The first racial conflicts of the players bring about interpersonal problems in which cultural diversity turns into the point of separation, not the power. Stereotypes of the White players towards the Black players and the opposite are the aspects that affect the team cohesion and performance in such a way that prejudices may be the obstacles to successful collaboration. Nevertheless, when the players start interacting with each other, dismantling stereotypes, and getting used to valuing their differences, they change the mistrust to mutual respect (Erticer, 2024). One of the main illustrations shows the changing relations between Gerry and Julius, whose initial confrontation is founded on racial prejudices, but eventually it results in true friendship between the two based on feelings of sympathy and devotion to the team. This change reveals how facing stereotypes and adopting cultural diversity are possible to achieve more harmonious and efficient collaboration, bringing more togetherness and success (Ertorer, 2024).

Behaviors

The prosocial behavior in Remember the Titans is manifested in the changing relationship between the characters, as well as their willingness to understand each other despite racial conflicts. According to the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis, empathy can encourage people to perform selfless acts (Banaji et al., 2021). A strong instance of this comes with the scene in the Gettysburg cemetery where Coach Boone gives an eloquent speech on how negative memories, such as hatred, destroy lives, and the players are urged to look at their history. The image arrangement of the scene, where the players are standing in the same position in a serious environment, underlines the heaviness of the feelings they experience together and emphasizes the necessity of solidarity. The sentence of Boone, Hatred destroyed my family, makes the players feel something, and the statement makes them understand the importance of empathy to overcome their prejudices. This change can also be accentuated by the relationship between Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell. At first, they collide because of their biases, yet, after a breakthrough in the course of the practice, Gerry states that this is his brother, which means that they both understand each other and change their mindset, which shows how empathy may be used to take prosocial actions and overcome racial stereotypes.

The theme of aggression also plays an important role in the film, particularly during the initial tensions between the Black and White players. The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis extends to the fact that people become aggressive and face obstacles to goal accomplishment (Gilbert and Bushman, 2020). This can be seen in a passionate fight between Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell at the training camp, where frustration due to racial integration and perceived potential challenge to status level results in aggression. The conflict exemplifies the way of how unsatisfied expectations and prejudices in society may be applied in the form of enmity. The other important example is when Coach Boone asks the players to compete with other players of a different race. The opposition to this order, in particular, the players such as Ray and Petey display their oratory and escalate their activity, demonstrating how deeply rooted prejudices and unamenable to change can become a source of conflict. As the film continues, however, the players start to work out their frustrations through communication and cooperation. A turning point comes with the Gettysburg run, in which the speech of Coach Boone helps them to work out their frustrations. The hostility that at first characterized their relationships is replaced by respect and collaboration, and proves that cooperation and the prosocial behavior can be achieved through tackling the factors that cause frustration first (Kim and Brunn-Bevel, 2019).

Conclusion

Remember the Titans can teach a person a lot about teamwork, personal development, and the ability to overcome the barriers that can be set in society, and these situations can be easily applied to my professional activity. Among the important lessons of the movie is the need to have empathy and be open to communicating to build teamwork work especially during a time of diversity. These lessons can help me create a better team in my future career, where I can be able to build stronger and more cohesive teams where mutual respect and shared objectives help the team to achieve success. The movie emphasizes the importance of problem-solving and leadership in defeating conflicts, be it interpersonal or organizational. In the same way, Coach Boone and Coach Yoast had to learn how to collaborate, notwithstanding the differences, I hope to implement these principles in my future leadership positions, where empathy, trust, and open-minded communication among members with different backgrounds are encouraged.

Moreover, Remember the Titans emphasizes how diversity, in spite of being a tense factor at first, could be a strong resource to rely upon, provided it is managed correctly. The dynamic nature of the relationships between the players and the coaches demonstrates that even the most divided groups can be united with the help of empathy and cooperation, as well as shared purpose. This is in reference to the essence of creating inclusive conditions in any workplace or society. In my development, I will also be sensitive to the way I establish such environments that do not just appreciate diversity, but also use it to realize shared objectives. This may create more creative, effective, and peaceful team relationships.

Psychology has an important role to play in enhancing civic, social, and global good that is beneficial to others. The movie demonstrates how the knowledge of the major psychological concepts, including intergroup conflict and prosocial behavior, could be used to deconstruct the biases and create cooperation. Using these principles, we could resolve such problems in society as prejudice, discrimination, and confrontation, and foster tolerance and cohesion. The lessons of Remember the Titans in professional and personal settings support the effectiveness of empathy, communication, and leadership in making professional and personal situations less biased and negatively inclined. Psychology allows us to strive towards a cohesive and peaceful society, in which people with different backgrounds can cooperate to achieve the good.

For the first assessment of this class visit: PSYC FPX 2520 Assessment 1