'Jenny: A Character Analysis Essay\r'

'INTRODUCTION\r\nThis paper is a two-part spirit analysis of jenny ass’s theatrical role in the movie Forrest Gump. jenny is the lead character’s puerility fri kibosh who, as a child, is sexually and physically misapplyd by her avow bring forth and, as a junior adult, gets into drug addiction and attempts suicide, and flattually succumbs to an earliest death, leaving behind Forrest and their only son.\r\n shargon I looks at jenny ass from the dooms of gaze of affectionate cognitive and Psychodynamic theories. division II is an in-depth analysis of jennet’s temper using Social Cognitive surmisal.\r\n \r\nSection I: grapheme Personality ground substance\r\nTheory\r\nMajor Comp integritynts\r\nStructure\r\n howevert\r\n step-up and Development\r\nPsychopathology\r\n limiting\r\n \r\nSocial Cognitive Theory\r\n \r\n jenny ass has a natural endowment in nonification but has slimy self-perception, offset self-efficacy and does non ache goals.\r\n \r\n jenny lacks self-regulation.\r\n \r\n \r\n jenny ass has a mal-adaptive constitution which is a consequence of her low self-efficacy. She could cod learned her anti- mixer or dysfunctional look (drug call, existence associated with anti- loving peers, and dangerous t obliterateencies, among otherwises) by dint of observation from molds as well as done direct bugger off. She was brought up by an abusive nonplus, she has witnessed aggression (she was present when Forrest was bullied by the kids at school) and, as a gr testify-up, been a direct recipient of an aggressive sort (she was smash in the face by her confrere in the ashen mountain lion party).\r\n \r\n \r\njennet’s maladaptive carriage is a topic of dysfunctional erudition †she has observed and straight apart go through unsatisfactory or ramble models (his father and his peers) †and well-kept this kind of erudition through livelihood. She manipulatems to scram a phobia in relationship, that’s why she keeps toyning from Forrest who whops her and whom she professes to love.\r\n \r\n jenny ass shows a remarkably altered look toward the end of the movie †the conduct of her acquiring naked as a jaybird thought patterns and behaviour, and improved self-efficacy.\r\nPsychodynamic Theory\r\njennet has a alter ego motived by an internal interlocking.\r\n jenny ass is suffering from worry caused by earlier trauma (her traumatic experience with her father, and even her experience of witnessing traumatic payoffs happen to Forrest). jenny is animateness in a distorted reality. She has learned to check her emotions. She whitethorn in addition be living in denial of her traumatic past.\r\n jenny ass’s maladaptive behavior from materialization adulthood and into adulthood ar mainly caused by her traumatic experiences when she was a two-year-old girl (that is, the physical and sexual abuse she received from her father ).\r\nJenny exhibits a conflict of wishes and misgivings. She has carried everyplace into adulthood her childhood wishes and dreams.\r\nJenny’s altered behavior toward the end of the movie whitethorn be the leave alone of under leaving cathartic hypnosis or free-association method.\r\n \r\nSection II: Application of Personality Theory\r\n \r\nTheory rendering and Rationale \r\nSocial cognitive scheme is a someoneality mathematicalness proposed by Albert Bandura and Richard Walters in 1963. Taking its root from the loving larn theory proposed by Neal Miller and tin can Dollard in 1941, it soak ups mint as â€Å"neither driven by inner(a) forces nor automatically rund and controlled by outer stimuli… [but are] active agents who exercise near influence everyplace their own motivating and actions,” (Bandura, 1986, p. 18, 225). It views the great unwashed as â€Å"self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting and self-regulating or else than as reactive organisms shaped and shepherded by surroundal forces or driven by concealed inner impulses,” and human carry outes as â€Å"the ware of a dynamic interplay of someoneal, behavioral, and purlieual influences,” (Fajares, 2002).\r\nWhat’s good slightly the theory is that it takes into account the several(prenominal)’s beliefs and expectations. It emphasizes that although reinforcement and punishment affect motivation, they do non directly cause behavior. According to the theory, the beliefs that nation meet virtually themselves are detailed in their response to situations.\r\n wad are both products and producers of their own environments and of their social systems, and, though they are influenced by their environment, their interpretations of their situations greatly shape their behavior. Humans, in the view of the theory, posses intricate capabilities that define what it is to be human. They can symbolize and gain meanings from symb ols, learn, self-regulate, and self-reflect, among other topics, and these capabilities foster them define their own personality (Fajares, 2002).\r\nAccording to the theory, modeling, which can be direct (from live models), symbolic (from books, movies, and television), or synthesized (combining the acts of different models), lies at the core of social cognitive theory. Modeling can cause untested behaviors, facilitate existing behaviors, budge over inhibitions, and arouse emotions (Pervin, 1989).\r\nThe choice of the social cognitive theory to analyze the character of Jenny in the movie, Forrest Gump is mainly due to the spring’s perception of the theory as the most comprehensive of all the personality theories, and hence, the most fitting to analyze the character in examination. The theory takes into consideration factors that behavioral and cognitive theories dismiss. It can to a fault all the musical mode explain things that the other theories cannot explain, as i t does not give way as many limitations as the other personality theories.\r\nCharacter Description\r\nFrom the view of the social cognitive theory, Jenny is a talented woman, but has poor self-perception and low self-efficacy. This means that she most likely thinks of herself as unequal to(p) of coping with situations. Likewise, Jenny has poor self-regulation and is without goals. This means that she does not look at a guide that will help her to contribute her priorities, and is much(prenominal) likely incap able of regulating her own behavior. Having directly experienced physical and sexual abuse from her father as a child, and having lived in an environment that tolerates maladaptive behavior as a untested adult, Jenny eventually exhibited maladaptive behavior herself as a result of the interplay of her environment and her poor self-perception, self-efficacy and self-regulation. It is alike a result of her dysfunctional self-conception and expectations.\r\nTowards the e nd of the movie, we square up an altered Jenny. She is more mature in appearance and in the way she carries herself. She is shown playacting a normal job (a waitress) and finds it easier to stomach words to Forrest about why she keeps running out from him. From the point of view of the social cognitive theory, this improvement in her behavior is a result of an improved self-efficacy and the acquisition of untried thought pattern and behavior.\r\nFrom the point of view of the psychodynamic theory, Jenny may be exposit as one who has a weakened ego due to her internal conflicts, which is brought about by her traumatic experiences in the hands of her father when she was a child. She has carried into adulthood the memories of the traumatic experiences of her childhood, albeit in a repressed manner.\r\nShe may not be conscious of the inherent problems in her personality, but it is shown in the way she keeps running apart from Forrest whom she says she loves, and as manifested by her involvements with drugs and her having suicidal tendencies, among others. The altered Jenny that we impose in the movie may dumbfound been the result of undergoing cathartic hypnosis or free-association method. She could earn finally discovered and resolved her inner conflicts and set free her repressed memories.\r\nCharacter analysis \r\nStructure\r\n \r\nThe character of Jenny in the movie has a talent in singing. In fact, her dream is to become a professional singer. As a young kid, Jenny showed force to consort with another person on a personal level; she and Forrest taught each other several(prenominal) tricks. She also showed the ability to upgrade others to overcome their fears; she urged Forrest to climb tree, shouting, â€Å"Come on Forrest, you can do it!” from the tree top.\r\nHowever, even as a kid, she already seemed to vex escapist tendencies: she is seen running away from her father, and praying to beau ideal: â€Å"Dear God, make me a bird, so I can run utmost, far away from here” (Tishe, Finerman, & Zemeckis, 1994). She also urges Forrest to run away and to run immediate whenever she sees her friend being bullied. She shouts: â€Å"Run Forrest, run!” Many years later, when Forrest was assigned to Vietnam, she would rede him not to try to be defy but to run away from trouble, fast.\r\n barely while her friend’s Forrest’s runs are in the real(a) sense, Jenny’s is both in the literal and in the figurative senses. She did a slew of running, but not away from trouble, but towards it, and away from the person she loves †Forrest.\r\nViewed from the structure of her personality through the lens of social cognitive theory, Jenny appears to subscribe to poor self-perception, as manifested when, as an answer to Forrest’s question as to why she wouldn’tt connect him, she says it is Forrest who would not want to unify her (implying that Forrest deserves soulfulness bet ter than her) and, again, when she gives Forrest her being screwed up as the reason for her running away from him. She tells him when she explained for the archetypal sentence why she kept going out of his sight: â€Å"I was bonny messed up” (Tishe, Finerman, & Zemeckis, 1994).\r\nJenny likewise has a poor self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1986) in Pajares (2002), self efficacy is the perceived ability to cope with specific situations. It is the people’s â€Å"judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action ask to attain designated types of performances.” Having a poor self-efficacy hindered Jenny from achieving her dream of becoming a far-famed singer because self-efficacy is the very basis of motivation.\r\nPeople with poor efficacy tend to quash activities that they perceive to be beyond their capabilities, may not put much apparent movement to touch their dreams, may not suffer when there are obstacles, may necessit ate disconfirming thought patterns while execute the tasks ask to be done to achieve their dreams and may give up negative stimulated reactions while anticipating an event, or in the mettle performing a task. Hence, she always finds herself wanting(p) to fly but couldn’t.\r\nFinally, though Jenny had dreams of a good future, she did not find goals. According to the social cognitive theory, goals are those that â€Å"guide us in establishing priorities among rewards and in selecting among situations that enable us to go beyond momentary influences and to organize our behavior over extended percentage point of time,” (Pervin, 1989, p.338). Jenny failed to establish her priorities and overcome the bad influences in her sustenance and to have an organized behavior over a period of time. Hence, since attending an all-girl school, she has been snarly in maladaptive behavior, such as getting into drugs, being with bad crowds, having suicidal tendencies, as well as having relationship phobia, among others.\r\nProcess\r\nAs a young kid, Jenny had been exposed to and directly experienced aggressive behavior from his father, and from the bullies who mistreated Forrest in her presence. And while attending an all-girl school, she might have had negative influences from peers, and these negative influences may have been accepted in her new environment. Having been introduced to an environment that gave domineering rewards to bad behavior by means of acceptance, Jenny eventually off out doing the model behavior.\r\nBut more than just having been thrown in an environment that accepts negative behavior, the more important thing that could have contributed to Jenny’s maladaptive behavior is her lack of the ability to self-regulate. Self-regulation involves an individual’s ability to control their behavior rather than mechanically reacting to external influences (Pervin, 1989). If Jenny was able to self-regulate, meaning, she was able to process the influences modeled to her such that she was able to assign which behavior was socially acceptable, and which behavior was not, she could have prevented herself from succumbing to the negative influences modeled to her.\r\nAccording to the social cognitive theory, behavior is maintained by expectancies or anticipated consequences. Individuals learn to set eliminate goals for themselves, and reward themselves with self-praise, when they are able to model the behavior and with guilt when they fail to. Moreover, behavior is not exclusively regulated by external forces; there is a process of self-reinforcement through which individuals reward themselves for attaining the standards they set for themselves (Pervin, 1989). Jenny, who does not have goals in the first place, as mentioned in the structure section of this paper, also does not seem capable of self-regulating.\r\nGrowth and Development\r\nAs a result of her low self-efficacy, Jenny has developed a maladaptive person ality which she learned through observation from models as well as through direct experience, having been brought up by a physically and sexually abusive father, and having witnessed and directly experienced aggression exterior of the home; she was present when Forrest was bullied by the kids at school and, as a grown-up, been hit in the face by her boyfriend during an argument in a Blank Panther party.\r\nJenny seems not to have become an aggressive person, but she developed maladaptive behavior. Her aversive experiences drove her to use drugs, develop phobia of relationship, and to attempt or contemplate suicide.\r\nPsychopathology\r\nJenny’s maladaptive behavior is a result of dysfunctional learning â€she has observed and directly experienced inadequate or sick models (his father and his peers) and maintained this kind of learning through reinforcement. Her exposure to and direct experience of inadequate models may have resulted in dysfunctional expectancies and self-p erceptions. Her running away from Forrest who loves her and whom she professes to love may be indicative of a relationship phobia. It may be possible that she is reminded of her smartful past which she might be trying to run away from whenever she is with Forrest. Or maybe she has developed fear of pain †fear of being ridiculed when with Forrest perhaps, or fear of the ghost of her indescribable past.\r\nAccording to the social cognitive theory, dysfunctional expectations and self conceptions have a great role in the learning of overt behavior, such that people learn, erroneously, to expect painful things to follow some events or to associate pain with an event (Pervin, 1986). In Jenny’s case, her evolution a relationship phobia (with Forrest) may be caused by associating pain with being with Forrest, or expecting pain to happen by being with Forrest for a long period of time. Her incessant impulse to stay away from Forrest after brief encounters with him may be a def ensive behavior to trip out the pain she expects to experience or painful events she expects to happen when she is with Forrest.\r\nChange\r\nToward the end of the movie, we see a new Jenny. She no long exhibits maladaptive behavior, no longer runs away from Forrest, and is now able to confess her feelings.\r\nIn the view of social cognitive theory, change in behavior happens when there is qualifying in the level of and strength in self-efficacy. As the level of self-efficacy increases, a person’s behavior tends to change toward positive behavior (Pervin, 1989).\r\nAt some point in her life (while Forrest was running crosswise America), Jenny mustiness have had acquired new thought patterns and behavior, and improved self-efficacy. This change in Jenny might have been brought about in part by ontogenesis and her becoming a mother, but in the main by having new influences to model from. During that time in her life when change started to develop, she could have met new f riends who modeled to her good behavior, in an environment that accepts that kind of behavior. She might have had systematic desensitization of her phobia; thus, in the end she is not only able to go back to the man she loves and with whom she has a child, but also ask him to marry her.\r\nInternal and External Factors\r\nJenny’s personality is both a product of internal and external factors. Among the external factors that greatly influenced her personality include her father and the abuses he inflicted upon her; her aunt who took care of her when she was taken from her father; her peers in school and the people she came in contact with throughout her life; Forrest himself and the companionship they shared together since they were young children; and the events in the society they were born into. Compared with Forrest, Jenny is more involved with the events that shaped their country. The internal factors, on the other hand, include her thoughts about, feelings toward and pe rceptions of the people that she came in contact with and of the events that took place around her. Together, the external and internal factors have defined the person that is Jenny.\r\nConclusion\r\n Overall, when seen from the perspective of the social learning theory, Jenny comes out as a person who was not only screwed up by the environment but also by her inability to process her chance in a manner that could have enabled her to prevail over the sad events in her life.\r\n Jenny’s greatest doing is that she eventually prevailed over her maladaptive behavior toward the end of the movie. This change, from the point of view of social cognitive theory, is not impossible. All she needed is someone to model from †someone who has had exchangeable circumstances like hers, but is behaving differently. She must have had at least one such model.\r\n \r\nReferences\r\nAlbert Bandura biographical sketch. (n.d.) Retrieved January 26, 2008 from Emory University, Di vision of educational Studies Website: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/bandurabio.html\r\nBandura, Albert. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: New assimilator Hall.\r\nBoeree, George C. (2006). Albert Bandura. Retrieved January 28, 2008 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/bandura.html\r\n \r\nPajares, Frank. (2002). Overview of social cognitive theory and of self-efficacy. Retrieved January 25, 2008 from http://www.emory.edu/ command/mfp/eff.html\r\nPervin, Lawrence A. (1989). Personality theory and research. US: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.\r\nSocial cognitive burn down to personality: Albert Bandura. (2001, February 26). Retrieved, January 26, 2008 from http://condor.admin.ccny.cuny.edu/~hhartman/SOCIAL%20COGNITIVE%20APPROACH%20TO%20PERSONALITY%20ALBERT%20BANDURA%20\r\n(1925).htm\r\nSocial cognitive theory. (n.d.) Retrieved January 26, 2008 from http://www.infosihat.gov.my/Artikel%20HP/Social%20Cognitive%20Theory.doc\ r\nSocial cognitive theory. (2004). Retrieved January 26, 2008 from the University of Twente Website: http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Health%20Communication/Social_cognitive_theory.doc/\r\nSocial Cognitive Theory. (n.d.) Retrieved January 26, 2008 from University of Wisconsin-Milwauke Website: http://www.uwm.edu/~vince/psy407/wwwcourse.407.lec20.soccog.handout.htm\r\n \r\nThe psychodynamic theory. (n.d.) Retried January 26, 2008 from Ryerson University Website: http://www.ryerson.ca/~glassman/psychdyn.html\r\nTishe, S. & Finerman W. (Producer) & Zemeckis, R. (Director). (1994). Forrest Gump [Motion picture]. United States: predominant Pictures.\r\n \r\n'