In this Psychology reflection paper, I am going to discuss the movie The curious case of Benjamin button released in 2007 and apply three psychology theories on the selected scenes.

In this Psychology reflection paper, I am going to discuss the movie “The curious case of Benjamin button” released in 2007 and apply three psychology theories on the selected scenes. This movie is about the life of an unusual man called Benjamin. He has an opposite life than everybody else’s. He aged in reverse, born as an old man and get younger every day. His mother died after giving birth, and then his father abandoned Benjamin because of his appearance. He was raised in a nurse house by a woman named Queenie and lived with those real elderly. He met his love in his life there, Daisy, who was a little girl at that time. He became a tugboat worker at 17 as he wanted to see the world. Until Benjamin and Daisy caught each other age, they fell in love and lived in a duplex together. However, after Daisy gave birth to his baby, he decided to leave her because he didn’t want to be Daisy’s burden, and started travelling around the world. In Benjamin’s last days, Daisy moved in with him until he passed away as baby. Although Benjamin has an old face when he was young, and grew younger and younger physically every day, he had a psychological development like normal people.

There are three psychology theories can be applied in scenes in this movie. They are Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development, Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, and long term memory.

First, in the first twenty minutes, there is a scene showing old (little) Benjamin was sitting in the dining room which was full of old people, he narrated that he didn’t realize he was a child at that time, he thought he was like everyone else, at the same time showing that he was banging a fork so as to listen the sound from banging it. Sensorimotor stage of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development can be applied to the above scene. In general, Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of one’s world through the interaction and influence of genetic and learned factors (Lee, 2011). There are four stages, including sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. Sensorimotor stage is the first stage of the cognitive development, it lasts from birth to two years old. Their behaviors are narrowed to simple motor responses from sensory stimuli. Infants respond to the things they see and hear (Kalat, 2008). Also, infants use their eyes, ears, hands, and mouth to act on the world (Phung, 2011). In other words, they use skills that they were born with, like using five senses, to know more about the environment. As Benjamin was banging a fork instead of using it to eat food, it means he may not know how to use the fork, instead, he treated the fork as a toy. Infants are curious to things surrounded them in this stage and they use five senses to know more about them, for example, they put things in their mouth in order to taste them. In this scene, Benjamin used one of his five senses, hearing, to listen the sound from banding the fork. This action show that Benjamin was in sensorimotor stage of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development. Another scene which is also in the first twenty minutes shows Benjamin was in preoperational stage in Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development. In that scene, Benjamin was sitting in the kitchen, he picked up a can and tried to pronounce the word “molasses”, but he said it wrongly, so Tizzy, Queenie’s longtime companion, taught him how to pronounce “molasses” by saying the word with correct pronunciation, then Benjamin followed Tizzy’s pronunciation. It showed that Benjamin was learning to read and pronounce words. This is what person in preoperational stage would do. In preoperational stage, children start to develop their language ability in this stage. It lasts from ages 2 to 6. Children in this stage do not have operations, which are reversible mental processes (Kalat, 2008). Also, children are not able to understand concrete logic in this stage, and they have egocentric thought, which is called Egocentrism (Kalat, 2008). Since Benjamin was learning to read the word from the can, it reflected he was in preoperational stage which language development took place. In this stage, children start to learn how to say words and complete sentences, so as to communicate with others.
Second, in the scene which is in the later part of the movie, Benjamin was around 20 years old at

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that time, he was working with his tugboat crew in Russia. He met an English married woman named Elizabeth Abbot in a hotel in Russia. She stayed there because of her husband’s job. He started to develop an affair with this woman and this kind of relationship had lasted for several months. It can be applied to Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, it states the effects on different social experience in the whole life. There are 7 stages from infancy to maturity, indicating different conflicts in different periods. This scene reflected stage 6 of this theory, which the psychological conflict is intimacy versus isolation. It is the capacity to commit to others versus feelings of aloneness and separation (Lee, 2011). It happens in the early adulthood, between ages 19 to 40. In this stage, the important event is forming relationships. People try to have some degree of intimacy instead of being isolated. In this scene, he was forming intimate relationship with Elizabeth as he was exploring relationships with others. It is certain that people in this stage want intimacy. If one’s failed to form a relationship in this stage, it will result loneliness and isolation. Refer to the scene, Benjamin was successfully formed relationship with others in this stage. Furthermore, there is a scene showing stage 7 of this theory. In that scene, Benjamin narrated that he had sold his properties and gave the money to Daisy and his daughter, and he left the family without noticing Daisy and went to India. In the letter wrote to his daughter, he said “For what it's worth, it's never too late, or in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There is no time limit, start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing.” It represented he wanted to achieve his dreams regardless the situation he was in, this was one of the reasons he chose to leave them and went to India. People in middle adulthood stage want to expand personal and social involvement and responsibility (Lee, 2011). The major psychological conflict is generativity versus stagnation. They may have struggle in achieving some unrealistic goals which were set when they were young. Some of them may abandon this idea and live in the life they have chosen with, while some may want to achieve their dreams so they made major changes in their lives, just like Benjamin, in addition to the reason that he did not want to be a burden of Daisy as he will grow younger and younger physically, he wanted to achieve some of his dreams before it is too late, so he made this major change in his life, leaving his family. Therefore, the scene reflected he was in middle adulthood which is stage 7 of this theory.

Third, in the scene which is in the later of the movie, young (old) Benjamin was playing piano, and Daisy came to visit him, Daisy asked whether he remembered her, but he did not remember her, and the staff of nursing house told Daisy that he had signs of dementia. However, he still managed to play the melody which he learnt from Mrs. Maple in the nurse house when he was old (young). It showed that he could use his long term memory in this scene. Long-term memory is the process of storing information over long periods of time (Lee, 2011). Long-term memory can be divided into two types - declarative memory and procedural memory. In this scene, Benjamin demonstrated to use procedural memory. Procedural memory is a type of long-term memory of how to do different skills. Cooking and playing sports are examples. It starts to form in the earlier stage of one’s life. Though Benjamin failed to recall many things happened in his life, including Daisy, he could still remember how to play piano. It reflected that the skill of playing piano had become his long term memory and he could use it despite the fact that he was having Dementia, which is some brain functions are lost thus affecting memory.

There are several psychological theories can be quoted from the movie “The curious case of Benjamin button”, including the aforementioned theories, sensorimotor stage and preoperational stage of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development and early adulthood stage and middle adulthood stage in Erikson's stages of psychosocial development. Besides, long term memory can be applied to Benjamin in this movie.

Bibliography

Lee, J. (2011). Human Development DSS10401 [Lecture notes]. Hong Kong: Community College of City University, Department of Social Studies.

Lee, J. (2011). Memory DSS10401 [Lecture notes]. Hong Kong: Community College of City University, Department of Social Studies.

Phung, A. (2011). The Psychology of Human Development DSS10401 [Lecture notes]. Hong Kong: Community College of City University, Department of Social Studies.

Kalat, J. W. (2008). Introduction to psychology (8th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson higher education.