Lord of the Flies Psych Review

Lord of the Flies Psych Review

Upon starting this assignment I was first faced with picking the movies from which to write the reports on. Just as every junior high student did I had "read" Lord of the flies, so I naturally skipped the book and went straight to the movie. I thought it would be a fun, good example of psychology in film. Who said slacking never pays, without my complete lack of the desire to read, I never would have known about this movie or its relevance to psychology!

My psychological references lead me to Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. This comes up because the boys are on an unfamiliar island and all they have is the clothes on their backs. This means that on the island, there is nothing to fill any of their need. For the most part none of the kids even knew each other. This leads me to the first part of Maslow's findings. Which is that of the human needs stated by Maslow. You need to have physiological safety at the top. Every one of the boys filled this need first. Ralph was looking around checking things out when Piggy caught up to him. He was looking around to see if there was anything that would pose a threat to him. He was making sure that his safety came first.

Then to go on the second group of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. Which are belongingness or love and esteem. This is what came next in the movie after all the boys are all right they began to look for each other. Piggy was the first example illustrated in "Lord of the flies". As soon as he ran into Ralph he asked his name and tried to become friends with him. Piggy is trying to fit in with Ralph. He wants to belong. This is true of all the other kids on the island as well. Piggy and Ralph find a conch in the water on the island. A conch is a shell that in this case is white and can be blown in to make a loud noise similar to a trumpet. The conch was blown as a signal to let the other lost boys know where they were. This also refers to Maslow's first need, safety. This is demonstrated by the blowing of the conch. This would not have been done if the kids did not feel safe. If they were insecure about their safety, they would have kept quiet and out of the road. Where they would not have been found. In other words they would of hid. When the conch was blown the other kids came and they had a meeting. Everyone was there showing that they all wanted to belong. If they did not want to belong, they would have stayed off by themselves or not have joined in on the meeting. Not only that, but after the meeting started the boy decided to elect a leader of the group. This demonstrates that the feeling of belonging and love as pointed out on Maslow chart did happen with this group of boys. They would only need a leader if they were going to stay together and be a group.

The final category on Maslow's hierarchy of needs it self-actualization.