Personality Approaches In

In the film Crash, the behaviorist psychological perspective of personality, is demonstrated throughout. Personality by definition can be defined as the distinctive and characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behavior that make up an individual's personal style of interacting with the physical and social environment. Psychologists first seek to reduce the potential set of trait terms to a manageable set. Next, they attempt to ensure that their instruments for measuring personality traits are reliable and valid. Finally, empirical research is done to discover the relationship among traits and between traits and specific behaviors. This formal method for describing and measuring personality made it easier to identify the personality and the behavior of the characters in Crash.

In the study of personalities there are three types of psychological perspectives. The Freudian perspective is guided in the basic premise of psychoanalytic theory, what we think and do is driven by unconscious processes. Many psychologists do not follow this approach because he failed to explain the presence of common images or archetypes in the unconscious minds of all humans. Another perspective is the humanistic approach which involves the experiencing person is of primary interest, self actualization is the preferred topics of investigation, meaningfulness must precede objectivity in the selection of research problems and ultimate value is placed on the dignity of the person. Finally the Behaviorist approach emphasizes the importance of environmental or situational determinants of behavior. These psychological perspectives reflect the depth of understand necessary to understand the complexities of the human personality. In the film Crash, I found examples of both humanistic and behaviorist perspectives throughout.

In the film Crash, The characters are racially prejudiced in some way and become involved in conflicts which force them to examine their own prejudices, through interactions with other characters. The film also exhibits the racial tension as well as the distance between strangers in America (Wikipedia). The film demonstrates a lot of examples of the behaviorist approach as well as the humanistic approach.

The characters in this film exhibit the behaviors categorized by the humanistic approach. Jean Cabot, the wife of the district attorney displayed the concept of self concepts. She denied the fact that she was racist, the more