Hunt For The Wilderpeople

           Majority of the culture in the past did practice patriarchal where males are dominating in the society and in the family.  However, in the modern days, there are still many cultures that practice it.  This traditional role of male is being restricted as there are many “traditional masculine” men who currently experiencing a syndrome which named “Normative Male Alexithymia” especially for the male who come from collectivistic and patriarchal culture. 

            

           Normative Male Alexithymia is a disease that happen on male when they are having difficulty in articulating their inner feelings especially the feelings like hurt or vulnerability.  In short, it is a term that describe that when someone has a lot of difficulty in translating their emotional experience into words.  This symptom can be shown in the movie by the little boy (Ricky Baker) and the father (Hec) as they are unable to demonstrate their feeling of love and care for one and another especially after the death of the mother (Bella).  This phenomenon occurs can be explained by the traditional masculine role socialization which channels male into ways that being masculine male who want to portray masculinity identity will have conflict with their emotions they feel.  This is because their masculinity does not allowed them to expressed the feeling and they may perceived this kind of feeling as feminine and will decreased their masculinity in front of the society. 

For example, Hec is worried about Ricky when he found out that he had run away from home in the midnight and on the way of finding Ricky, he accidentally injures his leg.  This shows that Hec is a person who cared about Ricky but he did not know how to express it out instead he showed it through his action by telling Ricky that he actually is cared for him.  On the other hand, Ricky fakes his suicide by burning a barn and run away from home just to avoid to be sent back to the orphanage after the death of Bella as he is in love with this family and did not want to leave anymore.  This showed that Ricky is cared and love about the family but he did not know how to expressed it as there are no one there to guide him and teach him since young. 

           

            Being unable to expressed their inner feeling will causes the relationship to be difficult as it is the key variable in guiding the successful relationships.  If the need is not being met, the partner may had the feeling that they are being unknown and valued by the others.  If either one of the individual in the relationship cannot put into words their feelings about not being known and valued, but instead hides, defends, or deflects such feelings, then the chances of disharmony and vicious relational cycles are greatly increased and it even get worsen if both parties also unable to express it. 

           

           In conclusion, the relationship will only be improved if and only if both parties understand the meaning behind the action is the meaning of love and cared.  However, this understanding takes a longer period and in the meantimes there might be a lot of difficulties that may lead to many conflicts before both parties understand it.  Thus, the simplest way in improving the relationship is to speak it out the inner feelings to let the other parties know the reason behind it as it can cut short all the time and avoid the conflict to be occur.  

Grace Is Gone

          

            Grace is gone is a movie that talks about a father and two children in dealing with losing their wife and mother by putting off the pain of grief by starting a new journey of life.  In this movie, it showed that how the army’s family deal with their family member who had died in the world by protecting the country.

Summary
            Stanley Philips is a middle-aged retired army officer who care for his two daughters, Heidi (12 years old) and Dawn (8 years old), while his wife Grace who also an army officer serves in Iraq.  In one afternoon, two army officers visit his home and inform him that Grace had passed away in a combat.  He planned to tell the daughters about their mother’s death; however, he is unable to speak out the truth.  After which, he decided to take the girls to the Enchanted Gardens, a theme park in Florida that the girls have been wanting to visit for some time.
            The whole story revolve on how Stanley are experiencing in grief process and at the same time need to pretend that nothing had happen in front of the girls.  Stanley wanted to tell the truth by not causing any further damage to the girls.

Kübler-Ross model
            Grief affects everyone differently.  Some embrace it in an orgy of tears.  Others keep it contained within like some wild beast that must be controlled.  Still others seek to ignore it, perhaps not realizing that it is tireless and relentless and will catch up to its quarry eventually.  In Kübler-Ross model, there are 5 stages of grief and loss.

1) Denial and isolation.
            In this stage, grieving people are unable or unwilling to accept that the loss has taken place.  They may believe that they are just experiencing a bad dream and the loss is unreal and they believe that everything will be fine once they “wake up”.  In this stage, they will deny the truth and it is the a defence mechanism that buffers them from the loss.  They will block out words and hide themselves from the fact.  This is a temporary response that carries people through the first wave of pain.
For example, Stanley did not admit that Grace had passed away as he at first stunted when received the news of his wife dead and did not allowed his girls to eat the foods that are left by the kind neighbour after they knew on the unfortunate event of Grace. When Heidi knew about her mother’s news, she thought that this is a joke told by his father. 

2) Anger
            After people, have passed through denial and accepted that the loss has occurred, the pain re-emerge.  The intense emotion is redirected and expressed instead as anger.  The anger may aim towards at inanimate objects, complete strangers, friends or family.  Anger may also can be divert to the person who has been lost.  Rationally, they know the person is not to be blamed.  Emotionally, they feel anger at the loss and the unfairness of it as the person cause us in pain for leaving us.  Feelings of abandonment may also occur.   
For example, Stanley are angry in scolding Heidi and Dawn for eating the food and pushing them out of the house.  Heidi was also beat his dad after she realize that it was not a joke and she blame everyone that letting her to experience it. 

3)      Bargaining
            In this stage, people beg their “higher power” to undo the loss by making a deal in any attempt to postpone the inevitable.  This is a weaker line of defence to protect us from the painful reality by involving promises of better behaviour or significant life changes will be made in order to exchange for the reversal of the loss. 

4)      Depression
             In this stage, people confront the inevitability and reality of the loss and their own helplessness to change it.  In this period grieving people may cry, experience sleep or eating habit changes, or withdraw from other relationships and activities while they process the loss they have sustained.  People may also blame themselves for having caused or in some way contributed to their loss, whether or not this is justified.
There are two types of depression are associated with mourning.  The first one is a reaction to practical implications relate to the loss.  Sadness and regret predominate this type of depression.  We worry about the costs and burial and, in our grief, we have spent less time with others that depend on us.  The phase may be eased with just simple clarification and reassurance.  Grieving people may need a bit of helpful cooperation and a few kinds of words to overcome this stage.  The second type of depression is more subtle and private.  It is a quiet process of preparation to separate and farewell our loved one.  Sometimes all the grieving people may be really need is just a hug.
For example, Stanley, Heidi and Dawn hug each others in the beach after Stanley had told both Heidi and Dawn about their mother death.  By hugging, they feel that they are helping and have one and another that can support them to pass through this stage. 

5)      Acceptance
             Finally, people entered the last stage of grieving process which is acceptance.  At this stage, they have processed their initial grief emotions and are be able to accept that the loss has occurred and cannot be undone, and are once again bounce back to their normal daily life and ready to be able to plan for their futures.
Reaching this stage of mourning is a gift not afforded by everyone.  Death may be sudden and unexpected as grieving people never see beyond own anger or denial.  However, it is different from the loved one who are diagnosed with terminal ill diseases.  In such situation, family and also the patient may be aware on their own impending death and the physical decline may be sufficient to produce a similar response.  Their behaviour implies that it is natural to reach a stage at which social interaction is limited.  The dignity and grace shown by our dying loved ones may well be the last gift of the patient to the family members.  In this phase, it is marked by withdrawal and calm.  This is not a period of happiness and must be distinguished from depression.
For example, Stanley, Heidi and Dawn attending on the Grace’s funeral may indicate that they have accept the Grace death.  In the end of the movie, Heidi was given a speech in her mother’s funeral did showed that she had accept the fact and will move on their life and left her mother in their memory. 

Contrast       
              Death and its aftermath is such a painful and disorienting time. I understand why people — both the griever and those witnessing grief — want some kind of clearly stated road map, a clearly delineated set of steps or stages that will guarantee a successful end to the pain of grief. The truth is, grief is as individual as love: every life, every path, is unique. There is no predictable pattern, and no linear progression. Despite what many “experts” say, there are no stages of grief.
Ms. Ross, the author of the grief process identified this five common experiences, not five required experiences. Her stages, whether applied to the dying or those left living, were meant to normalize and validate what someone might experience in the swirl of insanity that is loss and death and grief.  The  purpose of the stages of grief were not meant to tell you what you actually will feel, what you should feel, and when exactly you should feel it. They were not meant to dictate whether you are doing your grief “correctly” or not. They were meant to normalize a deeply not-normal time. They were meant to give comfort. This process of grief was meant as a kindness, not a cage that restricted on what others feel.  

             There is no set pattern, not for everyone and not even within each person. Each grief is unique, as each love is unique. There are no stages capable of containing all the experiences of love and pain. There are no stages of grief. Aside from just being anger, fear, peace, joy, guilt, confusion, and a range of other things might also have occurred. You will flash back and forth through many feelings, often several of them at once.  Sometimes people will be tired of grief and will wanted to turn away. They will also turn back and forth as grief has a rhythm of its own.  Your love, and your grief, are bigger than any stage could ever be.  People who had experience bigger grief, they are more likely not just in experiencing the common five stages and maybe more than that. 

Conclusion
              In a conclusion, people spend different lengths of time working through each step and express each stage with different levels of intensity.  The five stages of loss do not necessarily occur in any specific order.  We often move between stages before achieving a more peaceful acceptance of death.  Many people are not afforded to have the luxury time to reach this final stage of grief. 
The death of loved one might inspired us to evaluate our own feelings of mortality.  Throughout each stage, a common thread of hope emerges.  I believe that as long as there is life, there is hope and as long as there is hope, there is life.  It is normal that people did not experience all the stages of grief.  I believe this is because that this stage of grief model is just a form of reference that not everyone must go through every one of them as it is just helping people in gaining more understanding and know on how to place themselves into the right context. 

            This also reminds me on my close blood related who had passed away recently.  Although I am not really closed with my grandfather as I am not staying with him; however, I did feel sad when I am being forced to face the truth.  I did experience in depression and acceptance and did not experience the others as my grandfather had been diagnosed in terminally ill for a period of time and we did prepare it both mentally and physically; however, I am still shocked when I knew that he had passed away out of the sudden.  My experience supports with the argument that experts had concluded as each of us have different way in overcoming grief as it is a unique process. So, do Stanley in the movie.  We need to remember that there is no “closure.” Grief is part of love, and love evolves. Even acceptance is not final: It continuously shifts and changes. The only way to contain it is to let it be free.  

Experimenter

Introduction

In film industry, movie that usually involve psychology are usually the typical cases like counselling or criminal psychology.  There is seldom any much movie that talks about conducting research as a researcher in psychology field.  Experimenter  is the movie that talks about the obedience research that conducted by Stanley Milgram.  

Summary

The film is based on the true story of the famous social psychologist Stanley Milgram who had conducted a series of radical behaviour experiments in the University.  The purpose of the experiment is to investigate the willingness of human to obey an authority figure to administer electric shocks to the strangers. The movie are separated into two parts.  In the first half of film, it showed the audience on how Milgram had conducted his experiments and how he meets Sasha, who will become his wife in the later part of the movie. The second parts of the movie portrayed the struggles with the public perceptions about the ethics of the experiments by Milgram.  Fortunately, he pushed through it and move forwards in his life to become a professor in New York City and continue his research in social interactions and social pressure in a more real-life experiment settings.  

Obedience

Not to forget the most known experiment that had done by Milgram will be the obedience experiment.  It is a well-established concept in social psychology that almost appeared in every introductory textbook of psychology.  In this movie, Milgram had concluded that up to all the participants continued to obey the instructions given by the authority up to 300 volts and surprisingly there are 65% of the participants obey the instructions given by the authority in proceed to give the electric shocks up to 450 volts.  It showed that people who are ordinarily like you and I are more likely to obey the orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.  Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the wall we are brought up since young.  This is because people tends to obey the orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right.  This response to legitimate authority is learned in various situations, such as, family, school and workplace.  

Milgram’s Agency Theory

Milgram explained the behaviour of his participants by suggesting that people actually have two states of behaviour when they are in a social situation:

l The autonomous state - People direct their own of actions and take up the responsibility for causing the results of those actions.

l The agentic state - People allow others to direct their actions and pass off the responsibility for the final outcome to the person who gave the orders.  This situation also known as the participants act as the agent for another person’s will.  

       In short, Milgram suggested two things that must be place in order for a person to enter the agentic state would be the person who are giving order is perceived as someone as being qualified to direct other people’s behaviour where they are seen as legitimate and also the person being ordered believed that the authority will take the responsibility for what had happened.  

Agency theory state that people will obey an authority when they tend to believe the authority will take the responsibility for the consequences for their actions.  As when participants were reminded that they had the responsibility for their action, there are almost none of them continued the experiment, and when the experimenter told the participants that ;he would take responsibility, participants who are refused to go on resume back to experiment and go on with it.

Contrast

Although Milgram’s study found such a significant result in showing the obedience in society.  However, there are a lot of controversial issues that had shown in this study as portrayed in the movie.  Deception, rights to protect participants and right to withdraw are the three main elements that causes the issues in this study.  

Milgram’s study make the participants actually believed that they were shocking a real person.  However, Milgram believes that this deception is necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths.  I also tends to believe that this deception is necessary as by disclosing the actual nature of the study may result in inaccuracy of the result.  I believed that as long as the experimenter or researcher did debrief the actual nature of the experiment at the end of the experiment and provide help that are reachable to the participants if they felt depressed and deceit.  In this movie, Milgram also interviewed participants in the post-experiment to find out the effect of the deception.  He concluded that there are majority of participants said that they are glad to be in the experiment and only a few minority said that they wished they had not been involved in it.  

In this study, participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may have the potential in causing psychological harm and many of the participants seems to be very distressed in the experiment.  There are many signs of tension included trembling, sweating, stuttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails into palms of hands are being shown in the participants.  However, Milgram argued that these effects were only short term as their stress level decreased when they are debrief.  As mentioned in the paragraph above, I tend to agree on Milgram’s point of view as these it was unavoidable to have these effects during the experiment but by providing sufficient information like counselling service and debriefing statement may help the participants to deal with the psychological distress that they had experienced.  Milgram also conducted a followed up study on the sample of participants a year later and he found that there were no longer any signs of long term psychological harm.  

Another main elements that are controversial in this study is the right to withdraw from the study.  The ethic review board states that experimenter or researcher should make plain explanation of their rights to free to withdraw from the study at any time that they wished.  Although it is seems difficult to practice it in this study as this study was about obedience, however, Milgram state that withdraw are still possible as there are 35% of the participants withdraw from it. I tends to believe that withdrawal from the study are not restricted only during the experiment but also after the experiment.  It is the right of participants in choosing whether are they comfort for the researcher to use the data in analysing the result.  

Dark Side of Human Nature

In this study, there are also participants who are unwilling to accept the truth that they obey the instructions and provide the electric shocks to the another person.  They are unable to accept this fact that they have the evils side in their body after they know the true nature of the study.  I believe that this is commonly found in the people as everyone tends to have the stereotyped about themselves that they are neither an angel or a devil.  However, in this experiment, it proved that they are wrong and mostly of the people continued the experiment although that the high voltage of electric shocks may result in harm to another person.  As a result, participants who are unwilling to accept the truth may start to blame the experimenter and the researcher to avoid any distress.  This situation can be further explained by using Fundamental Attributional Error (FAE).   In this theory, it stated that people tends to make the good judgment on themselves and bad judgment on the opposition.  People may tends to blame on the environment or other people that lead to this consequences.  This is portrayed in the movie when they are some participants blame on Milgram for conducting this study.  Although I believed that they might understand the reason and the situation well, however, it seems to be quite difficult for them to admit it.  

Conclusion

         In a conclusion, the purpose of the study is to investigate on how obedience could work in different factors that can influence in it and how far that obedience can drive people.  It is not the experiment to demonstrate the dark side nature of human beings.  Aside from that, I had came across a short video in promoting stop smoking campaign that talks about the children came to the passerby who are smoking to borrow the lighter to smoke but all the people including teenagers, working adults and parents refused to lend it to the child.  Some of them even explained the consequences of smoking to the child and persuade the child not to smoke.  Surprisingly, it seems like the smoker understand the cons of smoking and did not encourage people in smoking but why are they still continue in smoking despite they know the consequence.  I am always curious on what is the reason behind that keep the smoker in smoking and would also like to know how effective of persuasion is so powerful in helping to sending this message to the public.  

Amadeus

Amadeus is a fictionalized biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  The whole movie is focused on two main character who are Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Mozart.  Antonio Salieri who used to be the famous Italian composer in his country and was very popular in his country until the arrival of Mozart.  Mozart being a genius in composing a lot of well-known music and his success being a composer later become the obstacle for Salieri in his career life. This jealousy soon later drives him to have a plan to kills Mozart and to pass off a Requiem, which he had secretly commissioned from Mozart as his own, to be premiered at Mozart’s funeral.  

The whole story reminds me one three messages.  The first one is an idioms from Chinese that state that intelligent people like intelligence in others,and so good folk recognize the good in others.  This means that people who are same kind or have similar standard will tend to appreciate one and another capabilities as they seems themselves are outstanding from the norm.  For example, both Mozart and Salieri appreciate one and another talents and always seek help from one and another when they face problems.  Although in the movie, Salieri was jealous on the born talent that Mozart had, but he still admired and give recognition on Mozart’s piece of work.  There is even time when the other would not understand Mozart’s work, Salieri understand it and would try to explain it to himself.  Others than that, Salieri also attend all the stage play that conduct by Mozart as he believe that Mozart’s piece of work is the best.  Mozart being a genius in the field also appreciate Salieri and always seek help from him when he faced difficulty in writing a good stage play.  He believed on himself that he is the best composer but he will not denied that Salieri had the talent in him as well.  

Aside from that, the movie also portrayed another important element which is a great man cannot brook a rival.  This states that there is unlikely that there are two strongest person staying in a field together.  This is being portrayed in the movie when Salieri started his planning to kill Mozart as he believe that Mozart will take over his place soon if he continue to grow and he will become the history.  Usually when Greek meets Greek then comes the tug-of-war; however, Mozart still believes in Salieri that lead him to get tricked and soon he passed away due to exhaustion.  Salieri always had this thought on why both Mozart and him need to born in this same era.  If both of them are born in different era, maybe the story would be different as both of them can be the legend in their perspective era without killing one and another.  

Lastly, the movie told me on another important element is that what comes around goes around.  This is being portrayed in the movie when Salieri killed Mozart, he should be the lead in the field and well-known by people.  However, in fact, he end up staying in the psychiatric hospital and his piece of work is no longer being remembered by people.  This reminds me on the teaching in Buddhism that talks about karma where people will get good return if do good things and vice versa.  This teaching is parallel with my own belief where I believe that if the things tend to belong to me, no matter what happen, it will come back to me; however, if the things are not belong to me, no matter what have I done to withhold it, it will still leave.  This is what I believe in as the religion teaching and as well as my dad teach me since I was young.  

In a conclusion, this movie had portrayed a lot of morality that people who had seen it may reminds us again.  This is because I understand that people may know the morality as we had learn since we are young but we tends to forget to practice it as the day pass by.  By showing this morality in the movie, it reminds the audience once again not to forget what we had learn in the past.