Fauzan Plasticwala
Social Psychology 230
Assignment 1: Film Analysis
March 15, 2015

A Beautiful Mind

John Nash was a graduate student at Princeton University and was well talented mathematician. Starting his graduate school year, the prodromal phase of schizophrenia began to emerge. Prodromal phase is a time period where symptoms for schizophrenia begin to appear but not yet recognized until the active psychosis takes place (Cameron, 1938). He was socially awkward and suffers social rejection. His social behavior was often mocked upon by classmates but did receive support by his close friend, Charles. There are many occurrences of social psychological theories that were depicted in this film. Some of the many social psychological phenomenons that were used in this film were person perception or attribution theory, the self, cognitive dissonance, attitude, and conformity.
The self theory is "the individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is" (Baumeister, 1999). Nash had distinct sensory ability and high self esteem in regards to his intellect. Self esteem is the degree to which we comment ourselves (Morse and Gergen, 1970). Nash had a positive view of himself. He was able to see the light pattern through a glass and was able synchronize it with patterns on the tie of his classmate. This shows that he considered himself intellectually superior than his classmates. The grandiosity of his intelligence was well taken and often attempted challenges were made by his classmates. He does not believe in social niceties and has no interest in attending classes. He believes in his own truly original ideas and seems obsessed with his ideology of finding success in exploring his own ideas. His brilliance was recognized and awarded. He had a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree. He had confidence in his own ideology of finding success in his own truly original ideas.
Although he was struggling with the stress of graduate school’s thesis paper, he was really on the hunt for a truly original idea. He went through an extreme amount of pressure and stress to build up a strong thesis so he could start working. An extreme harsh rejection of a blond woman, whom he encountered at the bar, was what eventually inspired his truly original idea for a theory in mathematical economics. After the completion of his thesis paper and studies at Princeton University, he gets a job as professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and gets married to one of his students, Alicia. He was not worried about what others thought of him but he was optimistic in his own belief of what he thought was success.
Attribution theory is how we, as perceivers, use information to draw a conclusion based on the cause for an event (Fiske, & Taylor, 1991). It’s how and why we explain certain events the way we do. Nash’s behaviors made his interaction difficult with others and eventually lead to social and self persecution, and thus lead to the symptoms of a prodromal phase of schizophrenia Conrad (1958). His intentional behavior and social desirability were not socially accepted (Jones and Davis, 1965). Compare to Nash’s age-mates and class mates, he was considered an odd individual. The way he carried himself to the way he walked and talked, ate, and his overall preferences of entertainment or approach to life was socially not accepted but that’s what he desired and chose to behave. Although he was one of the exceptional intellectuals of his batch, he was an odd and socially rejected intellectual.
Cognitive dissonance is the mental distress of an individual who has opposing ideas, beliefs, or values. This theory focuses on the scheme of our internal consistency, namely in our beliefs, attitudes, and behavior and in situations where the cognitions are inconsistent (Festinger, (1957). Nash, after sometime of making his career and working at Pentagon as a spy and a code breaker, eventually started to suffer from paranoia Schizophrenia. Paranoia Schizophrenia is one of the subtypes of Schizophrenia, in which a person experiences one or multiple bizarre delusions or auditory hallucinations that begins to harass and persecute that individual (Donlon, 1973). At this very point in life, Nash’s career as a mathematician and his yearlong marriage with Alicia began to reach its threshold. Nash began to have his delusional friends. After his diagnosis and upon returning home from psychiatric hospital, Nash began to spend his time in the house alone. He did not prefer talking to anyone except for his delusional friends. He did not have a job and finds himself comfortable at home.
The inconsistency in his belief, attitude, and behavior was also making it difficult for him to speak to his wife. He was barely able to show any emotion towards his wife, which was affecting their marriage. Nash continued to suffer from emotional dysfunction which did not really allow him to form healthy romantic relationship with his wife. He was also not able to take care for his son and would be in delusion that his friend Charles would watch him while leaving his son alone in the bathtub to bathe. After sometime, Nash, on his own, realized that his antipsychotic medications were having negative side-effects in his intellectual capacity and his relationship with his wife, therefore he stopped taking antipsychotic medications.
An attitude theory is an endured organization of feelings, behavioral tendencies, and belief towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols (Hogg, & Vaughan, 2005). Nash’s delusional friends, Charles and his niece, Margie, and William Parcher, the spy in black suite and hat had started to have effect on his attitude. He started believing that he was working for William Parcher as a code breaker for secret government operation against the Russians. The hallucination of William Parcher and being chased by the Russians after a gunfire, caused Nash a paranoia that the Russians were trying to get him and trying to kill him. He became paranoid every time he saw a similar car to the Russian gunman. Nash was also paranoid of a man wearing a black hat similar to William Parcher. Nash would hallucinate every time he felt upset and would hear Charles talking to him. While hallucinating, he would also hear William Parcher offering him a job working for a top-secret government operation. He almost drowned his son in the bathtub while hallucinating and being in delusion that Charles was watching his son. He became violent towards his wife, pushing her to the ground thinking he saved her life from being shot by William Parcher.
Conformity theory is a social influence that involves a change in behavior and belief in order to go with the norm of society (Crutchfield, 1955). After being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Nash only sat at home and did not work or felt the urge to acquire a job. He lost credibility of his title and his hard work of graduate school. He was experiencing delusion when he would teach or would be at work. He became stressful and bothersome to his coworkers. He would not be able to focus on his work and did not work when he said he was working because he would hallucinate and would be in delusion. His students weren’t able to benefit from his class lectures because would hallucinate in class.
The narrowness of his emotions towards his wife and his friends also shows that he would often indulge in his own thoughts and emotions. His lack of initiative towards day to day life was also affecting his personality. He lacked energy to do anything and mostly stayed home, being unable to complete house chores. He lacked interest in social relationships and had difficulty communicating with Alicia. However, towards the end of this film, he realized that he was suffering from schizophrenia and his imaginary friends were not real. At this point, in order to fit in, find a job, and save his marriage, Nash undergoes conformity. Nash has grown older and approaches Martin Hansen (his rival in graduate school), whose now a head of the mathematics department at Princeton University, to get a job. He gives Nash an opportunity to work. Although he continues to suffer from hallucination, now he’s able to ignore his psychotic episodes and able to distinguish between real people and hallucinations.

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Crutchfield, R. (1955). Conformity and Character. American Psychologist, 10, 191-198.
Donlon, P.T.; and Blacker, K.H. Stages of schizophrenic decompensation and reintegration. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 157:200-209, 1973.
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Fiske, S.T., & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2005). Social Psychology (4th edition). London: Prentice-Hall.
Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965) From acts to dispositions: the attribution proces in social psychology, in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Volume 2, pp. 219-266), New York: Academic Press
Morse, S. J. & Gergen, K. J. (1970). Social comparison, self-consistency and the concept of self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 148-156.