Analysis of “A Clockwork Orange”
Introduction
A Clockwork Orange is a movie that basically is about the main character Alex’s experience with the experiment that we had to participate and how his life changed according to that. Aim of the current paper will be about how this movie reflects different kinds of psychological theories and these theories will be explained with references from the movie it self as well.
Development
Classical conditioning is one of the first theories that can be associated with this movie. Classical conditioning is theory found in early 1900’s and explains how individuals make an association between two different stimuli (Pavlov, 1902). In the movie when he tries to convince people that he wants to change, he will go into this experimental study where they believed he find his ‘cure’ to change and let these violent tendencies go which is basically an aversion therapy. In order to explain this in a more theoretical way; first of all, they give Alex a drug that he knows as vitamins but actually is a drug that causes nausea, second of all, they will make him sit and forced to watch violent movies. In this case what experimenters trying to do is basically making an association between the feelings of sickness (nausea) and the violent behaviors/tendencies in order to stop his behavior. In a more detailed way, in the first step of conditioning the unconditioned stimuli is the ‘nausea drugs’ which creates the unconditioned response ‘extreme nausea feeling’, in the second step during the conditioning to have a conditioned response they try to make an association between those two with pairing UCS to something new, in this case movies conditioned stimulus as ‘violent behavior/tendencies’, at the final step conditioned stimulus ‘violent behavior/tendencies’ is associated with conditioned response ‘extreme nausea feeling’. In addition, in the movie movies are silent and Beethoven have been played in the background which is an another association that will happen, so whenever Alex heard Beethoven he will feel the nausea experiences too. Extinction happens when the bond between stimulus and the response starts to weaken or die, when the husband of one of the Alex’s victim wants to take a revenge from Alex by locking him in a room and made him listen Beethoven for a long period, which leads to the extinction.
On the other hand, if we look from a different perspective we can claim that there is a positive punishment as well. In order to stop or decrease a unwanted behavior which is the violent behaviors in this case, they will add something unpleasant which is the drugs and the nausea feelings. So, they used positive punishment in order to change Alex’s behavior.
From the movie Alex’s personality and his violent behaviors can be an example of the motivation theories that we have covered in the class so far. Looking from the perspective of intrinsic motivation (within) which includes terms such as autonomy and mastery which explains his drive and how he gains pleasure while torturing other also due to his lack of remorse, also extrinsic motivation (outside) which is a motivation that occurs which with rewards or money as an example, this also can explain his motivation for crime. Moreover, the absence of his parents should not be forgotten as well, the maltreatment also will lead such negative outcomes.
Likewise, the social learning theory can be another example for this movie as well. Social learning theory is behaviorist theory included classical and operant conditioning but adds a different variable about the process between stimuli and the response and the effects of the environment (Bandura, 1977). If we divided theory into three different categories such as observation, imitation and modeling we can explain his violent behavior. If a behavior is learned from the environment and observational learning even his environment and neighborhood can be an example of this dysfunctional outcome. Such that, taking into account that he is in a gang, that he is observing this negatively influencing environment, imitation and modeling his gang friends which ends up in robbing, mobbing which started his crime history and increased cumulatively. Lastly film itself has sexist scenes specially on gang’s rape of a woman, and the underage girls shown in motivation for humor purposes, also the older women with cats categorized as not worth raping which then murdered with an inappropriate sculpture. Females role in this movie is to show body, die or get attacked, there is lots of appearance of female nudity.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think this movie tries to make a huge critique about the society and government, even when I write about the sexism in the movie I think they are placed in order to give a message. Even though there are disturbing scenes this movie draws a very clear picture about the current state of the world. The important part is that it made me question the human nature of good and bad, does every individual who involve in crime are bad, did they born with it (innate) or this is just basically a negative consequences of a underdeveloped government or fault of the society that comes together with the vulnerability of the individuals and lead into such cases.
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Pavlov, I. P. (1902). The work of the digestive glands.London: Griffin.
