Emotion And Memory In The Movie 'Inside Out'

Words: 811
Pages: 4

The movie “Inside Out” is about a young girl named Riley whom we follow from birth through her adolescences stage as she moves from a town in Minnesota to San Francisco. As the audience we get to experience Riley’s life through her lens of emotions that are controlling her memory. The characters are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Angry, And Disgust. They all run Riley’s head with a control panel helping her get through certain situations every day. In this movie you will see several psychological concepts and theories of emotion and memory. And in this essay I will be explain some of them.
Throughout the film we get to see new memories come into the “control center” and which emotions gets to control certain actions throughout the day. The memories come
…show more content…
In one scene we get to see how Riley’s memories are formed from key parts of her everyday life that are stored temporarily before moving to long-term storage. Riley’s control panel starts off very basic, there are only five emotions and only one of them can be at the controls at any point in time. We also see at various times in the movie that adults have a larger control panel than Riley. As we age, our emotions become more complex and expansive. Emotions are often assumed to be judgments about a situation that cause feelings and physiological changes. James-Lange theory of emotion best fits Riley. The theory states that we become aware of how we are feeling and only then do we experience an emotion. This is shown multiple times throughout the movie. It is especially highlighted when Joy disappears and Riley decides to run away. When she gets on the bus she doesn’t realize what she is doing; she has no emotion at all. Once Joy and Sadness come back to the control center, Riley then realizes what she is doing and seems to have emotions again. She races home and cries and realizes that her memories are actually important and are not worth losing. This applies to the James-Lange theory because Riley has a sudden awareness of how she is feeling and then experiences an emotion. She is aware that she is starting to feel sad and the proceeds to show the emotion