The film How to Train Your Dragon offers many good examples of how social psychology can be applied to situations that cannot be encountered in normal day to day life. I chose to analyze this movie because I enjoy the message that it sends about acceptation and how people can work past prejudice. Throughout the film there are examples of conformity, altruism, and informational influence that I will analyze in different scenes in the film using various research articles. This will be done in order to show how all of these concepts tie together to send a larger message. The film begins with the main character, Hiccup, describing the island of Berk where fighting dragons is a way of life to the Viking inhabitants. Compared to the rest of the…show more content… If Hiccup were a true Viking he would have killed the dragon while it was unable to get away, but instead he bonds with the dragon and realizes its kind nature. This drives Hiccup to try and save the dragon by building a mechanism that will fix its tail and allow it to fly again. He does this not because he feels guilty for hurting him or because he expects something in return but because he genuinely wants to improve the welfare of the dragon, demonstrating altruism. Many psychologists debate whether or not it is possible for people to demonstrate altruism due to the fact that they expect something in return. A study was done by Daniel Batson and Laura Shaw in order to test the evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis and whether or not people can be truly altruistic or if they are just egoistic. The study tentatively concludes that the empathy-altruism must be true, however the implications suggested by this are largely theoretical. Batson and Shaw believe that under certain circumstances an individual might act in part with a goal of helping the welfare of another but there is another part that acts to improve their own welfare (Batson & Shaw, 1991). Knowing this, one might conclude that there was part of Hiccup that might have felt guilty for hurting the dragon and therefore felt like he needed to help…show more content… Throughout this paper the different concepts of conformity, altruism and informational influence have been evaluated using research articles in order to explain the different social behaviors exhibited by the characters. During the film Hiccup initially believes that it is best for him to conform the rest of the clan and fight dragons due to his desire to fit in along with the disapproval that he feels from his father. However, after bonding and empathizing for the dragon, Hiccup changes his mind about the nature of dragons and decides to help the dragon in order to improve its welfare without expecting anything in return. Towards the end of the film Hiccup is able to prove to Astrid, using informational influence, that dragons are not dangerous and harmful creatures like she believes. All of this ties together because by the end of the film everybody is able to overcome the once present stereotypes and prejudice that they initially felt towards dragons due to these different social psychological concepts. Furthermore, I found this paper to be a great way to apply some of the concepts discussed throughout the course in a setting that would not be found in the real
