Silver Linings Playbook
- by jenna richardson
Silver Linings Playbook, a comedy-drama film, stars Bradley Cooper as Pat, a man in Philadelphia suffering from bi-polar disorder. He has spent the last eight months in a mental hospital due to his illness. He was ordered there after finding his wife with another man in bed and almost beating him to death. Once he is released from the mental hospital, Pat moves in with his father and his mother. Even though Pat’s wife filed a restraining order against him, he still desires to get back together with her. He soon befriends Tiffany, a depressed young woman who's mourning the death of her husband. She also happens to know his wife and offers to deliver a letter of his to her if he acts as her partner in a local dance competition. After long hours of practice and dedication their deal plays out and an unexpected bond begins to form between them. Theories and concepts of organizational behavior are displayed throughout this film including the “Big Five” personality model, the attribution theory, attribution distortion, and the over confidence bias.
Many concepts and theories come up throughout the film including the “Big Five” personality model. This model explains that five personality traits including extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience relate to job performance and implications for life (M.R. Barrick, 1991). Emotional stability is a person’s ability to withstand stress (Digman, 1990), which is displayed throughout the movie. In Silver Linings Playbook, the main character, Pat is very depressed, uneasy, and aggressive which are complete opposites of emotional stability. This can explain why he lost his job and had to live in a mental hospital at the beginning of the movie. Throughout the movie as Pat develops into a new, transformed person he starts to acquire emotional stability. He realizes that his wife is gone and moves on with his life. Something that helped him move on and become emotionally stable was finding an interest in dance. He had to work hard with a partner and focus on performing the dance in front of an audience. Throughout the film Pat shows agreeableness, which can be described as cooperative, positive, and trusting (Digman, 1990). At the beginning of the movie he is sure he can get his wife back and looks at it with a positive view even though the people surrounding him are being negative about the situation and telling him that it will never happen. He also shoes agreeableness when as he performs his dance at the end of the film. Tiffany, Pat’s dance partner shows conscientiousness. This would describe her as persistent, sensible, and reliable (M.R. Barrick, 1991). She is interested in dancing and organizes a dance routine to perform for an audience. She schedules meetings to practice the dance with Pat and puts in great effort to perform the dance, which shows persistence. Openness also is displayed in this film. As Tiffany introduces the idea of dancing with Pat, Pat becomes distant and closed off. He does not display openness to this new experience. The only way he does become open to the idea of being Tiffany’s dance partner is because she said that she would deliver a letter of his to his wife for him. This shows how Pat only became open to new experiences if he was getting something in return for doing it. Lastly, extraversion is shown in Pat throughout the film. He is loud, assertive, and outgoing. He has many people in his life that he is close to but it is also fairly easy for him to meet new people and make friends. He meets Tiffany at a dinner party and they become close pretty instantly, which shows extraversion in him.
One theory that is displayed in Silver Linings Playbook is the attribution theory. This theory states that we judge people differently based on the cause we attribute to a given behavior, which can be internal or external (Kelley, 1972). At the start of the movie Pat is sentenced to a mental hospital because he is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Most of the people attributed he was going to mental hospital because he went crazy and almost killed a man but it was actually because he was suffering from this disorder.
The attribution theory goes even more in depth of how these attributions can get distorted. One way this can happen is the halo effect. The halo effect is when you draw an impression about someone based on a single characteristic rather than them as a whole (Asch, 1946). This is displayed in Silver Linings Playbook with Pat. He gets sent to a mental hospital and is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Once he returns home from the hospital, people start judging him based on the fact that he has bi-polar disorder instead of getting to know him as a real person. His old colleagues are scared of him and people start to think he’s crazy and they judge him only on this factor. This displays the halo effect.
A concept that is displayed throughout this movie is the overconfidence bias. This is an error in judgment that happens from being far too optimistic about your own performance (Plous, 1993). This is showed in Silver Linings Playbook when Pat returns from the mental hospital and he is absolutely sure that he will get back together with his wife and that she will want the same thing. He is aware that she has filed a restraining order against him, yet he still thinks they will get back together. This displays how over confident he is, which resulted in him being disappointed when he finally realized that she was not going to get back together with him.
In closing, Silver Linings Playbook displayed many concepts and theories relating to organizational behavior. With Pat having bi-polar disorder there were many behaviors displayed throughout the film involving concepts learned throughout class. These included the “Big Five” personality model, the attribution theory, attribution distortion of the halo effect, and the overconfidence bias.
Many concepts and theories come up throughout the film including the “Big Five” personality model. This model explains that five personality traits including extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience relate to job performance and implications for life (M.R. Barrick, 1991). Emotional stability is a person’s ability to withstand stress (Digman, 1990), which is displayed throughout the movie. In Silver Linings Playbook, the main character, Pat is very depressed, uneasy, and aggressive which are complete opposites of emotional stability. This can explain why he lost his job and had to live in a mental hospital at the beginning of the movie. Throughout the movie as Pat develops into a new, transformed person he starts to acquire emotional stability. He realizes that his wife is gone and moves on with his life. Something that helped him move on and become emotionally stable was finding an interest in dance. He had to work hard with a partner and focus on performing the dance in front of an audience. Throughout the film Pat shows agreeableness, which can be described as cooperative, positive, and trusting (Digman, 1990). At the beginning of the movie he is sure he can get his wife back and looks at it with a positive view even though the people surrounding him are being negative about the situation and telling him that it will never happen. He also shoes agreeableness when as he performs his dance at the end of the film. Tiffany, Pat’s dance partner shows conscientiousness. This would describe her as persistent, sensible, and reliable (M.R. Barrick, 1991). She is interested in dancing and organizes a dance routine to perform for an audience. She schedules meetings to practice the dance with Pat and puts in great effort to perform the dance, which shows persistence. Openness also is displayed in this film. As Tiffany introduces the idea of dancing with Pat, Pat becomes distant and closed off. He does not display openness to this new experience. The only way he does become open to the idea of being Tiffany’s dance partner is because she said that she would deliver a letter of his to his wife for him. This shows how Pat only became open to new experiences if he was getting something in return for doing it. Lastly, extraversion is shown in Pat throughout the film. He is loud, assertive, and outgoing. He has many people in his life that he is close to but it is also fairly easy for him to meet new people and make friends. He meets Tiffany at a dinner party and they become close pretty instantly, which shows extraversion in him.
One theory that is displayed in Silver Linings Playbook is the attribution theory. This theory states that we judge people differently based on the cause we attribute to a given behavior, which can be internal or external (Kelley, 1972). At the start of the movie Pat is sentenced to a mental hospital because he is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Most of the people attributed he was going to mental hospital because he went crazy and almost killed a man but it was actually because he was suffering from this disorder.
The attribution theory goes even more in depth of how these attributions can get distorted. One way this can happen is the halo effect. The halo effect is when you draw an impression about someone based on a single characteristic rather than them as a whole (Asch, 1946). This is displayed in Silver Linings Playbook with Pat. He gets sent to a mental hospital and is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Once he returns home from the hospital, people start judging him based on the fact that he has bi-polar disorder instead of getting to know him as a real person. His old colleagues are scared of him and people start to think he’s crazy and they judge him only on this factor. This displays the halo effect.
A concept that is displayed throughout this movie is the overconfidence bias. This is an error in judgment that happens from being far too optimistic about your own performance (Plous, 1993). This is showed in Silver Linings Playbook when Pat returns from the mental hospital and he is absolutely sure that he will get back together with his wife and that she will want the same thing. He is aware that she has filed a restraining order against him, yet he still thinks they will get back together. This displays how over confident he is, which resulted in him being disappointed when he finally realized that she was not going to get back together with him.
In closing, Silver Linings Playbook displayed many concepts and theories relating to organizational behavior. With Pat having bi-polar disorder there were many behaviors displayed throughout the film involving concepts learned throughout class. These included the “Big Five” personality model, the attribution theory, attribution distortion of the halo effect, and the overconfidence bias.