Personality, Environment, and Behavior

Posted by mathsoros on Oct 16, 2011 in Film Review, My Life | 3 comments

The old man Koro, who believed the myth of whale and the girl Paikea, who rode the whale made Maori culture continuing together. Tradition was challenged all the time and a new better tradition would be built when the old one was challenged by a competitor. During the process, people should know how to respect to others and accept others’ views, because we know that phenomenon usually comes from forgiveness and belief. For Koro’s perspective, he never done anything wrong, while in the meantime, Paikea always broke rules of tradition and both of their situations were getting worse. Could we say any of them do the incorrect thing? I don’t think so. The only way to solve this problem is that they should understand each other. Their behaviors let them get into each other’s minds and recreate the new tradition of Maori.

As behavior influence the result of this story, I decide to start from this point and find how it was affected. Lewin’s Equation,

B = f (P, E)

(B – Behavior; f – Function; P – Person; E – Environment)

is a psychological equation of behavior developed by Kurt Lewin. It states that behavior is a function of the person and his or her environment. Personality traits are the internal affection and environment is the external influence. In contemporary psychology, the “Big Five” factors are five broad domains of personality. In this paper, I will focus on three of them and analyze how they affect the behaviors of Koro and Paikea.

Openness is the quality of being open. If someone is open, he or she is easy to accept know perspectives and new ideas. Koro is a person who isn’t open, even though he is the chief of his tribe. He followed the traditional rule of Maori all his life, which brought too much burden for him and harmed those people around him. When his daughter-in-law was dead in childbirth, Koro didn’t even look at her and then he asked his son to come home and start again. He prayed for his dead grandson whereas he didn’t care about his live granddaughter. From the film, we know he isn’t an inexorable man; however, these details show that tradition and the responsibility of chief play crucial roles in his mind. He also loved his granddaughter, but when he became angry, he could say Pai is nothing to him which is the first thing in his mind. In his mind, choosing the next chief for the tribe is the most significant thing. Koro quarreled with his son Porourangi and said the artifacts his son made were just souvenirs. He is not open with his son’s career and interest, and everything conflicted with his mind must be wrong.

On the other side, Paikea is an open person. Even though she was grown up in Maori tribe, she was quite different from other women. When her grandpa Koro started the custom school and refused her, she never gave up and tried every opportunity to learn like other boys. She thought male and female should be treated equally, and women should also have chances to be a chief. In order to learn the tool fighting skill she asked her uncle for help. She beat the boy who learned it from his grandpa because the open thought was always in her mind. Everything she did broke the traditional rule but she did everything correct. It’s not only because of her fortune but also because of her persistent openness.

Agreeable is anther trait of the big five personality which is a tendency to be pleasant and accommodating in social situations. I don’t think Koro is agreeable because he always shows us the cold side of him. Porourangi is the first-born children and he is also a born artist. His sensitive and vulnerable characters made him hardly bore the severe requirements of being a chief. Koro never tried to understand Porourangi’s mind but force him to be a successor. Koro’s second son Rawiri is someone we shouldn’t neglect. He is a talented leader and he showed his leadership of being a chief in the last part of the movie when they were saving whales. He allocated assignments, encouraged people, and comforted others but reason he cannot be a chief is just he isn’t first-born. Koro never thought about how Rawiri’s feeling was that a man has everything to be a leader but can’t be. From Porourangi, Rawiri to Paikea, they were all Koro’s family members whereas Koro didn’t know their characters and he seldom concerned their feelings.

Compared with her grandpa, Paikea is an agreeable girl. Paikea is a girl who cannot become a chief in traditional rules but she was like a boy when we look at her personalities. She was more eager than those boys to learn custom songs and skills and she performed perfectly and each field. She was treated unequally since she was born. She avoided confrontation as much as possible with Koro; she wanted to say sorry to her grandpa; she never complained anything about herself or Koro; she respected to the tradition and accepted them; she understood her grandpa Koro and forgave him. She concerned a lot about Koro. She said in the speech that she came from a long line of chiefs. She was trying to find a new way to solve this problem.

Then I will talk about neuroticism. Neuroticism is a fundamental personality trait. It is an enduring tendency to experience negative emotional states. Neuroticism people are more likely to experience such feelings as anxiety, anger, guilt, and depressed mood. There is no denying that Koro is this type of people. He obeyed those rules and forced others to do that. In everybody’s eyes, he was a leader and a chief but he was cold to them. He was easy to be angry with each one who didn’t obey his law. He was also lonely. He locked himself into his narrow world and can’t get out. When no one brought his whale tooth back, he was sick and it was too difficult for him to recover. Somebody feels that his is happy because his standard is appropriate. Koro made such a difficult standard for him and the people around him, so ha cannot be happy.

Personality traits affect people’s behaviors, while the environment also does. As the rule that only man can be a leader, it would be a big test for Paikea to become a chief. As Paikea was born in a chief family, it made her to determine to be a leader. Uncle Rawiri played an essential role of helping Paikea to be a chief. Without Rawiri, Paikea couldn’t learn how to fight with sticks; without Rawiri, she couldn’t know the place where Koro lost his whale tooth. If we consider carefully about here, we may know that the environment can change everything about a person.

In Lewin’s study, one’s behavior is determined by personalities and the environment around him or her. Paikea is an open and agreeable girl; meanwhile, the environment also brought either positive or negative influence for her behaviors. Koro isn’t open, agreeable and he cannot control his emotion. Most of the negative environments around him were made by himself but he some people like his wife and Paikea also brought him some positive effects. His wife knew it was impossible to change his mind, but helping him in some special situation was necessary. When Paikea rode the whale leaving, she gave the whale tooth to Koro.

When he knew that he didn’t have to blame anyone, he understand what life should be like; who should be the leader and he has built a new better tradition for Maori.