Cars 3 Psychology

Cars 3 is an animated sports film directed by Brain Fee. In the movie, Lightning McQueen (the main character), found himself fighting to stay relevant in the vast and ever-changing world of Cars. As new cars and superior models entered onto the race track, Lighting started to fall behind the batch. Thus, he tired reinvented himself to compete at a high level. In this process, he met a race car trainer, Cruz Ramirez, and together they tried to get McQueen back on the winning path. The movie focused on and used certain motivational theories prevalent in sports psychology for Lighting and Cruz to improve throughout the film. Specifically, the movie presented motivational theories such as the of planned behavior, the theory of competence motivation …show more content…
These motivational theories show how different factors (i.e. social support) led to change in behavior which ultimately helped Lighting and Cruz reclaim the top spot on the racetrack. To being with, one of the main theories that was displayed early in the movie was the theory of planned behavior (Fraser-Thomas, 2018b). After the initial race, which ended in a car crash, lighting McQueen was highly unmotivated. His attitude towards racing was negative as he felt that he was not good enough anymore. However, his friend Sally tells Lighting, “You should change it you, try something new. Don’t fear failure, be afraid of not having the chance. You have the chance (Reher & Fee, 2017).” This helped Lighting realize that his career was not over yet. He got motivated to beat Jackson Storm, his rival. As a result of Sally’s speech, Lighting’s attitude about racing and what is possible changed, thus he was more motivated …show more content…
Lighting McQueen towards the end of the film realized that he would not be able to beat Jackson Storm. As a result, he opts to put Cruz Ramirez in the race in his stead. Cruz had never raced before, thus she was nervous when she took Lighting McQueen place on the race track. This was her first true master attempt at professional racing. As she was going around the track, she was going feedback from Lighting on how to race. Lighting was giving the specific feedback that aided her in the developing a better strategy during the race. For example, when she got to tense Lighting told Cruz to picture a cloud in order to “loosen” her up during the race. Moreover, he told her techniques (i.e. stay in the “fast lane”) which aided her performance. The specific feedback lead to corrections she made thus making her feel like she could win the race. However, during the race when she was tied with Storm she gets rattled by his trash talk. He taunts Cruz by claiming that she is not meant to be a racer, she is just a car trainer. as a counter, Lighting tells her that she is more that capable of being a professional race car as he has practiced over and over with him. This is key feedback that stops her from thinking that she has no shot at winning. The motivation coming from the person he idolized growing up (Lightning McQueen) allowed her to have a higher sense of perceived competence.