Sophie's Choice Psychology

World War II showed the very worst of humans, leaving a trail of sickness, despair and guilt in many people, including the ones who survived the concentration camps, the ones who fought to live another day to show that their desire to live was stronger than the cowards who were trying to exterminate them. With this in mind, the film “Sophie’s Choice” presents the story of a Polish survivor named Sophie, who had been forced to do terrible things to survive, but even after been freed of the Nazis she could not find peace of mind. A summary of events relevant to psychology are mentioned following a chronological order. At the very beginning of the film we are presented to a young American writer named Stengo, who moved from his home …show more content…
Eventually Stengo discovers a collection of books and pictures about Nazis, it was Nathan’s property. Exemplifying one of the many disorders Nathan has, this in particular is OCD since he is not a researcher, is an infrequent behavior, causes distress in him and his girlfriend and violates social norms. Sophie then shows herself stressed, because Nathan had not arrived home yet, she remembers Nathan getting into fights, so she assumes he must be in trouble but she cannot do anything about it, thus her fear and powerless manifest on her as stress. She attempts to call the police but Stengo persuades her to not do it, since he could be working late or stuck in traffic, Sophie then conforms with Stengo’s explanation, perfectly exemplifying the informal social influence for conformity which results from Sophies’s willingness to accept Stengo’s opinion about Nathan’s whereabouts, since she does not know any more than …show more content…
According to Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, Sophie would be in the post conventional morality stage, since she cared about the people who would be murdered because of her actions, she cared so much that she went to visit a ghetto instead of working on her father’s speech which caused her to ruin it. Later on, she falls in love with Josef, a lover who has a half-sister called Wanda. Wanda tried to convince Sophie to help the rebellion using the peripheral route to persuasion. Sophie responds no, since she cared about her children’s safety and the peripheral route to persuasion often succeeds when people do not care. Following the story, Sophie finds herself in a concentration camp, she has no hair, is using a uniform and has a number tattooed in her wrist, all this are techniques that Nazis used to take selfawareness and self-restraint from the prisoners, also known as deindividualization. Eventually she works for a Nazi commander and begs him to save her son, the commander refuses, but then she uses the central route to persuasion, clamming that her son is blonde and speaks perfect German, and therefore he is perfect for an indoctrination program that require perfect Aryan children to integrate the Nazis ranks, to which the Commander accepts. Later on the Commander leaves without keeping his word about saving Sophie’s