The storyline is centered on a boy called Kevin McCallister who is mistakenly left behind by his parents who fly to Paris for their Christmas holidays. Kevin at first welcomes the idea of having to stay back home alone but soon is he subjected to content with two burglars. The prospect of staying alone in the home was fun for Kevin as he could eat the pizza all by himself, make a mess of the house, and even jump on his parents' bed. The two burglars in the name of Harry and Marv were on a mission of robbing the house during the Christmas Eve. Kevin, therefore, has to do all he can to ensure that the burglars do not break into the house. He, therefore, hatches a plan to trick the two thieves that the whole family is around. He wires the house with temporary booby traps to stop the burglars and possibly bring them to justice. When Harry and Marv break into the house, they are trapped and suffer multiple injuries in the process ( Pierson, 2017).
Meanwhile, Kevin decides to call the police who arrive in time to arrest the burglars and in turn identified all the houses that they have ever robbed. Kate, his mother, on the other hand, is on a flight back after realizing midflight that Kevin was had not traveled with the rest of the family. Her mother arrives back home finding him alone and makes arrangements to rejoin the rest of the family members. The main character in the movie is Kevin, and he is the main contributor to the conflict in the movie. After an altercation with his elder brother, he moves to a different room where the rest of the family forgets about him while rushing to catch a plane to Paris.
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Aggression
In psychology, aggression means any behavior that might harm an individual who did not intend to be harmed. According to Krahé (2013), the characteristics of aggression include the fact that they are intentional and are meant to harm an individual and secondly, they act to violate the rules and norms of a certain society. Aggressions are also responsible for impairing one's social, academic, and the workplace life. Mummendey (2012) pointed out that aggression can be physical, verbal, mental, and emotional. Reasons that can be used to justify aggression include expression of anger, asserting dominance, responding to pain, and competing with others among a host of other reasons. There are two types of aggressions namely impulsive and instrumental aggression. Impulsive aggression is characterized by strong emotions with anger being the most dominant. Smith et al. asserted that Instrumental aggression, on the other hand, includes behaviors that are intended to achieve a bigger goal. It is normally planned and therefore has a means to an end.
In the movie ‘’Home Alone,’’ both the two types of aggressions manifest. Kevin, the main character of the movie is eight years old and is normally picked on by his cousins and siblings. His parents are also not pleased with his antics. All these make him sleep on the third floor of the house. It is a scuffle with his older brother that sent him to hide in his room on the third floor and thereby subsequently missing on the journey to Paris. This is an example of impulsive aggression that is directly meted against Kevin especially by his cousin. The two burglars depicted an instrumental aggression against Kevin through their planned burglary on their house after finding out that the boy is home all alone. The goal of the aggressors in this case the burglars were to take advantage of the larger family's absence to obtain material wealth from the house.
Parenting Style
In psychology, the major parenting styles include authoritative, permissive, neglectful, and authoritarian. Each style possesses a different characteristic and brings varied reaction on the child which it is used on. Larzelere et al . (2013) asserted that the most beneficial and effecting parenting style is regarded to be the authoritative style. The parents express high expectations for their children. On the other hand, the most harmful parenting style that can be used on the child is the neglectful style. Such a parenting mechanism is characterized by an unhealthy relationship between the parent and the child. According to Heine (2015), permissive parents are overly lenient and in most cases avoid confrontation while the authoritarian parents are usually strict, demanding, but hardly responsive. Kevin's parents as shown in the movie has blatantly demonstrated how neglecting they can be to their youngest child. During their departure, both of the parents could not notice that one of their children was missing until midflight in their journey. Therefore, the two parents without any doubt have shown to adopt the neglecting style of parenting which seems to work well with Kevin who relished the freedom that he gets while at home alone. He uses the opportunity to eat pizza all on his own and also to play on his parent’s bed.
Resilience
In psychology, resilience is the ability to adapt despite the presence of adversity, tragedy, trauma, stress, and threats ( Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013). It involves bouncing back from a hard experience. It involves thoughts, behaviors, and actions that an individual can develop in dealing with hard times. Masten (2014) pointed out that resilience is characterized by making realistic plans and undertaking them, positive view of oneself and confidence in their abilities and strengths, and various problem-solving skills. It also involves good communication and managing impulses and other strong feelings. Kevin is an example of an individual who was resilient in the face of adversaries created by his parent's departure. The two burglars had hatched a plan on how they would rob their house on the realization that he was all by himself. Instead, he adapted and hatched a plan where he installed makeshift booby traps that helped in injuring the thieves and subsequently went ahead to call the police. One of the ways in building resilience is through making connections. Kevin created connections with Old Man Marley who helped him immensely in tracking down the burglars. Other ways of building resilience include taking decisive decisions, looking for opportunities, and nurturing positivity in oneself.
The movie is very successful in depicting the concepts of resilience, aggression, and parenting style. All these are manifested via the main character Kevin who is abandoned by his parents who take off to Paris leaving him with no option but to adapt to what comes his way. However, certain changes could be made on the film to make it conform more to the concept and the empirical understanding of development. The plot of the movie could have included more insights on the relationship between Kevin and his parents in assisting the audience to develop a conclusive parenting style that was exhibited by the parents. The movie could also highlight more on the relationship between Kevin and his siblings hence depicting more on the nature of aggressiveness. I am not left with any questions concerning the concepts described because their explanation is clear and the movie has played a critical role in giving a real-life perspective of their application.
References
Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Psychological resilience. European Psychologist .
Heine, S. J. (2015). Cultural Psychology: Third International Student Edition . WW Norton & Company.
Krahé, B. (2013). The social psychology of aggression . Psychology Press.
Larzelere, R. E., Morris, A. S. E., & Harrist, A. W. (2013). Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development . American Psychological Association.
Masten, A. S. (2014). Global perspectives on resilience in children and youth. Child development , 85 (1), 6-20.
Mummendey, A. (Ed.). (2012). The social psychology of aggression: From individual behavior to social interaction . Springer Science & Business Media.
Pierson, C. A. (2017). Home Alone–It's not a movie, its reality. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners , 29 (11), 643-643.
Smith, E. R., Mackie, D. M., & Claypool, H. M. (2014). Social psychology . Psychology Press.
