500 Days of Summer

1001 Words3 Pages

500 days of summer is a story where a boy meets a girl, he falls in love with her yet she does not truly love him. The movie shows the progression of the relationship of Tom and Summer. It begins when they first meet when Summer begins working as a secretary where Tom works and progresses to them casually dating. Summer is obviously hesitant and against relationships yet Tom is overly eager to find the perfect girl. The story ultimately shows the demise and after effects of their relationship. At first thought anyone could think this is the typical love story where the movie casually progresses to them living happily ever after. This is not that kind of fairy tale love story.

A primary reason that Tom and Summer are able to be interested in and be attracted to each other is due to their close proximity. They work at the same job which means that they will spend more time with each other and have more interaction. The propinquity effect tells us that the more time a person spends with someone, and the more interaction they have can lead to a higher chance of that person having a closer relationship with us.

The immediate and initial attraction Tom has for Summer is purely aesthetic. He knows nothing about her other than she has the ideal features associated with Tom's opinion of what is physically attractive. The fact that they have similar appearances to each other could be another facet of the attraction. They both have dark brown hair, are near each other in height, and have a similar build and body frame size. Because of the studies conducted by Mackinnon, Jordan, and Wilson in 2011 showed that people are drawn closer to others that have similar features and appearances as them, this has a strong possibility of being a...

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...as an interest in him. He is trying to repeat the action and circumstances to reach the result and happiness that he once had in the past.

Although they do not end up together in the end of the story, I believe this is the perfect example of social exchange theory from the male protagonist point of view. The more social interaction he shares with his love interest is the reward he is given, simply because his goal is to have more contact with her and ideally have her fall in love with him and live happily ever after.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2013). Interpersonal Attraction. Social psychology

(8th ed., pp. 267-297). Boston: Pearson.

Emerson, E. M. (1976) Social Exchange Theory. Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 2 (pp. 335-362)

Annual Reviews. Retrieved from

http://umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/resources/emerson_social_exchange.pdf

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