Group Influences In Disney's Finding Nemo

Disney’s Finding Nemo is a movie on the journey of a father, Marlin the clownfish, who travels the sea to find his son, Nemo, who was captured by a scuba diver and taken to Sydney, Australia (Walters 2003). On Marlin’s journey he meets other fish friends like Dory, who tag along or help him try to find his son (Walters 2003). Throughout his travels Marlin learns to not be as strict and serious all the time, and comes across multiple obstacles. But in the end the father and son are reunited (Walters 2003). There are many scenes in Finding Nemo that portray psychological principles including the mere exposure effect, the functioning of the hippocampus, and group influences.
The mere exposure effect is the idea that repeated exposure to someone

or something overtime increases the liking of it (Myers 2011). An element of the mere exposure effect is proximity which is the geographical closeness of someone or something (Myers 2011). These psychological principles can be seen through the relationship Marlin and Dory have on their journey to find Nemo. At first Marlin thought Dory was crazy after meeting her in the boat scene and found her annoying as she sang while they swam throughout the sea (Walters 2003). So along the first half of the journey he would repeatedly tell Dory that she did not have to come with him and that he wanted to be alone, but after a while Marlin began to trust and care for Dory and the first sign of this occurred during the jellyfish race . Dory had convinced Marlin to let loose and have fun so he came up with a “game” called jump on the tops of the jellyfish and the first one out of the maze won. While racing Dory was stung badly by a jellyfish causing her to blackout, but Marlin had not noticed because he was having a great time and trying to actually win the race (Walters 2003). After he had gotten out of the jellyfish maze he noticed that Dory was nowhere in sight. Immediately Marlin went back into the jellyfish group to find Dory which he knew was life threatening. He ended up saving Dory’s life but they both ended up passed out due to the jellyfish sting Walters 2003). Once Marlin had woken up from the daze he was laying on a sea turtle, Crush. One of the very first things he ended up asking Crush was where Dory was showing how he cared for her (Walters 2003). Therefore proximity played apart in Marlin and Dory’s relationship because over time traveling together Marlin began to like her more and more showing the mere exposure effect. An experiment done that relates to Marlin’s liking of Dory is one that Kunst-Williams and Zajonc did. In their experiment they showed octagons to a group of people and after a while the participants began to like the octagon shape more than the others, similar to how Marlin began to enjoy hanging out with Dory shown in the jellyfish scene (Williams & Zajonc 1980). The most important part of the movie in terms of Marlin and Dory’s relationship is when they were stuck inside the whale. Dory kept claiming that she could speak and understand whale, and Marlin thought she was crazy and kept telling her that she could not speak it (Walters 2003). But when they were hanging on for their lives on the whale’s tastebuds Dory kept saying the whale told her to let go. After some convincing Marlin finally agreed and decided to trust Dory which saved their life because the whale blew them back into the ocean out of it’s blowhole (Walters 2003). Throughout Marlin’s journey with Dory it was shown how he went to not liking Dory at all to her becoming one of his best friends.
Throughout Finding Nemo, Dory is known for her short term memory loss. A scene that illustrate this is when Marlin first meets Dory after Nemo was taken hostage by a scuba diver (Walters 2003). Marlin was chasing the boat the scuba diver boarded with Nemo when he came across Dory which is when he asked her if she had seen the boat pass by. Dory replied that she had seen it not to long ago and to follow her. But while Marlin was trailing behind, Dory had completely forgotten who he was and what they were doing. She accused Marlin of chasing him and told him to stop which made Marlin very confused (Walters 2003). This scene represents Dory’s memory loss which could be taking place due to damage in her hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that creates long term memories and is also part of the limbic system (Myers 2011). Damage to the left hippocampus causes someone to have problems remembering verbal information but can recall visual designs and locations, and damage to the right hippocampus causes the opposite (Myers 2011). A real life example of this is Henry Molaison. Molaison had surgery done to his hippocampus to try and decrease the number of seizures he had by completely removing it (Ogden 2012). Even though it drastically reduced the number of seizures, some effects on him was that he suffered retrograde memory loss which meant that Molaison had lost a lot of memories that occurred before the brain operation, he could not longer learn things, and had no conscious memory (Ogden 2012). Dory in Finding Nemo shows signs of retrograde memory loss when she is talking to Marlin after she accused him of chasing her. She wonders where her family is not being able to recall any of their names, where she last saw them, and their current location similar to Molaison which supports the idea that Dory does suffer brain damage to her right hippocampus. Another scene in Finding Nemo that supports Dory’s damage to the right hippocampus is when she is trying to read and memorize the green mask of the scuba diver that took Nemo while Marlin is distracting the deep sea creature (Walters 2003). Dory is able to recall visual designs (words), a characteristic of damage to right hippocampus, but also goes against the characteristics because she is not able to recall location like people with damage to the right hippocampus do, because Dory actually did not know where the boat or her family were in the scene when trying to help Marlin find the boat that took Nemo. Overall throughout Finding Nemo Dory shows signs of damage to her hippocampus due to her short term memory loss.
Group Influences focusing on the effects of group interactions are present in a lot of scenes in Finding Nemo.

One of the most prominent scenes to demonstrate this is the shark meeting with Bruce and his followers Anchor and Chum (Walters 2003). Groupthink is when a collection of people are wanting to think and believe the same thing but they know it is an unrealistic belief (Myers 2011). Reasons for groupthink can be due to overconfidence, conformity, self-justification, and group polarization (Myers 2011). This relates to Finding Nemo in the shark meeting scene. During the meeting they take a pledge and repeatedly encourage each other not to eat any fish which is where the famous quote, “Fish are friends not food” comes from (Walters 2003, scene 8). This scene represents groupthink because a shark’s main food source are fish therefore it would be unrealistic for a group of sharks to cut fish completely out of their diet. The idea that this is unrealistic is supported when Dory and Marlin are fighting over the mask and it ends up hitting Dory in the nose making her bleed (Walters 2003). Bruce becomes entranced in the blood and completely forgets the pledge and his surroundings only focusing on trying to eat Dory and Marlin (Walters 2003). The idea that the sharks could bring a fish friend to the meeting and not eat them is similar to the Challenger explosion which is an example of groupthink. The Challenger was an American shuttle orbiter that was going into space with astronauts aboard when it suddenly blew up (History.com staff 2010). The launch had been delayed six days due to the cold weather so the people were eager to send it into space. The day it was launched, the weather was still cold which caused it to blow up because the two rubber rings that were suppose to separate the shuttle from the rocket did not work under cool conditions (History.com staff 2010). The launch crew had used groupthink similar to Bruce, Anchor, and Chum, by deciding to believe

that the rubber rings would work even though realistically they would not. The shark scene also represents group polarization which is an idea that is discussed among a group of people that is favored or opposed by the group determining on factors such as the number of people in the group and the idea of the group (Myers 2011). Some important reasons for group polarization is spiritual awareness and self-help group (Myers 2011). For example Bruce, Chum, and Anchor each took turns going up to the pedestal to say the last time they had eaten a fish, while the others favored their time period of eating no fish. But when Bruce became paralyzed by Dory’s blood the other shark’s opposed his idea of eating the fish so they held him back and tried to help Dory and Marlin escape. This action represents the self-help group concept of group polarization because the sharks were helping each other not feel the urge to eat fish because they are their friends. Because the group only contained a small number of three sharks, group polarization of a small group is less likely to happen than in a larger one, which is why Bruce went against the group so quickly (Myers 2011). A broad example of group polarization is people become more prejudice when surrounded by others that have a strong prejudice opinion, similar to how Bruce, Chum, and Anchor are more likely to not eat fish in the presence of others that are also against the eating of fish (Myers 2011). Another section of Finding Nemo that portrays group polarization is when Nemo and the other fish Gill, Bubbles, Peach, Bloat, Jacques, Gurgle, and Flo are determined to escape the fishtank in the dentist office (Walters 2003). After Nemo swims through the ring of fire to become a member of the club and is named Sharkbait, Gill devises a plan that Nemo will clog the filter so the fish tank will become dirty causing the dentist to have to clean it. When the dentist cleans it they will be put in bags in which they will then roll out the window and into the ocean. They all favor the idea and want to do it quickly before the dentist’s niece Darla, who has killed the last fish she was given, comes to get Nemo as her present (Walters 2003). Determined not to be in Darla’s possession, Nemo goes through with the plan, but when Nemo goes to clog the filter he almost dies by being sucked in. Afterwards the whole group opposes the idea of trying the escape plan again (Walters 2003). The favoring and opposing of the group of fish in this scene represents group polarization because the majority is on one or the other side of the idea.
Overall some of the major psychological principles used in Finding Nemo were the mere exposure effect with Dory and Marlin, the functioning of the hippocampus related to Dory’s short term memory loss, and group influences including groupthink and group polarization throughout the movie. In the end Nemo and his father, Marlin, are reunited and all of the fish in the dentist’s fish tank also escape using the filthing the tank method creating a happy ending.