How Does The Lion King Relate To Psychology

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The Lion King is a Disney animated movie portraying the life and times of Simba, who later becomes the greatest lion king known in the land. Simba's rise to the throne is a journey fraught with perils and hardships that make it an absolutely trilling story for the whole family! Although The Lion King is an exciting and entertaining movie, the movie is also a good illustration of several psychology concepts.

King Mufasa showed true altruism when he rescued Simba from the stampede. Altruism is an unselfish desire to help someone else without regard to personal welfare or safety. Some psychologists argue that in reality, altruistic acts are in fact motivated by self-interests such as to present one's self as powerful, caring, …show more content…

After Simba meets Timon and Pumbaa, they introduce Simba to their diet of insects. Simba was apparently conditioned to think insects were not good to eat because he thought the idea was disgusting and he was surprised his friends ate insects. In this case Simba's unconditioned stimulus was disgusting things and his unconditioned response was not to eat what made him digusted. Somehow Simba was conditioned that insects were digusting and his conditioned response was not eating them. However after he tried an insect, he agreed they were "slimy and satisfying." This illustrates how response extinction works in classical conditioning. Simba now thought of insects as satisfying and not digusting, thus eliminating his conditioned response of not eating insects. Simba ate insects with the best of …show more content…

Operant conditioning explains that behaviors followed by positive outcomes are more likely to be repeated than behaviors followed by negative outcomes. Punishment, which is a part of operant conditioning, is something received or taken away from an individual decreasing the likihood that a behavior would be repeated. The best example from The Lion King of a punishment is when Nala ran away from Simba after he informed her that he was not returning to Pride Rock. Simba deeply loved Nala and he hoped she would agree with the Hakuna Matata philosopy that he was using to hide from his past. But she did not and ran from Simba after an argument. The fact that his true love did not want to be with him was a punishing blow to Simba, helping him rethink his worldview and preparing him for the meeting with

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