Phil Connor: Ground Hog Day And His Behavior

610 Words2 Pages

The character I chose was Phil Connor from ground hog day and his behavior. I used
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory to describe Phil Connor. Phil is an insensitive and maladaptive
middle age adult who only thinks about himself and his desires. Erikson’s psychosocial theory of
development described development as occurring in eight discrete stages across the lifespan.
Each stage is characterized by a basic psychological task or crisis that becomes the major
psychological focus and challenge for the individual during that particular time of life. Phil
doesn’t connect with others, nor does he have a personal or affective relationship with
anybody. The example that was used in general psychology lab book was if adolescent has
trouble making friends at then a psychologist could understand that …show more content…

The movie is broken down into four stages that represent the main aspects of Phil’s
ego. Phil started at middle to adulthood in this movie, which is the seventh stage of Erikson’s
theory. The area of focus in this stage is contribution, legacy, work ,parenthood. The outcome
of this stage is that the adults must create things that will outlast them. Everyday Phil tries to
do something different but it doesn’t work out as planned. Phil doesn’t have much creativity,
and is stuck in the second part of the stage which is stagnation. This is because every day that

he wakes up it is the same day and he is doing the same thing no matter how hard he tries to
do differently. He has been doing the same job for ten years.
The second stage that is represented in this film is Erikson’s fifth stage which is
adolescence, which is also identity vs. role confusion. The area of focus would be self definition,
individuality, interests and goals. This happens when Phil is asked to give an opening statement
in the park talking about the ground hog. He takes this opportunity to be very

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