The Pursuit Of Happyness Essay

The 2006 Columbia Pictures film, The Pursuit of Happyness, tells the story of Chris Gardner and his struggle with homelessness. The film offers an insight in a group of individuals, those that are homeless, who typically are not shown in a positive light. Characters in the film show the aspects of the average person’s life, such as how the extras in the film demonstrate the bystander effect, Chris’ personality shows how he is able to get the job at Dean Witter, and Christopher shows some of the stages of childhood development.

In the opening scene of The Pursuit of Happyness, viewers see San Francisco and the citizens’ reactions to those struggling with homelessness. For example, there is a homeless man sprawled out and sleeping in the middle

As discussed in Psychology in Modules, there are five steps that bystanders go through to help in an event, called Darley and Latané’s Decision Tree. First, a bystander must notice the event, so if they are an unobservant person, or merely preoccupied, the bystander will not intervene. Then, the bystander must interpret the event as an emergency which can be difficult to do if other people are not doing such. Additionally, the bystander must assume responsibility for helping, and this is considered the bystander effect; as more people are witnessing an emergency, they will assume that someone else will go to help rather than helping themselves. However, even if someone does want to help, they may not know the right way to help in the emergency. For example, if there is a fire and there are firefighters there, a civilian may want to help stop the fire, but would not have access to a steady stream of water like a firehose. Finally, a bystander must actually decide to help in an emergency, or they will consider the risks of the emergency to outweigh the benefits of helping or not help. It is within this last part of Darley and Latané’s Decision Tree that most of the pedestrians in The Pursuit of Happyness

It is very likely that the pedestrians have the capabilities to help the homeless man, but choose not to. The woman that looks at the man with disgust does notice the man, most likely understands how being homeless is an emergency, but chooses not to assume the responsibility of helping the man. Other pedestrians who are on the edges of the sidewalk may not have even noticed the man. As seen by the Good Samaritan Experiment, participants who were in a rush did not help the confederate even after going through the seminar on altruism. Furthermore, some people may have wanted to help, but did not have the means to; later in the film, Chris gives $5.00 to his boss because the latter had left his wallet at home. Chris’ willingness to help his boss shows an aspect of his personality that will eventually allow him to earn the job at Dean