Little Miss Sunshine Psychology Relationships

1. Rehearsal- Olive repeatedly and continuously practices her same dance

routine as her and her family travel to California for the competition.
2. Superordinate Goal- All of Olive's family members, including her Mother
Father brother and Uncle must work together to achieve the one goal of
getting to California.
3. Internal Locus of Control- Richard, Olive's father constantly blamed any
issues that the family ran into on themselves. When Grandpa Hoover passed
away, which was completely out of the family's control, Richard called the
family member's losers for not wanting continuing. This attitude directly
shows Richard's strong internal locus of control believing that everything that
happened in his life was dependent how much effort he put into it.
4. Conformity- Olive was placed under intense pressure to conform to the ways
of her peers at the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant. They wore fancy clothes with
a lot of makeup, and performed elegant dance moves. Olive even though she
was placed under this pressure to conform to her peers, she did not. She
fought this pressure sited choosing to act like herself instead.
5. Norepinephrine- Norepinephrine calms a person down and brings them
back into a clam state after the release of epinephrine. This reaction was
quite visible when Dwayne had an outburst after he found out he could not
be a pilot. Had it not been for nor epinephrine Dwayne would have never
returned to a docile state, nor would he have gotten back in the van following
his outburst.
6. Maslow's hierarchy of needs- The whole family stopped at a diner to get
food. In doing so this means that they needed to fulfill one of the most basic
principles on Maslow's hierarchy and that is the need to drink and eat in order
to maintain their constant homeostasis. Once the fulfilled this need they were
able to begin to focus on their on their higher level of needs like acceptance
7. Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory- This theory states that there are
three different cones that process three different colors, red, green, and
blue. Dwane when asked by his sister if he could see a green "a" inside a red
background, a common colorblind test, Dwayne was unable to see the "a"
because he had a deficiency in his cone receptors.
8. Fundamental Attribution Error- When a car cut Richard off on the highway
he got extremely angry, slamming on the horn so much so that it got stuck in
the on position. Richard failed to recognize the fact that the person may have
cut him off because they were trying to get off at the next exit and it was

important that they do not miss that exit otherwise they would be late for a
job interview
9. Depressants- Grandpa Hoover used heroin which is a depressant. This
means that when someone uses heroin it slows down their central nervous
system.
10.Kohlbergs post conventional morality- The man who let Olive into the
Little Miss Sunshine pageant, was displaying this. He went against what his
superiors said because he felt that it was the right thing to do, helping a
family in need.
11.Observational learning- Olive watched the television and then reenacted
the dance moves that she had just watched.
12.Major Depressive Disorder- Frank Ginsberg suffered from this. It is evident
in the fact that he had tried to kill himself because of the difficulties he was
confronted with.
13.Identity- Dwayne a teenager in high school suffered with the issue of
identity. This was evident when he complained about how much he dislikes
high school because nobody likes him, is friends with him or understands
him.