¶ … White Oleander" and Social Psychology
"White Oleander" and Social Psychological Terms
The movie "White Oleander" was made in 2002, as an adaptation of Janet Fitch's book White Oleanders. It stars Alison Loman as Astrid Magnussen, Michelle Pfeiffer as her mother Ingrid, and Robin Wright and Renee Zellweger as foster mothers Starr and Claire. The movie follows the life of Astrid after her mother is convicted of murder. Astrid passes through several homes, and learns what it means to be both her mother's daughter and her own person. After Ingrid is convicted, Astrid is sent to her first foster home, with Starr. Astrid and Starr's much older boyfriend develop too close a relationship which breaks the family apart. After her first foster family dissolves, Astrid is briefly sent to a group home. Her third home is with Claire Richards, who she learns to love deeply, however the woman is incredibly troubled and commits suicide. This results in Astrid going to her final foster home, with a foster mother who is a Russian immigrant, who teaches...
Astrid then learns her mother is trying to appeal her conviction. Astrid is asked to participate in the trial, but is ultimately set free by her mother, and allowed to live her own life.
Several terms related to social psychology can be found in the movie. First, Ingrid very much suffers from the false-consensus effect. That is, she seems to believe that everyone around her feels the same way that she does, and has the same views and values. Ingrid acts as though she is the center of the world, but more than that, as though everyone around her shares that view. She believes that everyone, especially her own daughter, follow her schools of thought. She sees this as being true because Astrid always agrees with her, however she is simply self-justifying.
Ingrid applies a self-fulfilling prophecy to Claire. A self-fulfilling prophecy comes about when one determines how one thinks another person will behave, and projects that assumption onto the other person such that it becomes true. Ingrid chooses to believe that…
