Guardians

of the
Galaxy
Preston Wiebe
Mrs. Nagy
Honors General Psychology
13 December 2019

“A group of intergalactic criminals must pull together to stop a fanatical warrior with
plans to purge the universe.” -IMDb

Guardians of the Galaxy is a Marvel’s hilarious but dramatic take on a classic space
cowboy movie, taking in elements of Marvel’s massive universe while creating a new
type of superhero film. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill is a space criminal,
raised by a crew of space pirates who had abducted him from earth when he was just
a child. When the movie starts, Peter finds an orb on an abandoned planet, an item of
extreme value. Instead of taking it to Yondu, his leader and father figure, like he was
supposed to, he decides to sell it on his own and pocket the large amount of money.
Little does he know, this orb contains an infinity stone, and powerful Cree warlord
named Ronan is after it. In the wrong hands, this stone had the power to cause
incredible destruction. This launches Peter on an adventure where he meets a
handful of criminals, all with their own intentions but all drawn together by this
unexpected turn of fate. The stone falls into Ronan’s hands, and the team of space
criminals must band together to save the universe from being destroyed. Each main
character all has their own issues, pasts, flaws, and complexities, but they are drawn
together by this adventure and realize they need to do everything in their power to
stop Ronan from killing millions of innocent people.

Whether it’s personality types, finding one’s identity, or acting on a need to belong,
Guardians of the Galaxy displays a variety of psychological ideas though the
complexities of each character and their interactions with each other.
CONCEPTS AND CHAPTERS
● Parenting and Attachment Style
● Personality
● Identity
● Motivation and Drive Reduction
Theory
● Prejudice
● Ethics in Research
● Learning
● Genetic Influence and Epigenetics
● Need to Belong
● Anger and Emotion
● Ch. 1: Psychology’s Roots, Big
Ideas, and Critical Thinking Tools
● Ch. 3: Developing Through the
Lifespan
● Ch. 6: Learning
● Ch. 9: Motivation and Emotion
● Ch. 11: Personality
● Ch. 14: Social Psychology
Parenting and Attachment Styles
● At the very start of the movie, we witness
Peter as a child, maybe 10 or so, at his
mother’s side as she lays on her deathbed.
● As she talks to him, she references his father
who he never knew. (Later, we learn that his
father is a very powerful being who currently
lives in a different part of the universe.)
● Moments later, Peter’s mother passes away
and Peter runs out of the hospital, only to be
abducted from earth by Yondu, a bounty
hunter and ravager who would raise him to
adulthood.
● While Peter is a funny and charming person,
he obviously lacks morals and core values. He
is rude, obscene, uncivilized, and seems to
have little care for people or close
relationships.

Throughout the movie, we can see evidence of Peter’s poor raising. His parents were
not very present at all. We learn that his father was never around and we witness his
mother’s death when he is around 10. After that, the only parent figure Peter had was
Yondu, a ravager who killed, hunted, and did things that were less than moral, all for
money and loot. Peter had a very poor raising as a child. Between his non present
father, mother who died before he was raised, and his constantly occupied and ill
intentioned father figure, Peter was raised by people with the Uninvolved Parenting
Style. This has resulted in his Avoidant and Disorganized Attachment Styles.

Parenting styles are a huge part of the social development of a child. Children are
extremely malleable as they grow up, and their development is strongly impacted by
their parents and the way they are raised. There are 4 main parenting styles:
Authoritarian (high demands, low responsiveness. Obedience focused and less
focused on being there for them), Authoritative (high demands, high responsiveness.
Focus on discipline but also building a healthy relationship with expectations),
Permissive (Low demands, high responsiveness. Letting the children do what they
want due to fear of hurting them or their feelings), Neglectful (low demands, low
responsiveness. Completely or mostly uninvolved in the child’s raising). These
parenting styles result in how the child grows up. They change the child’s attachment
styles and how they function socially. The attachment styles are Secure, Ambivalent,
Avoidant, and Insecure/Disorganized. Secure children likely had authoritative parents,
resulting in confident, exploratory, and socially healthy children. Ambivalent children
likely had permissive parents who were inconsistent with their parenting, resulting in
the child being unpredictable, insecure, and anxious. Avoidant children likely had
parents who were neglectful and uninvolved, resulting in the child also avoiding close
emotional contact and being distant. Finally, Insecure children were likely raised by
parents who were abusive or Authoritarian, resulting in children who look for security
but avoid it at the same time, being chaotic and lacking sensitivity for others.

Peter Quill was raised by a handful of people with the uninvolved parenting style
because of the fact that his father was never around, his mother died, and Yondu was
a busy and brutal ravager. This resulted in his avoidant and disorganized attachment
styles. Quill is someone who avoids emotional closeness. He is a humorous but
insensitive person. He is rude and not civilized in very many ways usually only looking
to serve himself (until the climax of the movie). This describes someone who has
avoidant and disorganized attachment styles. I think his avoidant attachment styles
come from the fact that his parents were uninvolved and non present, and his
disorganized attachment style comes from the trauma he went through when he was
young and the assumed violence he was exposed to as he grew up with Yondu.
Personality
● Peter Quill
○ Constantly makes jokes in the
face of danger
○ Decides to pocket money and
break a deal
○ Convinces the crew to help him
save the galaxy
● Drax
○ Seeking revenge for his family’s
death
○ Speaks his care for the other
crew members and fights to
protect them
○ Doesn’t understand sarcasm and
speaks literally

Personality is an individual’s own unique way of being. The way they think, their
ideas, how they go through emotions, and how and when they act are all parts of
someone’s personality. While there are countless ways that humans have categorized
personalities, and while it is possible to effectively group some general personalities
together, the reality is everyone’s personality is different. Personality is a complex
idea, and there are some differing viewpoints on what exactly it is. Freud for example
said that personality is the result of what happens unconsciously. Freud split the mind
into three parts: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Ego is a person’s conscious
mind, the Superego is our social restraints and preconscious ideals and values, and
the Id is our biological impulses, instincts and everything that happens unconsciously
in our mind. Freud said that our personality was the result of our Id and Superego
conflicting and fighting while our Ego, our conscious mind, tried to moderate and sort
things out. A different viewpoint was the more humanistic perspective, which focused
on self image, self esteem, and the fact that people are inherently good. Maslow and
Carl Rogers were unhappy with the negative focus Freud took on personality and said
that humans were, in general, good, and their personality came from their tendencies
to seek self actualization.

Both of these ideas contribute to the fact that there are countless personality types,
and they agree that everyone’s personality is going to be different based on their
needs and goals of self fulfilment (humanistic perspective) or their unconscious
conflict between urges, instinct, and ideals (Freud). Everyone’s personality depends
on what happened to them through their life and what is happening to them now. This
can be seen in every main character. For this example, we will compare Peter Quill
and Drax through Freud’s perspective and the Humanistic perspective.

Like looked at before, Peter is more of a self seeking, insensitive person, yet he is full
of charm and humor and has a good side as well. He gets done what he needs to get
done, has a relaxed, carefree demeanor, and is driven and determined. All of these
qualities round out his personality and make him unique. All of these parts of his
personality come from different parts of his life. Peter’s lack of care for others might
come from his lack of care received from his parents. His subconscious superego
(ideals and social restraints) might not have the same care for others as most
people's do because he didn’t receive that care from his parent figures. His Id
(biological impulses and instincts) might be less restrained because he didn’t learn
how to restrain that as well in his childhood due to the absence of his parents and the
violence of Yondu. Peter seems to have a pretty good self esteem which he likely
developed on his own through his successes as a criminal rather than developed as a
child. Being a criminal is his way of self fulfilment. His criminal tendencies seem to
have developed his driven and cool personality. Looking at Drax, we see a strong,
straightforward, very literal, relaxed person with a good sense of humor but a violent
side as well. He is extremely driven and determined but seems to be good natured
and caring. Of course, Drax is a different species and comes from a race that
communicates only literally, so his personality is going to be quite different than
anyone else's. That said, Drax and his personality are no exception. We don’t know a
lot about Drax but we can infer that he was in prison because his family was killed
and he was searching for revenge. He may have done something illegal in that search
for revenge. When Drax’s family was killed, his Id likely would have been
overwhelming with demand for revenge, full of emotion. Furthermore, his and his
family’s security was violated severely, completely altering his priorities; his self
actualization was now revenge for his loved ones. Looking at his more general
personality, his race and culture likely have completely different societal norms,
meaning his Id, Superego, and Ego would all be different, forming him into the
character we know. His goals of self actualization, aside from revenge, would also be
different, based on his own culture.
Identity
● Rocket: “He thinks I’m some stupid
thing! He does! Well I didn’t ask to
get made! I didn’t ask to be torn
apart and put back together over
and over and turned into some…
some little monster!

Peter: “Rocket, no one’s calling you

a monster.”

Rocket: “He called me ‘vermin’! She

called me ‘rodent’!”

Our identity is essentially what makes us up. It’s who we are. Personality, beliefs,
ideas, behaviors, experiences, and even physical appearance are all part of our
identity. A lot of our actions can be based on our identity or based on our need to
discover our identity. Building off of that, our identity is discovered as we make
choices and go through life and its events. Identity creates a sense of who we are to
ourselves. Our identity and sense of self develop through our lifetime as we learn and
go through experiences.

Oftentimes someone might grapple with their identity, trying to figure out who they
really are. Identity is a huge part of psychology because it is essentially who we all
are. It influences our decisions and creates other’s perceptions of us as well as our
own perceptions of ourselves. Our identity is always changing as we go through life
and as we figure out who we are and what defines us. It’s a conscious and an
unconscious process that goes on our whole lives.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Rocket struggles with his identity. He is a very unique
character, a genetically and cybernetically modified racoon, supposedly built as a
weapon. He is fully intelligent and as capable as anyone else, but he doesn’t really
have a grasp of who he is. He struggles with his past. He is often called “rodent” or
“pet” by others and he seems to grapple with his creation and purpose. It very
obviously plays a huge role in his character. His identity is so different and so unique
that even he doesn’t quite understand himself as a person. As a side character in the
movie he doesn’t develop a whole bunch, but it’s obvious that he is trying to figure out
who he is and attempting to find his place in the world. This is huge with identity.
Obviously his search for identity, or lack thereof, has led him to a criminal lifestyle. But
as he figures out who he is, he will begin to create a more well rounded sense of self
and develop his identity.
Motivation and Drive Reduction Theory
● Peter Quill leads a criminal
lifestyle where he endangers
himself in pursuit of money
● When Ronan was threatening to
take over the galaxy, Peter Quill
stood up against him to save the
lives of others at risk of himself

At its core, motivation is our reason for certain actions. Motivation is why we do
things. Without it, we would not be pushed or pulled to do anything. Motivation is our
reason for eating and drinking, our reason for getting up for school and work, and
even our reason for creating friendships or pursuing a relationship. Motivation takes a
lot of different forms, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is motivation that
comes from within yourself. Things like the desire for getting the hang of something,
the urge to learn something, or being motivated to do something without any outside
motivation. Intrinsic motivation can also come from simple curiosity or out of love for
someone or something. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand is motivation that
comes from outside of you. Rewards, praise, food, money, or even fear can be
extrinsic motivators. One of the primary theories about motivation is called Drive
Reduction Theory. Drive reduction theory suggests that needs create a state of
arousal. Such as hunger resulting from the need for food or panic and desperation
due to the need for money. This aroused state turns into motivation to get rid of the
need. Drive pushes us to take action, but we are also pulled by incentives and other
stimuli from the environment around us. An example might be the sound of rushing
water when you are thirsty or the smell of food cooking when you are hungry. Drive
reduction theory helps explain motivation and why we do the things that we do.

Motivation can explain nearly any aspect to someone’s behavior. Motivation can also
change and evolve depending on our needs. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill
has a variety of motivators relating to the plot of the movie. At the start of the movie,
we can see that he is motivated by money. He is hunting for an item of extreme value
and taking part in criminal activity all to get money, like he has been assumably for a
large portion of his adult life. He is motivated to do illegal and dangerous things by the
prospect of money. In the case of drive reduction theory, money could be viewed
more as an incentive pulling him to do certain things, but at the same time, his activity
and obtaining of large amounts of money might have created a psychological need
and drive for more money. But Peter’s actions being motivated by money changes
throughout the movie. The biggest change is when he realizes that it has fallen on him
and his crew’s shoulders to save the galaxy. Instead of being motivated by the
extrinsic motivation of money, he is motivated by intrinsic motivation to stand up and
save millions of people’s lives from an evil tyrant. He isn’t getting anything out of it
himself, but the violated security of millions of innocent lives is driving him to take
action and out an end to it.
Prejudice
● As Gamora walks through prison,
dozens of prisoners taunt and
threaten her because of her
association with Thanos and
Ronan
● When they first meet, Drax wants
to kill Gamora because Ronan
killed his family
● Gamora denounced her
connections to Ronan and Thanos,
showing she didn’t stand for them
or their actions

Prejudice is an aspect of social psychology regarding negative feelings towards a

person or group of people, usually unnecessary and without reason Prejudice,
simplified to prejudgement, is usually a negative attitude towards someone or a group
of people due to some reason that, in reality, fails to justify the negative attitude.
Oftentimes it comes in the form of having a negative attitude toward someone just
because they belong to a certain group of people, even though you know nothing
about them as an individual. There are three main aspects to prejudice: beliefs,
emotions, and predisposition to act. Beliefs usually come from your own beliefs
conflicting with someone else’s or your own ingrained belief about that group of
people in the form of stereotyping. Emotions can also play into prejudice. If you are
fearful or angry at a person or group of people, that fear can cause prejudice. An
example of this might be hating a person from a school because that school’s football
team beat you three seasons in a row and were very rude about it. Even though that
person has nothing to do with the football team, your emotions cause prejudice
towards people from that school. Finally, predisposition to act can cause you to take
action about something that you feel strongly about. Prejudice plays on our liability to
take action about things that are important to us. If we believe something strongly and
are emotional about it, we are likely to do at least something about it. Prejudice takes
place consciously, but more than that, it takes place without us thinking about it,
making it a dangerous part of us. We need to be careful about our beliefs and
attitudes and make sure we are being mindful rather than getting carried away by
prejudice.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora faces a lot of prejudice due to her association
with Ronan. Gamora is the daughter of the evil titan Thanos, and Ronan is an
assumed associate of Thanos. Ronan and his Cree army had been going on a
rampage that Ronan claimed was socially and culturally justified. In the process,
planets were destroyed and millions of innocent people were killed. Because of
Gamora’s association with Ronan through Thanos, many people had a severe
prejudice against her. While the crew is in prison after being arrested for fighting, a lot
of the prisoners threaten her and are prepared to kill her once they get the chance.
Even though Gamora has dissociated herself from Thanos and has nothing to with
Ronan, many people want her dead because they lost their families and homes to
him. All this hate that these people have for Gamora comes from their grief and anger
about Ronan. Even though Ronan and Gamora are completely different, Gamora’s
association with Ronan has earned her the hatred of all the people that Ronan
harmed. All of these people have a negative attitude about Gamora that is justified in
their own eyes, but in the grand scheme of things, they are heavily affected by their
emotions and their hatred for her is unjustified.
Ethics in Research
● (After the arrest of Peter Quill,
Gamora, Rocket, and Groot)

Nova Corps Guard: “Subject 89P13.

Calls itself ‘Rocket.’ The result of
illegal genetic and cybernetic
experiments on a lower life form.”

Ethics in research isn’t a psychological idea or term that might jump out to you in a
book or movie, or something really think about everyday. It’s not even an aspect to
psychology that directly affects you at any given moment. But ethics in research is a
big part of the history of psychology; so many revolutionary things have been
discovered in very controversial ways. In recent history, as psychology has grown as
a science, there have been measures put into place to prevent unethical studies from
taking place. But unethical practices will always be a part of the history of Psychology
and certain aspects of ethics are still talked about and debated today. One famous
case of unethical psychological research was Baby Albert in 1920 carried out by John
Watson. In this experiment, a baby was conditioned to fear a white rat. A lot was
learned about learning and conditioned responses, and the experiment is famous in
psychology these days, but today, such an experiment would never be allowed
because of the lack of ethics. Another unethical experiment was the Stanford Prison
Experiment. In this experiment, psychologist Zimbardo created a mock prison
environment 1973. Volunteers were hired and some were given the role of prisoner
while other were given the role of prison guard. The study was an attempt to
understand what the roles of power and subordinate did to a person. The experiment
quickly got out of hand though and the guards became abusive while the prisoners
were dehumanized and suffered emotional stress. Due to how quick things got out of
hand and how realistically the volunteers were taking their roles, the experiment was
cut short.

Before ethical guidelines were put into place, the only restrictions were the law and a
person’s own moral judgement. Obviously this led to some experiments that weren’t
entirely ethical. Since then, ethical guidelines have been published and experiments
are not permitted unless they are approved by the institutional review board at the
origin of the experiment. One of the major ethical points now is that emotional,
physical, or mental harm cannot be inflicted whatsoever to a person during the
experiment. A couple other points state the importance to the right to privacy and the
right to withdraw. Finally, an experiment cannot include deception unless it is
necessary, and the experiment must have a debriefing at the end where the
volunteers are fully informed of the experiment.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, we see a case of illegal and unethical researching.

Though we don’t get a whole lot of backstory on Rocket, we learn that he was the
product of illegal experimenting. From what we are told, we can assume that Rocket
was originally a simple racoon who was created to be physically enhanced and
intelligent. This is obviously something that keeps him up at night, as we see later
when he is yelling about ‘not asking to be made.’ It doesn’t take much thinking about it
to realize the potential emotional, mental, and physical trauma that Rocket has
endured. Not only were the experiments that created him illegal, but they were
extremely unethical. Obviously the people who did the experimenting didn’t care, but
ethics in research are very important to protect the mental, physical, and emotional
health of all involved.
Learning
● Gamora: “Fool. You should have
learned.”
● Peter Quill: “I don’t learn. One of
my issues.”

● After repeatedly facing the

punishment of being harmed by
Gamora, Quill continues to fight
for the infinity stone

Learning is characterized by a change in someone or something’s behavior because

of a consequence resulting after an action. In simpler terms, learning is doing
something different because what you did had a negative or positive consequence.
There are two main ways that we learn: classical conditioning and operant
conditioning.

With classical conditioning, we learn when different stimuli are linked together in our
mind and we can anticipate certain events. In classical conditioning, there usually has
to be an unconditioned stimuli, an unconditioned response, a conditioned stimuli, and
a conditioned response. A famous example was Ivan Pavlov’s discovery with dogs
salivating. The original experiment was unrelated, but Pavlov noticed that whenever
the dogs heard the footsteps of the lab assistant approaching with food, the dog
began to salivate. He furthered the experiment and started ringing a bell whenever he
was about to feed the dogs, and the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell.
The unconditioned stimulus was the food and the unconditioned response was
salivating; that part was completely natural. But then the bell was brought into the
situation. The bell was the conditioned stimulus. After the dog learned that the bell
meant food was coming, it began to show the conditioned response of salivating.
Even though a dog would never naturally salivate at the sound of a bell, the dog
learned that the bell mean food and was conditioned to respond.

With operant conditioning, learning happens when punishments or rewards are

used to reinforce a good type of behavior or get rid of a negative behavior. B.F.
Skinner was the psychologist behind this theory, and his famous experiments used
the Skinner Box where an animal manipulated a sort of lever or key to receive a
positive result such as food or water. The animals would learn how to manipulate the
box in order to get food as a positive response, and they learned that, by doing the
action, they would get a positive result. An example of real world operant conditioning
would be parents rewarding their children by giving them something positive or
punishing their child by taking something positive away, such as a phone or other
privilege. The children learn how to behave properly (or at least learn what their
parents want) and behavior might be changed by that.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill makes a statement about learning. While his
simple line may just seem like comical screenplay, it really speaks to Peter Quill’s
character and reveals some truth about learning. In the scene where Peter speaks of
learning, he is fighting Gamora for the infinity stone. She fights him, beats him, and
runs off with it, but he catches her and regains possession of the item. Again, she
fights him, beats him up, and takes it, calling him a fool and saying he should have
learned. This is an example of operant conditioning. The ‘negative behavior’ is
attacking Gamora for the infinity stone and the ‘punishment’ is her beating him up and
taking it back. Of course, this isn’t a planned example of attempting to reinforce a
behavior, but Quill taking the stone and Gamora beating him up are examples of a
behavior and a punishment. Most normal people would have ‘learned’ after being beat
twice, but Quill doesn’t because of the extreme value of the stone. We can imagine if
this went on and on for an unrealistic amount of times, Quill would likely ‘learn’ and his
behavior would be reinforced by the punishment of being beat up; he would
eventually stop after enough times. I want to build off of this though and connect it to
Peter’s character. This shows the determination that he has as well as the value he
places in the stone because of its monetary value. Learning likely would have
happened sooner if the stone didn’t mean so much to him and he wasn’t such a
determined person. Looking at this, we can assume learning is quite interconnected
to a person’s personality and is also very situational. Someone will learn quicker
depending on the severity of the punishment and reward as well as the scope and
value of the behavior.
Genetic Influence/Nature vs Nurture/Epigenetics

● Peter Quill’s mother was a terran

(from earth) and his father is a
ancient, powerful, godly being.

● Because of the genetic influence

of his father, Quill was able to
hold the bare infinity stone
without being killed

For a long time, psychologists have been trying to determine whether intelligence and
psychological attributes of a person are due to genetics or their environment. This is
the nature vs nurture debate. People wonder how much of a role their genetics play
on their brain and psychology, as well as how much of an effect the environment has
on them. This is all part of developmental psychology, and developmental
psychologists attempt to answer these questions. It has been generally agreed on
that genetics and your environment both play a role in how you develop. Just as you
inherit physical traits from your ancestors and parents, your brain inherits traits as
well, leading you to inherit certain psychological factors. Specifics on this are still
being researched but some examples might be inheriting a mental disorder or being
more susceptible to getting one in your life. Another example might be your brain’s
ability to learn; some people learn a lot easier than others. But aside from genetics,
your environment plays a role in your development too. How your parents raised you,
what you learned when you were younger, and any traumatic events will all play a role
in your psychological development. Just like your environment plays a role in your
physical health and development, your brain takes that as a factor as well. Someone
who suffered from neglect as a child might have low self esteem or issues in dealing
with people, but someone born into a loving family and has a good raising might have
a higher chance of being able to interact with people well and might think of
themselves in a more positive manner. Epigenetics also play a role in your
development. Essentially, the idea of epigenetics is that genes can be ‘switched on
and off’ due to the choices you make and the lifestyle you live, as well as that of your
parents. Your parents lifestyle and life choices can make an impact on your genetics
before you are even conceived. Everything we do, the food we eat, the water we
drink, the activities we do, the emotions we feel, nearly everything around us can
minorly alter our genetic expression and alter the genetics of our offspring. The genes
themselves aren’t changed, except in the case of a mutation, but rather what part of
the gene is expressed can be changed. This in mind, the choices we make and the
environment we are in can alter the genetics of us and our offspring.

Peter Quill is a good example of genetics and the influence that plays on us. Peter
Quill was born on earth and he assumes that both his parents were terran (human
born on earth). But it turns out, only his mother was terran. His father was some sort
of ancient and powerful being. You don’t learn exactly what until the second movie,
but his father is incredibly different than a normal human. This influence is seen in the
final battle of the movie when Ronan is invading Xandar. He was about to strike the
infinity stone onto the ground and wipe out the planet’s population, but instead, Quill
was able to obtain the stone. Any normal being would be killed by touching the bare
stone, but Quill was able to hold onto it and defeat Ronan. Later, he learns this is
because of the genetic influence of his powerful father. Genetic influence can play a
role in our physical and mental development, and in this case, it allowed Quill to hold
the stone without dying. We can assume that his powerful father has a significant
genetic influence on him as a whole, besides just being able to hold the stone.
Need to Belong
● (about to be killed for her association
with Thanos) Gamora: “I’m no
family to Ronan or Thanos”

● (After Ronan states that he is going

to kill Thanos) Nebula: “You see
what he has turned me into. You
kill him, I will help you destroy a
thousand planets.”

The need to belong is an extremely powerful force in humans. It can drive us to do

things we never think we would do. Humans are such social beings that we desire
approval from those around us and want to feel like we belong. The need to belong
and desire for approval has a heavy influence on our actions. On a small scale, it can
be dressing a certain way or talking a certain way to get approval from people at
school. On a larger scale, it can be stealing so you look like you have a lot of money
or lying your way into a top tier college to appear more worthy. Our need to belong
plays such an incredible role in our lives that any one of us could likely examine our
day and notice dozens of things, major or minor, that we did in order to gain approval
or feel like we belong.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, I wanted to look at Gamora and Nebula and how the
need to belong influenced them. Both were the adopted sisters of the evil titan,
Thanos. Their father was an extremely powerful figure with incredible plans to take
over the universe. Both Nebula and Gamora had long backstories involving Thanos:
Gamora’s family was killed by him and he essentially forced her into being his
daughter; Nebula was adopted by Thanos as well but was subject to terrible and
torturous procedures to make her more effective as a killing machine. Both daughters
have an extreme hate for Thanos by the time of the first movie, and their whole lives
have been influenced by him. They both don’t seem to know their exact place in the
world and struggle to feel like they belong and are accepted. For Gamora, eventually
her hate for Thanos spills over and she sides with the other guardians in an attempt to
kill Ronan. Her needs were not being met with Thanos. For years she had tried to feel
approved by him, but he raised her as a tool, not as a daughter. This influenced her
actions and she ended up taking the opposite side as her father because she was not
getting the acceptance she needed. Nebula faced a similar story. She constantly tried
to gain her father’s approval, but her father only continued to destroy her and
physically modify her to make her stronger. In the second movie, we learn that Nebula
and Gamora would fight, and every time Nebula lost, Thanos would torture her and try
to make her stronger. Nebula strongly desired the approval of her father but was not
receiving it. In the movie, her anger boils over and she sides with Ronan, promising to
help kill Thanos. We can look at any character or any person’s actions and find cases
where they were influenced by their need to belong. In this case, they tried to fill this
need with their father but were not getting the approval they needed, so they ended
up taking action against their father in order to attempt to find this approval
somewhere else.
Anger and Emotion
● (after foolishly attempting to kill
Ronan and being defeated) Drax:
“You’re right, I'm a fool. All the
anger, all the rage, was just to
cover my loss.”

Emotions are our responses to certain arousing situations. Emotions are a blend of a
handful of different factors, including bodily arousal (the feeling), expressive behavior
(your actions), and conscious appraisal and experience (what you think). Emotions
happen when an arousing experience takes place. There are a handful of theories
about emotion, all attempting to explain how emotion works and what happens during
the process of experiencing emotion. They include the James-Lange Theory which
suggests that your physical response to an event precedes your emotional response,
a theory by Walter Cannon and Philip Bard which suggests that the physical
experience and stimulus takes place at the same time as the emotional response, and
the two factor theory which proposes that our physical response to an event as well
as our cognitive labeling create the emotional response. When it comes down to it,
emotions are different based on the situation; they are a mix of our appraisal of the
situation, the severity and nature of the situation, and our physiological and natural
responses to the situation. Emotions are often a huge factor in our behavior. For
example, if we are feeling sad, we are going to act a lot different than if we are feeling
happy. Because of this, our behavior can be viewed as the result of our emotions; by
looking at someone’s behavior, you can often determine what kind of emotions they
are feeling. Emotion often manifests itself in our behavior. Our needs and desires
affect our feelings which in turn affect our actions. At the root of it all is emotion based
on our situations.

Anger is one of the ten basic emotions. Just like all other emotions, it is caused by
some sort of arousing experience. For example something is taken away or some
need is not being met. When this happens, our feelings and emotions turn to anger
and our actions can be severely affected by this.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, we see a clear example of this. Ronan killed Drax’s wife
and daughter in front of him. You can imagine the terrible rage and sadness that Drax
must have felt. Drax went through a terribly arousing event that caused him to feel
unimaginable anger. His next action, influenced by this anger, was to seek revenge on
the nearest person he could find who was related to this. It’s no wonder he wanted to
kill Gamora when he saw her. Even after he spared Gamora, the anger was still
boiling inside of him and he continued to seek revenge on Ronan. He foolishly
charged into battle with Ronan and was defeated very quickly. Again, emotions play a
huge role in our behavior, and they can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do
without them. After being defeated, Gamora recognizes his foolishness and
acknowledges that the anger and rage was a result of the loss of his family. This is an
example of how emotion can influence our behavior.
COLLABORATION: Different Schemas
● The main antagonist of the story is a Cree warlord who wants to
destroy planets and kill people in the name of his culture and
beliefs.
● The Cree nation doesn’t associate with him, yet doesn’t make a
move to stop him. The Nova Corps, having nothing to do with the
Cree, take responsibility and attempt to stop him.
● Here, there is a conflict of beliefs between the Cree nation and the
Nova Corps about who should take action.

Ronan, the powerful Cree warlord, is leading an army on a rampage, killing innocent
people and destroying planets. Not much can be done to stop him; he is extremely
powerful and got even more powerful when he acquired the infinity stone. In one
scene, the leader of the Nova Corps is seen begging the leader of the Cree nation to
take action (The Nova Corps is the military and police nation that seems to have a lot
of authority in that part of the galaxy). It’s important to clarify that, while Ronan is
fighting for Cree culture with an army of Cree, he is not actually associated with the
Cree nation. This is where the two differing viewpoints arise. The Cree nation doesn’t
believe it is their job to do anything about Ronan due to the fact that Ronan is his own
entity and is not currently threatening the Cree nation. But Nova Corps believes that
the Cree nation should step up to help stop him, or at least be willing to release a
statement saying they do not agree with what Ronan is doing. We have to do a little
bit of guessing here, but we can assume that the Cree nation either does agree with
what Ronan is doing but doesn’t want any publicity with that and just wants to let him
fight for the Cree culture on his own, OR the Cree nation doesn’t agree with what
Ronan is doing but just doesn’t want to get involved. Either way, the Cree nation is
significantly influenced by their own Schemas. The fact that they are Cree as well as
Ronan certainly has some part in their decision, whether that is because they don’t
want to be fighting against their own kind or they agree with what he is doing. But
Nova Corps has the good of the whole galaxy on their mind. As the police/military
force of the area, they are partially responsible for taking action when something like
this happens. That is part of their own schema. We can see that the two nations and
their leaders are influenced by their own schema about the same exact thing: Nova
Corps thinks the Cree should take action while the Cree believe it is not their
responsibility.
CONCLUSION
Psychology is all around us and its factors and effects can be seen everywhere if
you look hard enough. Being able to recognize different aspects of psychology in
your day to day life can help you understand the complexities of human lives and
interactions. Understanding what is really going on when someone does something
or when you feel a certain way can be beneficial. When you understand the
psychology of your life and of those around you, you can learn how to improve
yourself, interact with others better, and grow.

Through analyzing a few psychology concepts found in Guardians of the Galaxy,

we can see the complexities of people’s interactions. By uncovering the reasons for
people’s actions and understanding why people are the way they are, we can really
get to the roots of human behavior and explain what exactly is going on.
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Cherry, K. (2019, December 7). What Was the Little Albert Experiment? Retrieved
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Cherry, K. (2019, September 24). The Psychology of How People Learn. Retrieved from
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learning-2795332.

Henricks , T. (2016, October 5). Rethinking Prejudice. Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pathways-experience/201610/rethinking-prejudice.

Meyers, D. G. (2012). Psychology in Everyday Life (Second Edition). Holland,

Michigan: Hope College.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. (2014). Guardians of the Galaxy. Retrieved
from https://www.disneyplus.com