The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness is a heartwarming, based on real-life story following the life of Chris Gardner, who is a medical equipment salesmen who falls on some bad luck. “Some bad luck” in this case being gross understatement, as up until the film’s completion, Mr. Gardner seems to hit one speed bump after the next. Also important to the storyline is Chris’ son, Christopher Jr., his wife Linda, and Jay Twistle (a manager for an important stockbroking firm). Chris Gardner starts the film as a near-homeless man trying desperately to support his nagging wife and loyal son. After meeting, gaining an interview, and earning and unpaid internship with a local stockbroking firm thanks to the help of a lucky taxi ride with Jay Twistle, Gardner gets a new start at life. Linda, his wife, finally leaves him, and Gardner falls on yet more unfortunate times. However, in the end, Gardner earns the respect and eventually the paid position at the stockbroking firm, embraces his son, and walks away confident and ready to start his own brand-new multimillion-dollar life.

Chris Gardner is an excellent character to focus on in terms of the content covered in Chapter 9 of our book. He exemplifies how humanity can persist through failure after failure without ever giving in. He is a testament to the power of the self-efficacy despite an environment that, in many other fellow humans, would create the experience of learned helplessness.

To review, learned helplessness is an outcome expectation-born concept that occurs when a person believes that outcomes are out of their own personal control. In other words, no matter what they do, the outcome will be the same regardless. It is “learned” because humans are not necessarily innately born with this trait but learn it through our interactions with our environment. There are three components required to satisfy learned helplessness (Contingency, Cognition, & Behavior), none of which Gardner satisfies, despite an environment that constantly attempts to enforce chaos in Gardner’s life.

As an example, Gardner first runs from the taxi cab fare, as he is unable to afford it, and is chased into a train station. He boards a train but loses the final medical scanner he needed to sell, then while attempting to work off his overdue rent, he is then forced to spend a night incarcerated to repay the many overdue parking tickets he had accumulated. The only positive thing to occur to Gardner during the first stretch of the film was the acquiring of the interview at the stockbroking firm, and that definitely was not a for-sure job, as the interview was for an unpaid internship in which he had to compete with all the applicants for the position and then compete with the twenty or so other unpaid interns for the one position.

This environment constantly reinforces a learned helplessness-supportive environment, as failure after failure plagues the poor man. His choice to run from the taxi cab didn’t save him money as the behavior was intended to do but cost him the medical scanner he needed to sell for money. Attempting to repay his due to this landlord through work was interrupted by the police taking him to prison to serve a day to repay his parking tickets. Each instance of Gardner’s personal choices where he attempts to exude personal control is halted and replaced by an uncontrollable environmental factor that slaps Gardner back three steps for every one step he takes. Even when he receives the unpaid internship in an attempt to save his family, it only drove his family further apart, as Linda (his wife) leaves because she may receive a position at her sister’s restaurant and Gardner has failed to bring in any income to support their family. Every choice is met with an equal consequence that cancels out the progress Gardner attempts to make. Personally, I wouldn’t blame the man for taking on a helpless thought process in this scenario, as it seems his world is actively working against him.

However, Gardner did not sink into helplessness, and this is due to his high self-efficacy value. It allowed him to persist and push through the abnormally difficult conditions life had thrown at him, and it was this persistent motivated behavior that eventually won him one of the most high-paying positions in America. Self-efficacy is the ability of an individual to successfully organize and orchestrate their skills and resources to adapt to changing environments. Self-efficacy is quintessential in the determination of how a human will perform under stress, and considering Gardner performed extremely well under copious amounts of stress, it is fair to assume his self-efficacy is relatively stable, dare I say extremely/abnormally strong.

The four sources of self-efficacy are easy to define, but a bit harder to find in this film, so bear with me as we attempt to piece this together with a little pizzazz and a lot of duct tape. The very first source is personal behavior history (PBH). To form our feeling of self-efficacy, we look at our past performance on similar activities and how well/poorly we performed. We use these either as judgements for our competence or as learning opportunities to change our behavior in the current activity. A strong sense of PBH allows for more of a failure cushion than low PBH, as the negative outcomes that plague all history are not perceived as uncontrollable, chaotic events. Because Gardner saw negative outcome after negative outcome, yet never seemed to dwell upon these failures, it is fair to assume that Gardner’s past PBH must have been relatively strong. Had he possessed a weak PBH prior to the events of the film, Gardner would not have persisted in the face of such adversity. This is because PBH is the most influential of the four sources of self-efficacy, so without a strong PBH, the likelihood of high self-efficacy (and therefore, highly effective high-stress performance) would be very low.

The second source of self-efficacy is vicarious experience. In essence, you watch someone model the behavior/activity before you and receive increased self-efficacy because you believe that the task is possible. The book describes it as “If they can do it, so can I.” This one is also a bit of a stickler to define, as it is not directly demonstrated in the film. However, I believe that there is one implied instance of vicarious experience in Gardner’s story. When he dives fully into the unpaid internship following his eviction from his home, he demonstrates remarkable ability in gaining relationships with clients and trading stocks. Humans are not innately born with the ability to buy and trade stocks, so I believe that this serves as an instance of Gardner using modeling to benefit his own self-efficacy. After the interview and gaining the position, Gardner must have observed the more senior members of the staff buying and selling stocks, and perhaps even received bits of advice to better his own performance. Seeing that these men use clients and profits to measure success, he knew that the best way to secure his own position was to model the “experts” behavior. And since Gardner had such little knowledge of trading stocks (a novice), the book states that he would receive greater efficacy benefit from vicarious experience. This would mean that his already bolstered self-efficacy, with an inferred high PBH, was further boosted with novice vicarious experience (most beneficial to efficacy). And since the modeling and PBH are (combined) the two most influential sources of self-efficacy, Gardner is well-set on his way to success already.

Verbal persuasion is the third of the sources of self-efficacy that Gardner is shown to receive throughout the film. In fact, this may be the most represented source of efficacy in the entire film. Verbal persuasion is a “pep talk,” for lack of a better term, a temporary efficacy boost that helps push the individual through to the next instance of an activity. The biggest verbal persuader isn’t really a verbal persuader at all, but constantly gives Gardner the pep he needs: His son Christopher Jr. Gardner does everything for the benefit of his son, wanting Chris Jr. to have the best life he could possibly have. The constant presence of the child reminds Gardner why he is performing the tasks he is and would constantly motivate him to perform the best he can. For example, post-eviction, Gardner sees his son living on the streets, and realizing that this is not the most ideal future he has for his son, throws himself into his work and eventually gains an extremely successful position. The presence of his son on the streets motivated Gardner to put forth just a little more effort to change the drastic situation he found himself in, and it wound up being successful, which would increase overall efficacy via PBH. Another, lesser example of verbal persuasion would be the meeting with Jay Twistle in the taxi, which was the first positive occurrence to Gardner. After leading a rather dull and dreary life, Twistle introduced the possibility of a better future and implied that he saw great talent in Gardner. In offering Gardner that position, he persuaded Gardner that he was capable of much more than scanner selling and a dissatisfying marriage, temporarily increasing his efficacy and causing him to attend the interview that would change his life.

The final source of self-efficacy is physiological state. This is mostly a negative source, as it focuses on how stress/anxiety can increase inefficacy (therefore, decrease self-efficacy) feelings within a performer. The simplest understanding of this concept is that negative physiological states (anxiety, fatigue) signal inefficacy and the absence of these negative states (calm, energized) signal efficacy. It is important, in this context, to note that the book does point out that physiological state is most influential when the initial efficacy is uncertain, and in efficacy-certain situations, it is largely ignored. This one becomes a bit of a grey zone for me, as I am torn on where exactly to place Gardner. The situation he is in (especially the stockbroking bit) is cause for an uncertain efficacy. He has no idea what to do, no previous experience in the world (no PBH), and is competing with other, more experienced individuals. Therefore, his physiological states should be highly influencing according to the book. Because of this, Gardner should have experienced lowered self-efficacy, and affected performance. However, because of the three other sources, especially PBH and vicarious experience, being so high, perhaps Gardner had enough of a cushion to overlook the physiological state. Because he had such high feelings of self-efficacy caused by the first three, he was able to better fly through the uncertain feelings and act more like it was a efficacy-certain situation. Because of this, instead of constantly noticing his high anxiety and exhaustion, Gardner was able to ignore these feelings and work through until he was ultimately successful.

Terms used:
Personal Control – Pg. 231
Self-efficacy – Pg. 233
Personal Behavioral History – Pg. 235
Vicarious Experience – Pg. 235
Verbal Persuasion – Pg. 236
Physiological State – Pg. 236
Learned Helplessness – Pg. 244

Chapter Nine in Understanding Motivation and Emotion talks about personal control beliefs, such as self efficacy, mastery motivation, helplessness, learned helplessness, hope, etc. The Pursuit of Happyness talks about this throughout the film. The Pursuit of Happyness is about a man named Chris Gardner whose ultimate goal is to keep his son and his wife in his life but he faces all of these obstacles such as selling these bone density machines, getting a job as a stockbroker intern, and many other things. Throughout the movie there are examples of self efficacy, mastery and helplessness orientation, and lastly to top it off, hope.

Self efficacy is defined as one’s judgement of how well or poorly one will cope with a situation, given the skills one possess and the circumstances one faces.The definition of self efficacy is asking yourself the question, can I perform well on this particular task? An example of this in the movie is Chris Gardner wanting to be in his child’s life because his dad wasn’t there, so he made himself a promise, which could be seen as a judgement, to make sure he is there for his child. This applies to self efficacy because Chris’s judgement about his birth father has made him cope well so he can take care of Christopher, his son.

The next terms I want to talk about are Mastery vs Helplessness motivation. The definition of these terms is as followed. A mastery motivational orientation, the person responds to failure by remaining task focused and by being bent on achieving mastery in spite of difficulties and setbacks.A helpless motivational orientation refers to a fragile view of the self during encounters of failure.The person responds to failure by giving up and withdrawing, acting as if the situation were out of their control. There are prevalent examples of both of these terms in the movie. First let’s talk about mastery motivational orientation and how it applies. An example in the movie of mastery motivational orientation Chris Gardner still wants to sell his mobile bone density machines regardless of having marital issues, having his son, tickets on his car, and just a bunch of difficulties he has in his life. This is an example of mastery motivational orientation because Chris Gardner who fails at selling these bone density machines, but he is determined because he spent his life savings on these machines to sell them. Now let’s talk about helplessness. An example in the movie of helplessness, more specifically learned helplessness is when, Chris, he is outside by the stockbrokers car and sees everyone being happy and he thinks he can never be happy. Learned helplessness is the psychological state that results when an individual expects that life’s outcomes are uncontrollable. He has developed this mindset that he can never be happy and he learned that by letting the things that are against him bring him down.

The last term I want to address with the Pursuit of Happyness is Hope. The definition of hope is as followed from the text. Hope emerges out of an integrated two part cognitive motivation system.When people have both the motivation to work toward their goals and when people know ways to achieve those goals, they experience hope.The experience of hope is pathway thinking, or the belief that one can generate multiple viable routes to desired goals, as people say to themselves, Ill find a way to get this done. I think an example that is prevalent throughout the whole movie is that Christopher is Chris’s hope. At the end of the day Chris wants what is best for his son and to come home to his son.

Key Terms:
Personal Control Beliefs
Self Efficacy
Mastery Motivation
Helplessness
Learned Helplessness
Hope

The movie, The Pursuit of Happiness, the main characters are Christopher Gardner and his son. This movie correlates in several ways with chapter nine. The chapter begins by elaborating on key components of personal control. Two concepts that were highlighted were efficacy expectations and outcome expectations. In the film Christopher struggles to make ends meet to support him and, in the beginning half of the film, his wife. With adversity, Chris must find make money one way or another. He eventually runs into a man in front of a stockbrokers firm who gave him the idea to potentially be a stockbroker because all he needed to know was numbers and how to communicate with people well. Chris asked himself, “can I make this dream a reality to support my family?” (efficacy expectations). Throughout the film we see Christ trying over and over to find a home and eventually lands an unpaid internship. Although this is an amazing opportunity, he begins to ask himself, “will this actually work?”, “will this one of 20 chance end up working out for me?” (outcome expectations). This expectation duo is seen throughout the film. For example, If I can see all of these Bone Density Scanners I will be able to make good money for the family.

The chapter also elaborates on self-efficacy. We see this concept in the film when Chris is put to the test to get a perfect score to finally be a stockbroker. Self-efficacy asks the personal questions, “can I perform a task and if things go wrong can I bounce back and cope with it and come back better?” For Chris we see how he possess the skills to be a broker (good with numbers, amazing communication skills, highly intelligent, etc.) and he uses his life skills and battle through adversity to put himself out there in the business world. He studies above and beyond for the exam and makes so many personal connections through something as simple as talking to business men at a football game. On a similar note people learn their own self-efficacy from their attempts at executing past behaviors. This is seen by how Chris was a math wiz and even solves a Rubik's Cube in front of Jay in the film to reflect is intelligence.

The chapter highlights a section that explains vicarious experiences. Chris does this when he meets the man with the red Ferrari and is surrounded by all of the brokers that are happy and smiling. He has the motivation to do the same so he goes out and makes the goal to have that job and stops at nothing to do so. Along with this concept we see verbal persuasion as well. This is seen by how Chris is constantly being positively persuaded by Jay to continue with the internship. As far as negative verbal persuasion, Chris is put down by his wife who begins to lose all care for their relationship and tell him that he is stupid for wanting to try and be a broker. Lastly, as far as self-efficacy, the chapter highlights persistence. We see this come into play when life really starts to tear Chris apart. First with Bone Scanners being stolen and then with his wife leaving and losing places to live. He stays strong and persistent and focuses on the day to day objectives of finding a place to sleep and hopefully moving up in the internship and broker job. With moving forward, we see how he develops coping strategies. For instance he uses the approach versus avoidance by how he takes action by tackling the problem at hand rather than running away.

Along with self-efficacy and mastery beliefs, the chapter highlights learned helplessness. In the film we see how Chris negates the term. On the contrary we see how his wife experiences motivational deficits and strong levels of helplessness. This is shown when she gives up and eventually leaves to New York. She learns these behaviors by how her life has been going down the drain in a sense. She constantly has experienced failure and when Chris fails to sell the scanners day in and day out while she is working two shifts, she feels completely helpless.

Terms:
Personal control
Efficacy expectations
Outcome expectations
Self-efficacy
Vicarious experience
Verbal persuasion
Persistence
Coping
Approach versus avoidance
Learned helplessness

The “Pursuit of Happiness” is a film that portrays the struggle of man trying to find a way to provide for his son. Throughout the film, there are many instances where personal control beliefs are seen.

The main character Christopher Gardner is struggling to find time to balance his work internship and being able to take care of his son. However, throughout the film Christopher begins to develop a higher sense of self-efficacy in order to successfully complete these tasks. An example of this is when he realizes that he doesn’t have time to put in as many hours as the other interns and as a result implements a system in which he can save time and work efficiently. Although his current living circumstance had a major hindrance on his work, he still demonstrated a high self-efficacy because he knew he had the mental capacity to successfully complete his work tasks in a shorter period of time. Christopher’s high self-efficacy is also seen when he is interviewing with the board of the company. Although his application and skills are minimal, he is still able to demonstrate to the board that he is capable of successfully completing the role due to his past success both in high school and the military. Christopher’s past success is a direct influence on his self-efficacy regarding the tasks required for the internship role.

Mastery beliefs also play a role during Christopher’s internship experience. As previously discussed, Christopher realizes that he will not be able to put in the same amount of hours as the other interns and as a result must find other means to collect more money and produce greater results in the shortened amount of time. Christopher had every reason to simply quit and avoid his responsibilities and his work, however he chooses to take approach the task and goes above and beyond in order to prevent himself from failing. An example of this is when he decides to contact the CEO of a company and schedule a meeting with him in order to attempt and collect a bigger allocation of money for his internship. Christopher realizes that he will not be able to contact all of the businesses on his list and as a result he will need to contact businessmen in higher positions that can produce a higher revenue in order to attempt and allocate the most money. There are certain points throughout the film where Christopher can be seen making business deals and conversations outside of work in order to give himself the competitive edge against the other interns. Christopher’s mastery belief of knowing that he can successfully complete the job results in him going above and beyond in order to avoid failure. Helplessness is a key concept that is seen throughout the film. Christopher’s wife Linda is a perfect example of this concept. During a flashback in the film Christopher and his wife can be seen happy in their new apartment with the various scanners. However, in the present day Linda develops learned helplessness because she believes that their lives are ruined and that there is nothing that can be done to remedy their lives. Christopher approaches Linda and confronts her about not having faith that their lives will get better. Linda has developed learned helplessness and as a result she decides to leave their home and move in order to attempt to rebuild her life.

The reactance theory is the final personal control belief that is seen in the film. The two individuals who portray this theory are Linda and Christopher. As previously discussed, Linda reacts to the family’s hardship and financial struggle in a negative manner and as a result decides to leave and restart her life. Christopher on the other hand chooses to react in a positive manner and decides that he needs to make a stand and work in order to change both his life and his son’s. Christopher holds on to hope because he believes that his life will get better. Although his he is facing financial struggle he has an inner belief that all the work he is doing will pay off in the long run. Christopher goes above and beyond in order to ensure that his son has a place to sleep and that he can provide what little he has in order to survive. The “Pursuit of Happiness” is a film that describes the hardships and financial struggles of a man and the manner in which he chooses to react in order to turn his life around and provide for his son. Christopher is a perfect example of an individual who saw his current circumstance and decided to work hard and ultimately succeed in changing his life for the better.

Terms:
-Self-Efficacy
-Mastery Beliefs
-Learned Helplessness
-Hope
-Reactance Theory
-Approach vs Avoidance

The film, The Pursuit of Happyness, demonstrates many of our concepts in chapter 9, most notably expectations, learned helplessness, and self-efficacy. Chris is competent in his ability to make and sell portable bone density scanners, although he does not have social encouragement from his wife. Chris’s wife does not provide knowledge, skills, or self-efficacy to Chris, meaning that she does not empower him get a better paying job than selling scanners.
When accepting an internship position, Chris knew that the job was not going to pay. I think his expectations of the job is what led him to accept the position. His efficacy expectation was that he could compete against other interns for a paid stockbroker position. Chris knows that he has the ability to outperform the other interns, meaning his efficacy expectations are high. He also has outcome expectations he can land the stockbroker position. His outcome expectations are also high because he is very confident and makes a lot of effort into outperforming the other interns. Both of these expectancies had to have been high for Chris to become energetic and goal directed towards landing the higher positioned job that could support him and his son.
Although Chris does not have the best life throughout most of the film, he does not doubt himself much. He believes he is very competent in making sales because of his past experience of selling his bone density scanners. Chris has the skills to make sales and can easily put those skills to work, even though he is homeless and does not look professional, which could throw buyers off. Chris’s self-efficacy comes from personal behavior history more than it does from vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, or his physiological state. His personal behavior history is the most influential source of self-efficacy. He has shown to be very charming in the past by selling his bone density scanners and by befriending Jay. Another reason to believe that Chris has strong self-efficacy is because of how much effort and persistence he puts into his internship position which could lead him to a very high paying career. Although Chris did not appeal to everyone he was selling to, he moved on to the next client and eventually was selling to a top-level manager. Chris also persisted by coming up with a way to make efficient sales calls to high value customers.
There are many times in the film where Chris could have learned helplessness. Especially when he had to spend the night in jail due to his parking tickets. Chris experienced failure after failure, but kept persisting because he needed to support himself and his son. Our text states that outcome expectancies are the building blocks of learned helplessness. Chris defies the odds of learned helplessness in my opinion because there were many times in the film when Chris expected a different outcome. For example, Chris thought that when he sold all of his scanners, he would be well off. He also expected that when he got married, he and his wife would be together forever, this did not happen because he was unable to provide for her the way she wanted him to. Chris does not become discouraged even though he was given many opportunities to stop trying. He persisted because if he did not continue to put in effort, he could lose his son. Chris remains pretty optimistic throughout the film, not letting depression get to him.
Terms:
Expectations, learned helplessness, self-efficacy, empower, competent, efficacy expectation, outcome expectation, past behavioral experience, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, physiological state, persistence, effort

Pursuit of Happiness is a movie about the struggles of Chris Gardner and his journey of creating a better life for himself and his family.
One thing that I like about Chris Gardner is that he has positive sense of mastery beliefs. He carries more of a mastery motivational orientation instead of a helpless motivational orientation. In the beginning of the movie everything seemed to keep going wrong for Chris and instead having a “fragile view of the self” when faced with the situations (car getting towed, not being able to sell the equipment, and not having enough money to pay for bills) he embraces the failure and carries an “hardy, resistant portrayal of the self”. In the beginning of the movie when they are having a family meal and Linda asks Chris if he had paid the taxes he values her feedback and doesn’t take her feedback as a sign of personal inadequacy.
There are four sources of self-efficacy beliefs which are personal behavior history, observations vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological state. In the movie I noticed an example of vicarious experience. Vicarious experience includes “a model enacts the same course of action the performer is about to enact. When someone sees other people perform masterfully the observer’s sense of efficacy is raised and “initiates a social comparison process (“If they can do it, so can I”)” (Reeves, 235). A perfect example of a vicarious experience from Chris is when he notices the man parking a very nice car on the street. Chris notices that the guy must be performing at whatever he does masterfully if he has such a nice car and decides to approach him to see what it is he does. When the guy tells him that he works at a stock brokerage Chris assumes that only people with a college degree can work at places like that, but the guy assures him that if you are good at numbers and good with people then you can work there. Chris happens to be good at both and begins to become motivated to work as a stockbroker because if people who share his set of skills works as stockbrokers and are successful like the guy who parked his car, so can he.
Throughout the movie Chris deals with a lot of stressful situations and the way he copes with the stressful situations is through approach vs. avoidance. Instead of walking away from his problems like failing to sell the equipment, to keep his apartment, or just to make enough money to support his family he persists on. After being shutdown by doctor after doctor because they view his bone density scanner as an unwanted machine that costs too much money, he could’ve given up and walked away like Linda asked him to do, but instead he kept moving forward and interacting with other doctors and hospitals with the hopes that they will buy the machines. Another example of this way of coping is when he finds out about the brokerage and is motivated to join. The first couple of times he meets Jay, Jay doesn’t really give him much attention because he doesn’t see much in Chris. Instead of thinking walking away from the problem and thinking that he will never get the opportunity to work there and looking for other opportunities to make more money moves toward the challenge and does whatever it takes to interact in person with the challenge.
Mastery belief
Helplessness
Approach vs. Avoidance
Self-efficacy beliefs
Vicarious Experience

The Pursuit of Happyness had many examples of personal control beliefs. Efficacy expectations were shown in the movie when Chris applied for the internship. Efficacy expectations are a judgment of one’s capacity to execute a particular act or course of action. When Chris realized that the internship was not paid, he had to think about accepting it, based on the fact that there was a possibility of getting the job. He knew he could do it; he was going to be the best intern they had. Outcome expectations were shown in the movie when Chris got the job at the end of the six-month internship. Outcome expectations are the judgment that a given action will cause a particular outcome. Perceived control revolves around how the self can exert control. Chis showed that he had control when it came to asking Wayne for his money and Wayne shut the door on him. Chris could have made a scene and demanded that Wayne give him his money, but he didn’t.

Self-efficacy is the capacity to use one’s personal resources well under diverse and trying circumstances. Chris showed that he had self-efficacy when he took the test after only being able to read half of it. While Chris knew that he had only read half of the book, he still had to take the test and prove that he could get the job. Effort and persistence were extremely important in this movie. Chris was persistent during the application process. He stood outside the office so that he could personally hand his application to Mr. Thistle. Even a month after the application was submitted, he went to the office to ask Mr. Thistle about his standing. His persistence was also tested when he and his son were homeless. He could have given up the internship to find any job that would pay, but probably not have any chance to move up the ladder. He decided to put in effort at the internship and prove that he belonged there.

Mastery beliefs reflect the extent of perceived control one has over attaining desirable outcomes and preventing aversive ones. Chris wanted to become a stockbroker. Chris had the belief that he was able to get the job after the internship so he did everything in his power to get it. He went on coffee and donut runs to be a team player. He made home visits to potential clients. Chris coped with being homeless by working even harder to get the job. People can cope by taking proactive or reactive action by taking action or avoiding the problem. Chris did not avoid the problem. He was being proactive and took his son to a homeless shelter and made sure he was doing everything he could to prove himself.

Chris’ wife in the movie displayed helplessness, when they didn’t have money to pay their rent; she acted like they would never be able to get out of debt. She just seemed like nothing was ever going to change and that her life would stay the same. Chris on the other hand did not act helpless. When his wife left him, he could have gotten depressed, but he bucked up and did what he had to do to provide for his son. Chris did not believe that life’s outcomes were uncontrollable. He was in control of his life. He was in control of being able to food on the table, having a roof over his child’s head, and putting in the effort to get the job.

Terms: efficacy expectations, outcome expectations, perceived control, self-efficacy, effort, persistence, mastery beliefs, coping, learned helplessness

Jon Lutz - section 01

The chapter cites surprise, setback, and difficulty as three hurdles that come between people and their goals. If nothing else “The Pursuit of Happyness” is a demonstration of the extreme responses to these impeding events. While bombarded with constant difficulties the two characters, Chris and Linda Gardner, each play out each end of the spectrum. Chris persists with self efficacy to achieve his goal of supporting his family. Linda lets her self doubt terminate her participation in the family.
Early in the film Linda shows her cognitive processes that will lead to her helplessness. When Chris tells her about his internship opportunity she keeps asking “What job?” Her thinking is outcome oriented, focusing on the final payoff, more income for their family. Chris realizes the internship is a necessary step to reach a superior end goal. When Chris gets the internship, Linda says, “Salesman to internship is backwards.” The internship did indeed paid less than his current employment, but the skill building and networking possibilities would prove to be more valuable in the long run. Chris continues his process oriented thinking by responding, “No it’s not.” Soon Linda will only respond to Chris with “I don’t care” or “what ever.” Her helplessness is evident in her ceasing to process information (learning deficit) and coldness to her husband (emotional deficit). The contrast between the effectiveness of their approaches is most obvious when Linda leaves for New York without Christopher. She begins the argument planning on taking her son, but is convinced otherwise with only two lines of dialogue. Her absence in the film hereafter mirrors her confidence in her own ability.
No one in the movie has it harder than Chris. He enters into an unpaid training program that only accepts one of the twenty applicants (difficulty). He is evicted, arrested, hit by a car, and his assets are seized by the IRS (surprise). His time is continually restricted and he is constantly deprived of resources (setback). Yet, throughout the film he keeps focused and relatively calm. Anytime he interacts with a potential contact he uses uncompromisingly professional language, all handshakes, and respectful courtesy. When he first interviews for his internship his demeanor is flawless despite being so appallingly underdressed. The pressure of that situation alone would have crippled the cognitive abilities of a person with less self efficacy. While he is homeless he manages to find a place for he and his son to sleep all the while keeping up on his studies. He even fixes the bone density scanner while in a homeless shelter. He always manages to stay focused on processing, performing and learning. When he is first sees the stockbroker with the nice car he does not ask the man, “How does it feel to have a car like that?” or “How did you get so lucky?” He asks the more productive questions, “What do you do for a living?” and “How do you do it?” These questions imply that people as agents have the ability to improve their situation. For the rest of the movie Chris puts on a clinic of persistence and achieves his goal. If not for his high self efficacy he would not have been able to perform in the face of such adversity.

Self efficacy
Self doubt
Goal
Helplessness
Outcome oriented
Process oriented

The Pursuit of Happyness follows a man named Chris Garner played by Will Smith. In the movie, Chris Garner is a medical equipment salesman. Throughout the entirety of the film, he is in a constant state of bad luck and things almost never work out for the poor guy. Chris has his son with him named Christopher Jr. Although Chris can never get a break, he stumbles upon a man that offers him an interview for a stockbroking firm. Even though this interview was for an unpaid internship, Chris decided to apply. As time goes along, he eventually gets the unpaid internship and battles with other unpaid interns for a the final promotion which will give him the salary he desires.

With as much bad luck and depressing times as Chris has been through, I’m almost positive most people in the planet would give up under such circumstances. Fortunately, Chris’ self-efficacy is through the roof. He knows very well that he can do what he sets his mind too, but on multiple occasions, there is no possible way to do this without cash. Once one’s self-efficacy is formed, the beliefs contribute to the quality of human functioning in many ways. The more people expect that they can perform an action to an adequate degree, the more willing they are to putting forth much more effort as well as persistence to continue learning and performing well. If Chris’ self-efficacy was lower, he would not have been willing to work for it. He would’ve declined the interview and went with learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness is essentially when a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from traumatic events or persistent failure to succeed. Even though most studies have been based off of animals, humans can learn helplessness as well. In the movie, it shows Chris’ lifestyle and the environments he goes to and lives in. Many of these relationships he has can cause him to learn helplessness as well as the events occurring upon him. When Chris acquires the job of an unpaid internship, he gains a little bit more control over his life and has something to finally look forward to instead of wandering around aimlessly. Finally he is control of his actions; until his wife Linda decides to leave him. As previously stated, life just keeps smacking Chris down to the ground and continues by kicking him while he’s down. Thankfully his self-efficacy values are high enough that he knows he can rebuttal effectively.

The last thing that Chris has that continues his pursuit of happyness is his hope. Hope emerges from an integrated two-part cognitive motivational system. The first is high agency (I can do it) belief. This is generally someone’s confidence in themselves or their efficacy to accomplish goals. The last involves clear pathways. Chris’ agency is very high although his pathways aren’t so clear until he gets the job as an unpaid intern. If he had not gotten the job, there would’ve been zero hope left for him, leading into learned helplessness. When one closes a pathway to a goal, it does not diminish the original hope if the person has a number of alternative pathways to their goal. In a sense, his pathway closed when he finally reaches the position of a paid stock broker. He then sets a goal to be a multi-million dollar stock broker, which gives him more hope and another goal to set after.

Terms:
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy effects on behavior
Learned helplessness
Hope
Agency

Chris Gardner maintains his optimistic explanatory style even in the face of repeated failures. Despite many things being outside of his control (or more precisely, not exclusively in his control) he repeatedly judges his level of personal control higher than circumstances suggest. For instance, he is handicapped by his manager/instructors race-biased behavior, assigning him menial tasks that interfere with his performing the key tasks he needs to if he is to succeed. He is more constrained than his more privileged competitors for the coveted one-in-20 job by his financial and parenting circumstances. Even when he attempts to compensate for this disadvantage with behavioral changes to wring a bit more time to cold call, it does not come close to the several hours a day advantage of his competition. And, yet he persists in part based on having an inflated sense that he can control his destiny. Repeatedly, he sees his choices ending up in failure (investing in the bone density scanners, maintaining an apartment he could not afford, and not changing his behavior vis-a-vis his significant other despite the warning signs that the relationship was failing). But still he persisted, making another high risk decision to take an unpaid internship that had a low probability of a successful outcome.

Even when he faces set-backs, Chris’ sense of self-efficacy helps him cope with the set-backs and keep pushing towards his goals of financial and parenting success. He has taken an early history of doing well academically in high school and Navy radar school, and successes bluffing and fast-talking his way past his obvious constraints (e.g., lack of college degree, limited finances). He has enough experience to know that he has some strong math and social skills that despite lack of a college diploma, he can do at least as well as those that do at the stock broker job. Despite making some bad choices and facing systemic racism all his life, he is able to fairly accurately assess that his skills are a good match for the needs of the job he is pursuing. He is also very astute at learning from watching others, and this modeling from vicarious experiences contributes to his strong sense of self-efficacy. What we do not see as much of are words of encouragement. Lynda is steadily giving him verbal discouragement rather than the verbal encouragement that can promote self-efficacy. But one suspects that Chris’ words of encouragement to his son Christopher reflect the words he heard from his mother and likely another early role model (given his pride in finishing first in his small high school class, one suspects a teacher). It is harder to determine from the movie what physiological sensations he is receiving in key moments of decision, but he certainly projects that he is not being hammered by the unpleasant physical sensations of anxiety in stressful situations. If this accurately reflects his internal state, then his sense of self-efficacy is allowing him to continue his approach orientation rather than avoidance oriented actions. He also is able to use escape coping skills—like downplaying the negative impact of filing another tax extension—and control coping skills—like learning to navigate the mass transit system when he cannot pay his parking tickets—to maintain his physiological stress level at a level he finds manageable. Unlike someone who has not faced significant challenges throughout life and still seen success, Chris’ tolerance for adversity has remained high, helping maintain a descent self-efficacy. Being able to regulate his emotions and anxiety in response to stressful situations allows him to maintain his ability to think quickly on his feet, read others, and maintain executive function necessary to decision-making capacity.

Given the adversity Chris has faced, and the repeated set-backs he has experience before and during the period portrayed in the film, there have been enough successes that he has attributed to his own actions to avoid the learned helplessness that often accompanies living in a world with a lot of external sources of negative experience that deflate the persons perception of control.

Terms: optimistic explanatory style, personal control beliefs, self-efficacy, personal behavior history, vicarious experience, verbal encouragement, physiological state, choice, approach behavior, avoidance behavior, coping, control, escape, skills, persistence, thinking and decision-making capacity, emotional regulation.

The movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” shows a character, Chris, who is struggling to support his wife and son financially. Chris is a bright man whose potential has not been seen by many others; however, he knows of his true potential and he uses his mathematical abilities as well as his people skills to overcome his financial hardship. Chris possesses great amounts of self-efficacy, and frankly that is what saves him and his son. First, Chris must ask himself if he is even capable, or competent enough, to become financially stable. After solving the “impossible” Rubik’s Cube, Chris knows he has what it takes to earn a good paying job in order to provide for his family. Next, Chris has to ask himself if his plan towards financially stability will work, because before he can become a successful stockbroker, he needs to sell the rest of his bone scanners – which is proving to be impossible. However, despite many, many obstacles, Chris proves to have high levels of self-efficacy because he is able to cope with difficult situations and he is able to use his mathematical and analytical skills to create a better life for him and his son – which was no easy task.

Chris could have very easily succumbed to learned helplessness, for many of the things that happened to Chris, such as having his bone scanner stolen, seemed out of his control. Instead of giving up on his career as a stockbroker, Chris worked tirelessly to solve his problems; he experienced little to no motivational deficits. A few examples of Chris not giving up is when he jumped in front of cars because he was chasing people who stole one of his bone scanning machines, he used all the money he had available to provide for his son, and he went out of his way to make sure he impressed the important business men who would employ him as a stock broker.

The book states, “when people have both the motivation to work towards their goals and when people know ways to achieve those goals, they experience hope” (pg. 259). The first key to hope is believing in yourself. Chris knows what he is capable of achieving great success, so he has already completed the first step. The second key to hope involves clear pathways, or the belief that there is more than one way to become successful. At first, Chris thought selling bone scanners was going to prove to be beneficial. Sadly, he was wrong. Then, he decides he can reach financial success through becoming a stock broker. Chris believes he can be successful, which is extremely important because people who believe they can be successful are more likely to be successful than people who do not believe they are capable of being successful.

In conclusion, Chris’ high levels of self-efficacy, his refusal to succumb to learned helplessness, as well his high levels of hope all contribute towards his success as a person, a father, and as a stockbroker.

TERMS USED:
Competence
Hope
Learned Helplessness
Motivation
Motivational Deficits
Self-Efficacy

The Pursuit of Happyness follows a man named Chris Gardner in his series of unfortunate events such as getting parking tickets, having his car towed, his wife leaving him, and being forced to live in the streets, etc. He is constantly facing hardships as he struggles to make ends meet for him and his son, Christopher. He puts his heart and soul into selling medical equipment thinking he will make money in the end, but he was wrong. He ends up losing everything, but one thing he never loses is hope. Chris lands an unpaid internship position as a stockbroker and eventually earns a full time position as a stockbroker. The end of the movie shows all of Chris’ hard work pays off and finally shows him happy. This movie displays many of the concepts we learned from Chapter 9 titled Personal Control Beliefs.
Chris Gardner never gives up and continues to fight through the challenges he faces. Chris is a very persistent man which makes him an excellent fit as a stockbroker in the local firm in San Francisco. He is the perfect example of someone who is high in self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is “a more generative capacity in which the individual organizes and orchestrates his or her skills to cope with the demands and circumstances he or she faces” (pg. 233). There are four sources of self-efficacy: personal behavior history, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological state. Personal behavior history is “the extent to which a person believes he/she can competently enact a particular course of actions stemming from personal history of trying to enact the course of action in the past” (pg. 235). At one point in the movie, Chris says he never met his father until he was 28 years old. Because Chris never had a father in his life, he always knew that he would be there for his kids one day. Chris knew the type of father he never wanted to become due to his father’s personal behavior history. The love he shows for Christopher Jr. proves that he kept his promise to himself despite Chris’ past. Vicarious experience involves “observing a model enact the same course of action the performer is about to enact” (pg. 235). An example of vicarious experience is when Chris met a man with a really nice car who told him he was a stockbroker. Chris had the mindset that if this man could become a stockbroker and become this rich, then he could too. Verbal persuasion is a “pep talk” and when effective, can persuade the performer to focus more and more on personal strengths and potentials and less and less on personal weaknesses and deficiencies (pg. 236). Jay continued to support Chris throughout his time as an intern at the firm. With persistence and hard work, Jay told him he had what it takes to be a stock broker. Physiological state is used to determine when the demands of a task currently exceed the performer’s capacity to cope with those demands” (pg. 236). Chris faced so many obstacles throughout this movie and often times put his son’s need before his own. He made sure his son always had food, a place to sleep, and shelter over his head. Chris had many stressors in his life but still managed to cope adequately with the demands in his life.
With that being said, Chris never fell into the mindset of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is “the psychological state that results when an individual expects that life’s outcomes are uncontrollable” (pg. 244). Chris does everything he can to support Christopher Jr. and himself even though they are broke. Chris continues to use his brilliant mind to the best of his ability to make something of himself and earn money instead of feeling he cannot control all of the obstacles life is throwing his way. Chris never loses his “can do” attitude despite his financial struggles.

Terms used:
Self-efficacy
Personal behavior history
Vicarious experience
Verbal persuasion
Physiological state
Learned helplessness

The film titled The Pursuit of Happyness displays the concepts that form personal control beliefs. Throughout the entirety of the film the viewer follows Chris Gardner as he traverses numerous hardships. Gardner is an intern at a brokerage firm that awards him with a very much earned full-time position at the conclusion of the film. While obtaining this full-time position may seem to some as the ultimate goal for Gardner, his actual goal and driving force throughout the film is to keep his son out of the hardships of poverty. Gardner accomplishes this by having a strong mastery motivational orientation, high levels of self-efficacy, hope, and an unwavering perception that he could control his own destiny, regardless of how challenging his life became.

When it comes to mastery motivational orientations, Chris Gardner is the pinnacle of all examples that come to my mind. When people possess mastery motivational orientations, they respond to failure by remaining focused on the task at hand and striving to achieve mastery in spite of the challenges that are staring them down. In the film, a major task of Chris’s is that he wants to shine amongst the group of other hopeful interns at the brokerage firm. However, numerous things get in Chris’s way such as his wife leaving him, the government withdrawing just about every dollar from his bank account, even him getting hit by a car. Chris could have easily given up and taken given in to the temptations offered by feelings of helplessness when confronted with these obstacles but instead, he chose to persevere via persistent effort and resilience.

A display of Chris’s high self-efficacy is when he tags along with Twistle for a nice ride in a cab. In this cab scene, Twistle is attempting to solve a seemingly impossible Rubik’s cube. Luckily for Chris, he has some experience pertaining to this very puzzle, and proceeds to figure out how to solve the puzzle while under the gaze of an important individual. Chris felt confident that he could figure out the entirety of the Rubik’s cube due to both him having prior experience with the cube and due to the motivation provided by him knowing that another individual happened to solve the cube in around 30 minutes. Little did Chris know that him solving a Rubik’s cube, something very unrelated to the brokerage firm, would catapult him into such a vital opportunity.

Throughout the entirety of the film there was one thing that Chris never lost despite everything that was thrown his way and no, I am not referring to the multiple bone density scanners that evaded his grasp along his journey, I am talking about hope. Hope involves high levels of agency and many clear pathways that all lead to a similar desired end result. Chris’s desired end result was to land the big time brokerage position and be able to support and care for the family that he loves. Chris has extremely high levels of agency, meaning that he strongly believes that he can achieve what he sets his mind to. He wants to fix his broken bone density scanner? He does it. He wants to solve a Rubik’s Cube? He does it. He wants to land the brokerage position offered through his internship? He does it. Chris sets his mind to things and persistently tries the numerous paths leading to his desired outcome until he achieves said outcome. A recurring theme throughout all chapters seems to be that persistence truly is a vital part of success.

Terms Used:
Self-Efficacy
Mastery Motivational Orientation
Persistence
Hope
Agency
Helplessness

Chris Gardner was a resilient, hopeful guy with a mastery motivational orientation. He had a dream of becoming a stockbroker, and even when his wife laughed at his dream, he did not waver. Chris could see the path to success: sell the high density bone scanners to survive, acquire the internship for experience and skill-building, network to gain clients, secure the job, find housing, and so forth. He was relentless in his attempts to obtain an internship, making daily appearances at Dean Witter to show his dedication and make an impression. His persistence paid off when he earned an internship spot, even when he was underdressed and undereducated. Although he felt pessimistic about the unpaid opportunity for a short period of time, he shifted to an optimistic explanatory style, remembering that this step was part of the process toward a better quality of life. After securing his spot, Dean showed up early to his internship, took opportunities to get ahead of his peers (getting donuts and running errands for Mr. Frankesh), and worked very hard to network and gain clients for Dean Witter. Time and time again Chris was turned down: doctors who refused to buy scanners, people who hung up on him at Dean Witter, being turned down at the homeless shelter, etc. Although he encountered failure often, he did not give up hope that he could get his life back together. As portrayed in our text, people with mastery motivational orientation are often more likely to succeed, and Chris did eventually succeed, which was evident with the job offer at the end of the movie, along with the reference of his future successful firm.
On the other hand, Chris’s wife, Linda, had a helpless motivational orientation. She was consistently working, supporting Chris, and helping to take care of their son. When she decided to leave Chris, she expressed interest in taking Christopher with her. Chris did not want this to happen, so he put Linda down, saying, “You know you can’t take care of him.” Although this did not seem true, since she seemed to be much more reliable than Chris (watching their son when Chris was late several times and maintaining a consistent job), her helpless motivational orientation was apparent through her demonstrations of personal inadequacy. When she left Chris, Chris went behind her back and took Christopher from daycare without Linda’s permission; in that situation, I would have been furious, but Linda didn’t seem to be overly upset. When Chris was jailed, Linda dropped everything to watch Christopher. While Chris was on the phone with Linda while he was in jail, he ordered Linda to watch Christopher, then to bring Christopher back to him. I was shocked that she didn’t even fight this; she seemed used to Chris exerting his power and control over her. Linda mustered up the courage to leave Chris, but she gave up her son in the process. This was a shame, since she seemed very connected to Christopher and expressed interest in raising Christopher herself. As opposed to Chris’s optimism, Linda had a pessimistic explanatory style. She was a realistic thinker and was rightfully upset when her husband was drowning in his dreams and drowning his family in the process. She felt that Chris (an uncontrollable influence) was shaping life’s outcomes, and she left to gain control of her own life and pursue happiness. Had she been more resilient and persistent, I wonder if Linda would have fought harder and wound up with custody of Christopher.

Terms: resilient, mastery motivational orientation, helpless motivational orientation, outcome, optimistic explanatory style, pessimistic explanatory style, hope

The movie The Pursuit of Happyness perfectly shows many of the terms described in chapter 9. Christopher Gardner (interpreted by Will Smith), who is a medical equipment salesman, struggles with bringing money into the house, providing for his family, and the most important thing, making him and his son Christopher happy.
At the beginning of the movie, he seems sad, disappointed, and hopeless because he does not have personal control over what happens to him: He is trying to sell bone density scanners without success. To exercise personal control, people need to believe that 1) they have “what it takes” to influence the environment and that 2) the environment will be responsive to their influence attempts. Christopher seems to have that self-efficacy that makes him try over and over again, but what frustrates him, is that he can’t change doctor’s minds because they don’t really need his product (the environment is not responsive to his influence attempts).
As I mentioned before, Christopher shows a high self-efficacy, which is a key concept in competent functioning that helps him deal with ambiguous, stressful, and unpredictable circumstances that occur all throughout the movie. Linda (interpreted by Thandie Newton) shows the other side of the coin for the value of self-efficacy: doubt. This character does not cope well with the situation when her skills and abilities to make money or to find for solutions are stressed.
Within self-efficacy, there are four effects on behavior that we can see reflected on our main character. The first one is choice and the selection of activities and environments: Christopher is open for new job opportunities, seeking for activities that he feels capable of handling (like learning how to make the Rubik’s cube or introducing himself to people that can give him the internship offer) rather than avoiding environments that have the possibility to overwhelm him with demands and challenges. The second effect on behavior is effort and persistence, we can see him engaged in many difficult activities that require skills and time, like fixing the bone density scanner or studying for his exam. The third effect of self-efficacy is thinking and decision making: Christopher is very efficient at solving problems in difficult and stressful situations like when he had the idea to make up the time travel scenario to make him and his son sleep in the bathroom with the excuse of finding a cave. The fourth and last effect is emotionality: he visualizes forthcoming behaviors with enthusiasm, optimism and interest (he planned on going to the football game with his son) that make him not threatened by the difficulties he may have to face.
Other important terms reflected in the movie are mastery beliefs and learned helplessness. Mastery beliefs “reflect the extent of perceived control one has over attaining desirable outcomes and preventing aversive ones”. We can see him very confident with his values and ideas that he wanted to transmit to his son when they were playing basketball, telling him to follow his dreams and to never give up. Learned helplessness is shown at the beginning of the movie with Linda, when she felt that her environment was uncontrollable no matter what she did.
Terms used:
Personal control
Self-efficacy
Selection of activities and environments
Effort and persistence
Thinking and decision making
Emotionality
Mastery beliefs
Learned helplessness

The Pursuit of Happiness follows the struggles of Chris Gardner as he tries to make ends meet to be able to financially support him and his son, Christopher. Chris is an excellent example of one who displays self-efficacy. This is defined as a competent functioning requiring both ability and the capacity to translate those skills into effective performance, especially under trying and difficult circumstances (pg. 233). This is evident when he is met with many obstacles in his life and in the end, obtains the job as a stockbroker as a result of his internship. Solving the rubik’s cube is good symbolism of showing Chris his capability of his actions and his intelligence. This in turn sets his expectations when engaging in a certain behavior throughout the rest of the movie. Specifically, this would be an example of efficacy expectation and answers the question, “Can I do it?” An example of an outcome expectation is when Chris asks himself if it’s even possible to become financially stable and support himself and his son.
Because of Chris’ multiple hardships, he could have easily been introduced to learned helplessness. Many events occurred that seemed out of his control, whether it be his wife leaving, losing his bone scanner, or ending up on the streets with hardly any money to his name. However, Chris was very aware of his own expectations and his abilities, and he was persistent. The book describes that a strong belief of self-efficacy can contribute to the quality of human functioning in multiple ways (pg. 237). Basically, the more people expect of themselves in their abilities, the more willing they are to put forth effort and persist in difficult situations. The chapter explains that self-efficacy does not silence the doubt that follows after failures and rejections (which Chris experiences a lot of). Rather, self-efficacy leads to a quick recovery of self-assurance after experiencing these setbacks. Because Chris had strong expectations from the beginning, this played a part in strengthening his persistence. Therefore, Chris did not display learned helplessness ever in the movie, even though he faced many difficult barriers.
In the section on thinking and decision making, it mentions that people who believe strongly in their efficacy for solving problems remain focused while under stressful situations, while people who doubt themselves start to think erratically. Throughout the movie, Chris remains focused to get the job as a stockbroker even though his wife doubts him and even says, “What is wrong with you?” Chris’ efficacy also plays a part in his thinking and decision making which may be why he has become good with numbers and good with people.
One final component of Chris I would like to analyze is his explanatory style. It appears from the movie that Chris displays an optimistic explanatory style. People who display this trait tend explain bad events with attributions that are unstable and controllable. In other words, someone may say they failed a test because they didn’t study. Chris always views the bad events in his life as controllable and therefore never gives up and keeps trying even when it may not make sense at first. An example of this would be when he takes the internship even though there is no salary. This might confuse viewers at first since Chris has a high need for income. However, what we may not see is in his mind, his end goal is the stockbroker job and with that he knows he will have a stable income. This movie is solely based on pursuit and never giving up. He referenced Thomas Jefferson in his writing of the Declaration of Independence and questioned if happiness may never be achieved after all. Knowing that Chris is aware of this analysis of Jefferson’s words, we still see him persist and finally achieve the job in the end.
Terms:
Self-efficacy
Two types of expectations
Learned helplessness
Optimistic explanatory style
Persistence
Doubt
Pursuit

Chapter 9 of our textbook is all about our personal control and our motivations to go about these various things. The film The Pursuit of Happyness is the epitome of these concepts and it a heartwarming story about a family overcoming adversity and challenges. The main character in this film is Chris who is a salesmen going through the tough times of struggling financially. His son, Christopher, which is his pride and joy is along with him on his journey and is Chris’s top priority. Chris is willing to do whatever he needs to do to provide for himself and his son as well as getting his finances up. A term from chapter 9 is self-efficacy and Chris shows this very well in the way that even after all the obstacles and hard times, he still feels like there will be some good. After Chris struggling to sell his medical equipment, he has the opportunity to do a 6-month unpaid internship in order for a better paying career. He is doing this because he believes he has the ability to get through this time slot and to be able to provide for him and his son with a more promising future. Even when Chris splits up from his wife, he doesn’t let that get him down and decides to come up better and stronger because of it. He believes in his ability to be a good father and his competency to pass his internship to get a better job.

Hope is another chapter 9 term that Chris shows very well and in relation to self-efficacy. Hope is something that occurs when an individual wants to accomplish a task while knowing and understanding what they need to do in order to accomplish it. There is hope that the steps they are taking will ultimately lead them to the state that they so badly wanted to be in. Chris is working so hard at trying to make a better life for him and his son that he is going to do whatever it takes. No matter how many times he gets knocked down or discouraged, he always pushes through and finds another way. When Chris is in the process of trying to land the internship, him and his son have to find places to sleep, because they are homeless. He also has to scramble to get to work every day bringing his belongings with him. He is willing to do these things in hopes for a better future. He knows this is the way things are now but over time he will rewarded and things will get better. He knows the steps and how much effort he needs to have in order to accomplish his ultimate of a stable life. Chris is all about hope and everything he does, he does it in hopes for something better.

Reactance theory is also shown throughout this film and two different sides of this is from Christopher and his wife/ex-wife. Reactance occurs when and individual believes that they no longer have the freedom to make choices. There are people that react in a negative way to this threat and there are others that chose to react positively. When Chris and Linda were together in the beginning things were going great and their finances were okay. Once Chris had a hard time with his sales income went way down and Linda ended up having to work more than one job. Linda chose to react negatively by leaving Chris and the unfortunate situation and going off on her own. Chris obvious chose to do the opposite and keep trying anything to get in a better situation and get his finances back up. He realizes that just running from things and giving up is not the correct option and that all you have to do is work hard and be persistent. He also has his son to worry about so if he were to react negatively, his son would also be in that same negative state/situation. This is something I imagine no parents want, is for their kids to be in an unfortunate situation, because of something on their part.

Almost every term learned in chapter 9 and even other chapters could be detected throughout this film. This is a very popular movie that most people have seen and it is so impactful and inspiring with its relatability. Analyzing this film could consist of many pages and truly is the epitome of motivation and emotion as a whole. Everyone should feel like Chris in the way that they do have personal control over what they do and how they do it. Just because times get hard it does not mean to give up, but to work harder and come back even stronger than before. All the negative things throughout the journey are just an opportunity for learning. The film also shows the difficulty of being a parent and struggling financially, but how that is a motivator to do better. We all want our loved ones to be as happy as can be and if we can do anything to help that we are going to find a will and a way to do so.

Terms:
Self-efficacy
Self-doubt
Perceived control
Pessimistic explanatory style
Optimistic explanatory style
Learned helplessness
Expectancy
Mastery beliefs 
Attributions
Personal control beliefs
Hope

The Pursuit of Happyness is about a Man named Chris who sells bone density scanners for a living. He ends up splitting up with his wife an is left to take care of his son by himself. His life always seems to be quite rough. Chris shows a great deal of mastery beliefs. He shows mastery motivational orientation rather than helpless motivational orientation. When everything seems to be against him he seems to just keep on trucking along, this is really hard for him but he does it. You first see this when he expresses his interest in getting the internship at the stock brokers firm, even when he gets the internship and finds out that it is unpaid, he comes up with a plan and shows a lot of dedication and thoughts on how to make it by until the end.
Chris needed hope through the whole movie. He held on to the hope that he would make the ends meet, get the internship, make it work even when he wasn’t being paid. He had hope that he would stand out among the other people who also applied to be internship. He expressed that he felt “underrated and unappreciated” but he still kept the hope that it would someday pay off… which we see that by the end of the night it does. Chris was highly determined, he did things like not hanging up in between calls to give him an extra 8 minutes a day, and doesn’t drink water during the day so he doesn’t have to waste time using the restroom. He was focused on the task in front of him which is a great example of master motivational orientations. Chris shows high self-efficacy throughout the movie. He feels confident that he could do things like solve a Rubik’s cube, who others thought that was impossible. He was highly motivated to do so in front of the man who was very important and held a big role in getting Chris the internship position. All though life is constantly rough for Chris he never lets go of hope or motivation. His son helps keep him motivated, he knows that he has to work hard and provide so he can give his son the best life possible, and life that was better than his own was especially as a child. This is his personal behavior history that plays a role in the movie. Vicarious experience is shown when he see’s the rich man with the nice car and he asks him how he got to that kind of life style, that is what first sparks his interest in the brokers firm.
Lastly I will talk about his physiological state, which is another thing that affects one’s self-efficacy. Chris has periods of high stress and can seem to loose it for a bit because he is so overwhelmed by what is being thrown at him. Chris saw a dream that he wanted and he goes for it.
Terms:
Hope
Mastery Beliefs
Behavior history
Vicarious experience
Self-Efficacy