Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

Daniel Washington
PSYC 3110, Spring 2015
Application paper
April 8, 2015

Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage
Counselor Movie Analysis
Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor is a romance drama film
that focuses on providing a narrative on a marriage counselor’s experiences with intrapersonal
challenges, marriage uncertainty, and changing perspectives on relationship satisfaction and
fulfilment
...
In the
beginning of the movie, Judith is presented as a marriage counselor who is speaking to a client
who feels ambivalent over the state of her relationship with her husband
...
As she continued to express her concerns to Judith, Judith was able to validate and
acknowledge the legitimacy of her feelings by suggesting that her newfound interest in another
man stems from the fact that he gives her the emotional connection that her husband no longer
gives her
...
In addition, the same intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict that the client is experiencing

was evident in Judith’s personal story on infidelity and marital discontentment
...
By providing a narrative on her story, Judith was able to
use her story as an example of how exposure to relationship alternatives, changes in relationship
expectations, and new desires can change one’s outlook on relationship fulfillment
...

From a social exchange/interdependence viewpoint, people stay in relationships if the
rewards exceed the costs
...
C
...
This shift did
not develop intrinsically; it derived from an extrinsic source, particularly from a business
relationship that progressed into a romantic relationship with a client from the firm named
Harley
...
Judith initially rejected his advancements in an attempt to emphasize her marriage to him
and prevent fraternization from transpiring
...
The
majority of their time together consisted of Harley telling Judith how beautiful she was, how
much he would appreciate her, how oblivious her husband was to her needs, and how being

sexually explorative will liberate her from the confines of her safety net
...
Once she began to question her own ecclesiastical
ideologies on a committed relationship, she started to make comparisons between her husband
and Harley
...
Furthermore, what made Judith feel
apprehensive was her awareness of her growing attraction to Harley
...
This dichotomy between rewards and
costs can be explained by Judith’s changing comparison level of alternatives
...
Harley was the next best alternative for
Judith because she no longer yearned for the strong sense of familiarity that was present in her
marriage; she wanted novelty, and Harley was the novel stimulus that could potentially satisfy
her
...
Interesting
enough, there is a plausible explanation for this dynamic
...
Brice’s level of intimacy and commitment, according to the
triangular theory of love, represented companionate love, which is characterized by a
combination of high intimacy and high commitment
...
She felt
dissatisfied in her marriage because she believed that it lacked passion, but Harley was able to
give her passion
...
But despite the volatility that began to transpire in her new relationship with
Harley, her attraction to him still gave her an incentive to pursue him
...
She also reached a point where she believed that preserving marriage fidelity was no
longer a priority because her commitment to Harley became her new priority
...
In her marriage,
Judith defined her identity through her religiosity and through her commitment to Brice
...
Judith not only
enabled Harley’s drug and alcohol addiction, but she also adopted the same destructive
behavioral patterns, which ultimately lead her to detach herself from her identity
...
Instead of having a positive outcome from the alternative, Judith
experienced cognitive dissonance, meaning that her attraction to Harley and her desire to remain

monogamous disrupted the flow of stability that she once possessed
...

Thus, she believed that her dissatisfaction in her relationship was deriving from stagnant
predictability and monotony
...
Once Judith became invested in Harley, she
eventually came to the realization that her pursuing a new alternative resulted in a negative
outcome
...
On the contrary, her expectations became tarnished, but her experience
ultimately helped her realize that attractive alternatives may not always turn out to be more
desirable than current relationships
...
The client in the movie became
enlightened in the sense that Judith’s story gave her insight on how pursuing other relationship
alternatives does not always lead to a positive outcome
...
Over all, the movie provided an explicit illustration on the
social exchange/interdependence theory and the triangular theory of love
...
She soon developed a high comparison level and a high comparison
level of alternatives, which made her feel dissatisfied in her marriage because she believed that
she was not experiencing the same amount of excitement that Harley gave her
...

Ultimately, her desire for change and her husband’s contentment facilitated an interpersonal
conflict, which occurs when one person’s motives, goals, and beliefs are incompatible with those
of another
...
Brice’s need for companionate love and Judith’s need for romantic love lead to a
marriage collapse, but despite everything that transpired between Judith, Brice, and Harley,
Judith learned a valuable lesson from her experience
...


Reference
Miller, R
...
d
...
New York, New York

---