Inside Out is an animated movie geared for a children’s audience that follows a young girl named Riley as she experiences her family’s move across the country. In this paper, I will use the movie to illustrate the theories of Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg on Stages of Development and Kubler-Ross on Stages of Grief. We get an inside look at Riley’s thought processes and development through five of her emotions who run “headquarters”-the control center for her brain. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust work together to help Riley navigate her world with Joy being the driving emotion in her life to this point. Joy has managed to keep the other emotions in check up to this point. Riley’s move to San Francisco upends this happy balance as Sadness begins to assert more influence on Riley. As Joy tries to keep Riley happy by controlling Sadness, things go horribly wrong and Joy and Sadness get lost in Riley’s long-term memory and must find their way back before Riley’s whole internal world is destroyed. In the absence of Joy and Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust are left to run the show.
Piaget was a Swedish psychologist who theorized that there were four stages to a person’s development, Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational. The Sensorimotor stage is from birth to 2 years old and is characterized by the child taking in the world through their senses. They do not yet have a concept of object permanence and as they become more aware of their world, they develop stranger anxiety. (Myers & DeWall, 2017) This stage is illustrated In the opening scene when Riley has just been born. She is taking in the environment around her through sight, sound, and touch. She sees her parents and hears their comforting words. She also feels the warmth and comforting pressure of being swaddled in her blanket.
The Preoperational Stage is from about 2yrs to 6 or 7 years old. Children at this stage represent things with words and pictures and operate from intuitive versus logical thinking. They engage in a lot of pretend play and are egocentric. (Myers & DeWall, 2017) Riley’s imaginary friend, BingBong is a great illustration of this stage. She has many pretend adventures with BingBong like avoiding the “lava” floor as they jump from one piece of furniture to the next or the times they would fly in BingBong’s song powered wagon. This stage is also shown in the scenes where Riley is coloring pictures and drawing on her parent’s walls.
In the Concrete Operational Stage from 7-11 years old, children can think logically about concrete events, they grasp concrete analogies and math problems. (Myers & DeWall, 2017) This is the stage that Riley is in at the time of movie’s story. She is 11, so we can see her transition from Concrete Operational to Formal Operational. We see Riley’s logical thinking in her reactions to her new home and new surroundings. While she has been able to imagine a happy and wonderful new home, that quickly disappears once she is confronted with the concrete reality of what she sees. She’s able to understand that life will be very different here but struggles with how to manage the emotions that come with that realization.
In the Formal Operational Stage, which is from 12 years to adulthood, abstract reasoning and logic and more mature moral reasoning develop. At this stage the child can see another’s point of view. (Myers & DeWall, 2017) We see Riley transition into this stage as she struggles with how to deal with all her emotions surrounding her family’s move. At one moment, she is able to put her own emotions and wants aside when she sees that her parents are stressed. When talking to her mom, she realizes that they would feel better and less stressed if she was happy, so she tries to maintain that. She has difficulty doing this as Anger, Fear, and Disgust decide that she’s going to run away to her old home because she was happy there. At this point in the movie, Sadness and Joy have made it back to Headquarters and learned that by working together they give Riley more emotional balance and she begins to feel sadness and joy again. She sees the reality of what running away would really mean to her and to her parents and decides to go back home.
Erikson had 8 stages of development. Infant to 1 year is Trust vs. Mistrust in which a child’s needs dependably met will lead to basic trust. Toddlers (1-3years) are in the Autonomous vs. Shame and Doubt stage where they learn to exercise their will and do things for themselves or they will doubt their abilities. Preschool (3-6 years) is Initiative vs. Guilt where children learn to initiate tasks and carry out plans or they feel guilty about their efforts to be independent. In the elementary stage (6 years to puberty) the Competence vs. Inferiority stage is present. Children learn the pleasure of applying themselves or they feel inferior. Adolescence (teens – early 20’s) comprises the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage. Teens work to integrate into a single identity. They have tested roles and worked to refine their sense of self or become confused about who they are. Middle Adulthood (40-60 years) is the stage of Generativity vs. Stagnation where people feel a sense of contributing to the world through family or work or they experience a lack of purpose. Finally Late Adulthood (60 years and up) is the stage of Integrity vs. Despair when people look back at their life and feel success or failure. (Myers & DeWall, 2017)
Riley demonstrates the Trust vs. Mistrust stage in the opening scene when she is just born. Joy is the first emotion to appear in headquarters and the first memory that is made is of Riley’s parents holding her lovingly, gazing at her and speaking to her with comforting words. This indicates that Riley is trusting of her parents since those actions bring her a joyful memory.
The Toddler stage characterized by Autonomy vs. Shame or Doubt is shown when Riley’s core memory of scoring a goal into a hockey net is shown. She has learned that the objective is to get the puck in the net and although she does it clumsily, she succeeds and is praised by her parents thus validating her autonomy to do what she willed to do.
There are many examples of the Elementary Stage of Competence vs. Inferiority in Inside Out. Before Riley’s move, she is a star hockey player. She has many memories and experiences of winning, scoring, and being very competent. After her move, she experiences a feeling of inferiority when she tries out for a new hockey team and her nerves cause her to fumble the puck. In her embarrassment, she storms out of the ice arena.
As the movie takes place during Riley’s transition from pre-teen to teen, we get to see her cross over a couple of stages in several different theories. In Erikson’s model, Adolescence is characterized by Identity vs. Role Confusion. Riley must transform the identity she had in Minnesota of family stability, solid friendships, love of outdoors and hockey to integrate the new aspects of identity formed in the stress of her move to San Francisco. Her struggle to do this causes her to experience brief Role Confusion when she decides to runaway back to Minnesota to try to regain her old life. She quickly realizes this isn’t a good idea and returns to her family and as the movie closes, is shown making attempts to integrate aspects of her old and new identity.
Kohlberg presented three stages of development, Preconventional Morality, Conventional Morality, and Post Conventional Morality. Preconventional Morality is seen between birth and 9 years old and is characterized by self-interest. The child obeys rules to avoid punishment or gain reward. Conventional Morality appears during early adolescence. In this stage, people uphold laws and rules to gain social approval and maintain social order. From adolescence on, Post Conventional Morality is developed. A person’s actions reflect their belief in basic rights and in self-defined ethical principles. (Myers & DeWall, 2017)
Preconventional Morality is shown in Riley’s life when she agrees to eat her broccoli so that she can get dessert. Riley consistently exhibits Conventional Morality. She obeys her parents and maintains an agreeable attitude to maintain her peaceful social order and retain the approval of her parents and friends. The stress of the move causes her to break this pattern when she lashes out at her parents after a bad day at school. She also hangs up on her best friend in Minnesota because she is telling her about a new friend she has on the hockey team. Both incidents fracture her relationships. By the end of the movie Riley has developed Post Conventional Morality. Her belief in the values of love and responsibility and family cause her to turn around from running away. She goes back home to restore the stability of her family and because running away isn’t how she believes conflict is resolved.
Kubler-Ross developed a theory of the Stages of Grief. They are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. (Kessler, 2019) Riley Moves through all of these stages in the movie. When she arrives in San Francisco, she is in denial about the disappointing state of her new house and the changes in her family dynamics. She does her best to imagine better scenarios, keep up a happy demeanor, and distract her parents from their stress in an effort to deny her own. This denial allows her to take in only what she can handle at this point. She shows Anger at her losses and the changes happening when her parents try to ask her how her day at school was and if she would like to tryout for hockey. She lashes out at them, and in headquarters, Anger blames her parents for moving the family and ruining everything. I’m not sure that she exhibits Bargaining strictly as Kubler-Ross defines it. I believe that her attempt to go back to Minnesota is a form of bargaining where instead of making a deal with a higher power, she makes a “bargain” that going back to Minnesota will restore things to the way they were. Depression is shown throughout the last half of the movie. Riley begins to exhibit empty feelings as she is introducing herself to her new class. She begins to cry showing deep sadness. Once she is home, she exhibits depression through not eating dinner and withdrawing to her room. Her motivation is decreased as well as seen when she doesn’t do her best at the hockey tryouts which is something she loves. Riley eventually reaches Acceptance of her new reality. She stops denying her feelings and confides her hurt and loss to her parents when she returns after running away. She begins to adapt by joining the hockey team, making new friends and building her relationships in the context of her new surroundings.
I think that all of these theorists have something to offer in describing Riley as she appears throughout Inside Out. Piaget describes Riley’s cognitive development through several stages, Kohlberg describes the moral aspects of her development, Erickson gives us a way to look at how Riley behaves when needs are met or unmet and potentials go realized or not. Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief are good descriptions of the loss that Riley experiences in her changed reality of life.
I most relate to Erikson’s stages. Having four kids from 3 years to 14 years old, I have watched as they have gone through each of his stages. They are pretty accurate and the challenge as a parent is how to help the kids stay on the side of those realized potentials. It is a scary thing to see their peers who have fallen to the unrealized potential side and to know that so many factors can influence whether or not a person stays in those good spaces. I found value in all the theories, but Erikson’s resonated most at this point in my life experience
