Nathan Samuels

Psy3310- Dr. Sechrist

The popular film Shrek, released in 2001, tells the tale of a misunderstood ogre who

embarks on a quest to bring a princess to the kingdom in order to preserve his home. Along his

journey, Shrek encounters many obstacles that challenge his cognitions as well as his general

state of being, Shrek starts his journey as a curmudgeonly ogre but ends as an ogre who has

learned to care not only for his lover Fiona, but also for his new best friend Donkey and the same

people who had vilified him in the past. Despite this films’ general silliness, it incorporates many

theories and principles of social psychology that can be seen in our present society; the concepts

of prejudice and discrimination are especially prominent in this film as well as many other

concepts of social psychology such as self-presentation, and cognitive dissonance.

One of the most prominent themes in this movie is the theme of prejudice, specifically

discrimination, this can be seen very early on in the movie in the following scene. Very early on

in the movie we see fairy tale creatures being round up and arrested for the purpose of forcefully

relocating them. In this scene we can see the unfair treatment of fairy tale creatures from regular

people in that we can see them getting forced into cages, separated from families, we can even

see some family of fairy tale characters turning them in, this is shown with Pinocchio’s father

turning him over. We see fairy tale creature families separated from their families in the case of

the three bears and the child bear being forced into a tiny cage while crying for its parents.

Overall a fairly dark scene that demonstrates well the unfair treatment of fairy tale creatures in

this fantasy world.

Discrimination is the behavioral component of prejudice in which a certain group is treated

unfairly and/or harshly based on the sole factor of the victim’s affiliation with said group. In the

real world we see many different forms of discrimination such as discrimination in race, sexual

identity, religion, political affiliation and many more; in this movie we see a general

encompassing form of racial discrimination for all fairy tale creatures as they are sort of lumped

together with each other.

This scene does not try to hide the presence of discrimination and conforms with the idea

of racial discrimination in the way that we see fairy tale creatures treated. The overall basis of

this scene shows the forced imprisonment and relocation of fairy tale creatures far away from

where the normal people live, the general method used against the fairy tale creatures is similar

to how Americans treated Japanese-Americans during WWII when forcing them into internment

camps and how the Jewish people of Europe were forcefully arrested and forced to live in

ghettos and slums during the same time period. There is no known basis for the discrimination

against fairy tale creatures in this film other than the fact that we mainly see it result from an

imperial decree by Lord Farquaad.

The second social psychological principle that can be seen in this film is the idea of self-

presentation, this concept can be seen in pretty much any scene with Lord Farquaad. The scene

that I feel demonstrates this the best is the scene in which Lord Farquaad tortures the

Gingerbread Man. In this scene we see Lord Farquaad mentally and physically torture the

Gingerbread Man by hanging his severed legs over his head and interrogating him, Farquaad

even goes as far as to start pulling off the Gingerbread Man’s precious buttons, all so he can find

the location of the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane.

specifically with the use of intimidation. Self-presentation is the idea that we present only a

certain part of ourselves to other people in the hope they believe that the side of us that they see

is our true self. There are many techniques in self-presentation such as ingratiation, intimidation,

self-promotion, exemplification, and supplication. The technique that we see take place is

intimidation; the intimidation technique is all about asserting power over another and using fear

to convince others into following you or believing what you say.

This scene conforms with self-presentation fairly well in that we see Farquaad incite fear

into the Gingerbread Man. We see Farquaad hide his dignified royal self and bring out his

intimidating fearful side in order to get what he wanted from the Gingerbread Man. In presenting

himself as an intimidating and fearful figure to the Gingerbread Man Farquaad is effectively

using self-presentation. There are many other instances in the film in which Farquaad uses even

more self-presentational techniques mainly self-promotion and exemplification which he uses

when he is addressing his subjects.

The third social-psychological principle you can see in this film is cognitive dissonance

and the scene that shows this the best is as follows. When Shrek and Fiona are eating rats

together Shrek attempts to muster up the courage to ask Fiona a presumably romantic question

about their relationship, but he stops short and we see him being frustrated with himself. Later,

after Fiona goes inside to sleep, we see Shrek and Donkey talking with each other when Donkey

guesses Shrek’s feelings to which Shrek replies that even if he did tell her his true feelings, she

wouldn’t love him back due to him being an ogre. A few minutes later we see Shrek approaching

the windmill where Fiona is prepared to confess his feelings while holding a flower as a gift for

her.
 The prominent social psychological principle we see in this scene is cognitive

dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when a person holds two attitudes that are inconsistent

and/or conflicting with each other. The result of cognitive dissonance is a general feeling of

uneasiness which causes people to try various methods of reducing it or removing it completely.

A good example of cognitive dissonance comes from an experiment done by Festinger &

Carlsmith in which they had participants perform a boring task and paid them either $1 or $20 to

tell the next participant that the experiment was fun and exciting, asking them to lie. After this

the participants were asked how they enjoyed the task and the results showed that the

participants who received $1 enjoyed the task more than the participants who received $20. This

shows the conflicting cognitions of not liking the experiment but also pretending to enjoy it in

return for payment, and the participants who received $1 felt more convinced that the task was

actually fun.

This scene conforms with the concept of cognitive dissonance fairly well, although

Shrek’s dissonance was never shown or displayed outright and relied more on subtle signs more

than anything. In this case Shrek’s conflicting cognitions were his affection for Fiona and the

thought that there was no chance for a relationship due to him being an ogre. Shrek realizes his

feelings and we see him become very uneasy and stressed, which he displays as being irritable

and secluded, but eventually we see him change his cognitions to reduce most of his negative

thoughts of himself. What Shrek demonstrates here is a technique in reducing dissonance in

which he challenges and reduces either one or both of his cognitions, in this case it was just his

one negative cognition he reduced.

As a film, Shrek offers an interesting and insightful look into many principles of social

psychology, many more than listed in this paper, and how the reflect real world issues and
problems. The most prominent social-psychological principle in this movie is prejudice and

discrimination, the prejudice in this movie is shown in many different ways but the most

common form we see is simply discrimination. The concept of self-presentation was definitely

very interesting the see displayed in this movie, not only when used by Lord Farquaad but also

when used by other characters such as Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona with the various techniques

they utilize. Lastly the concept of cognitive dissonance was displayed in a very interesting way

in this film. The way that characters such as Shrek struggle with their varying cognitions

throughout the movie provides insight to how much of an effect dissonance in one’s cognitions

can have on someone. Overall this movie demonstrates many social issues that are present in

todays society in a clear and understandable way and offers an interesting look at all different

types of characters and how they exhibit various social-psychological principles and concepts.