Abstract
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. After her parents separated, she spent most of her early childhood with her mother. The actress says that she came to admire her present career at the time she was with her mother since they both used to watch movies a lot at home.
The actress has also been involved in humanitarian actions like visiting and sponsoring refugees camps. Due to the environment she was brought up from, she psychologically turns out and realizes her potentials. Psychologically, she develops morally and emotionally. Her emotional development however lands her into a life of separations just like her parents. Phenomenological and psychodynamic personality approaches are the most appropriate theories that describe the behaviors, achievements and traits of the actress.
Introduction
Angelina Jolie is at the moment a world figure featuring in several movies and films courtesy of Hollywood film and movie producers. She is an American citizen pursuing careers of acting movies and comedies apart from other engagements. The actress was born in the U.S in a place called Los Angeles which is actually a local area in the state of California. This was in the year 1975 and the actress grew in this location till her early youth when her parents locked horns and separated by act of divorce in the American court of law.
She decided not to follow her father but rather moved and continued to stay with the mother spending most of her leisure time watching movies. Sometimes the mother would accompany her to cinemas and theatre to have fun and enjoyment by watching public movies and live acting by America’s most famous actors at that moment. It is speculated that it is this kind of life that ignited her urge for the career of being a star by acting movies (Barnes, 2008).
According to her, despite her biological male parent being a famous actor, she never used the opportunity to follow the father’s footsteps but instead, she used the chance for publicity which started long ago while she was still young. She used to engage in media interviews and interrogations and this is what made her even more famous at a younger age.
The actress while still in school tried to engage in the modeling career. She wished to become one of the world models but unfortunately, this career did not end up in her favor although she was not intimidated by this and instead took it positively applying several tricks to console her self. Up to the moment, the actress has had three official husbands divorcing one and marring the other. She’s also had several scandals some of with are socially oriented involving strange character of sex and weird relations.
She has three biological children of her own two of which she had with the present husband who she admitted publicly that she snatched from her core actress when the two were involved in a movie setting being married officially. In her career as an actress, the lady has been so successful winning many precious and recognizable awards like that one of the golden globe awards. Such breakthroughs has made her so famous not only in America but in the world as a whole (Bandon, 2009).
The actress has also had several problems with her father. She even changed her surname from Voight a name of her father to Jolie through a court of law. Both her and the father have been agreeing in some occasions and disagreeing in other periods till currently when her present husband Plitt made them reconcile again.
The actress is currently thirty five years of age and she is now settled with her husband Plitt whom she has adopted with three children and biologically had with him two others. Previously she had biologically had only one child and this comes to a total of six children.
The actress is currently engaged in humanitarian activities using his career as an actor to portray her humanitarian concern by paying visits to many refugee camps in several counties including Russia and Afghanistan. The work of charity has made her develop interest in humanitarian courses and she admits to be pursuing them as a part time up keep (Barnes, 2008).
Talking of heredity, the actress has psychologically been influenced by heredity on emotional grounds in a way that she has kept a series of separations and divorce just like her parents did. May be she is into her parents traits of separation and believes that the solution to small differences in the family is separation and that is why she has little to defend herself when asked by the media of what makes her break several marriages.
Her emotions can no longer withstand any disagreements with her male partners and this is attributed to the kind of life her mother lived when she separated from the actress’s father and decided to move to New York with her daughter and start a new life. Since the daughter grew up in her single mother’s hands, she might have inherited the traits of her mother and that is why she is psychologically emotional with men (Allport, 1990).
The environment in which the actress was brought in is described as humble. Her mother only used to earn a little and that is why the lady used to sometime put on second hand attires. She grew up knowing that there also exists a group of needy people in the world and that is why she has psychologically tilted her mind to a humanitarian individual since she knows what it means by need for help.
She says that her fellow students used to mock and intimidate her based on how she dressed but this did not affect her but rather has modeled her up psychologically to engage in works of charity to help those in needy just like her before. Therefore I can say that the environment in which the actress grew has contributed a lot her moral and behavioral psychological developments (Rochlin, 2008).
As described above in the introduction, the family issues that have so much influenced the actress’s developmental growth and adjustment is the relationship problems that her mother and father had.
Since the two separated when the actress was still a youth and the mother decided to migrate to New York and stay with her, she learnt a lot from her mother about relationships and it is her mother that made her develop the attitude of being an actress. The mother fully sponsored her through the theatre school and her act of watching movies while at home made her daughter develop an urge to become an actress.
The kind of life she used to live with her mother also made her overcome several challenges she faced including failure in the modeling career, intimidation from colleagues about her mode of clothing and her yearning to become a funeral director before. All this situations made her finally settle on the right career which it acting and doing engaging in humanitarian work and programs (Rochlin, 2008).
The phenomenological personality theory applies to the actress since the theory emphasizes on individuals with self driving perceptions and with an esteem that is likely to lead to self actualization. The theory holds that the primary motivation that one develops naturally while still in his or her early childhood is the one that leads to exploration and fulfillment of the potential. Such motivation include generally being good to others, love and general creativity.
This theory applies to the actress since being a person of her career needs a lot of creativeness and desire to achieve. We also saw that she tried many careers without giving up till she finally realized her potential as an actress. The theory still justifies her behavior of being concerned, caring, loving and general goodness through her humanitarian actions which she developed from her childhood experience (Mischel, 1998).
The second theory that applies to the actress is the psychodynamic personality theory. The theory explains personality traits and character as influenced by ego, the super ego and also the id. The id is simply the basic instincts that one wishes to gratify. The ego is the intermediate between what the society expects and individual expectation while the super ego is the internalization of hereditary and social values.
The actress internalized the traits and social values of the parents which are making her live a life full of separations and emotional disturbances. However, the actress balanced her instincts and the society expectations in a way that as much as she strived to achieve her goals as an actress, she also fulfills the society expectations by engaging in humanitarian duties for the general benefit of the society (Eysenck, 1996).
Conclusion
In my own opinion, although both theories apply to the actress, the phenomenological approach best explains the behaviors of Jolie Angelina together with her traits. This is because from her young early setting, the girl proved determined, motivated and creative never to give up till she realized that her potential was full invested in acting. Her general goodness since she was young both to her brother and mother has made her extend the same to the society especially the needy groups like the refugees.
References
Allport, W. (1990). Personality and Social Encounter: Selected Essays. Boston: Beacon Press.
Bandon, A. (2009). Following, Ambivalently, in Mom or Dad’s Footsteps. The New York Times journal, 7 (5), 101-113.
Barnes, B. (2008) Angelina Jolie’s Carefully Orchestrated Image. The New York Times journal, 13 (4), 131-139.
Eysenck, H. (1996). The Structure of Human Personality. London: Methuen publishers.
Mischel, W. (1998). Introduction to Personality. New York: American press.
Rochlin, M. (2008). Angelina Jolie: For a Fighting Machine, a ‘Bad Girl’ Image Is Good. The New York Times journal, 2 (3), 59-64.