When most of my students begin the Introductory Psychology course, they have got some preconceived notions about psychology: therapists, lobotomies, Prozac. By the end of the course, they have had a lot of exposure to a lot of different ideas and topics. Some of the time, we can use examples from TV and movies to illustrate the disorders or conditions. Some of the time (and even better), the students themselves can remember how the disorders or conditions played out in something they watched on the big screen.
For instance: Memento or 50 First Dates (anterograde amnesia), Monk (obsessive-compulsive disorder), A Beautiful Mind (schizophrenia).
Toward the end of the semester, I like to offer as extra credit an assignment where the students can choose a movie from PsychMovies.com. This site is currently undergoing some renovation, but it does have a compiled list of movies and the psychological topics they cover. It also has a page for teaching resources, and lists the movies by topic (developmental, psychopathology, etc).
The assignment usually is required to be about 3 pages long and asks for a synopsis of the video, followed by an analysis of how the disorder or condition was portrayed and whether the portrayal was accurate based on our readings from the textbook. I also ask them to say what they would do differently if they were to have some input on the movie they watched. This is usually a popular assignment as extra credit -- students see it as a way to have fun *and* do homework at the same time.
The ones that are popularly reviewed include A Beautiful Mind, but last semester I got some old ones like All About Eve and Sybil, and then some crazy ones like Fight Club and What about Bob?.These are always fun to read and even sometimes clue me in to movies that I haven't watched that I can add to my Netflix queue.
Have you done any assignments like this with your classes? What kind of requirements did you include? What are your favorite psychological movies?
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