Emotional Prostitution

Emotional Prostitution

The psychology behind Black Mirror: Season 3, Episode 1

There are basic 5 emotions that are suggested by Paul Ekman.  This paper mentions which emotions are focused, which state triggers of each emotion, how emotions can be evaluated in the main character, which personality theories can explain the main character and lastly my ideas and comments on between social media and individual’s experiences.

 I would say the fundamental emotion that is represented in Black Mirror is anger. However, emotions can be also seen that sadness, disgust, fear, enjoyment. These 5 emotions are universal that all humans conduct. The main point of the episode is how anger can be a driving force when we encounter annoyance, frustration, exasperation, argumentativeness, bitterness, vengefulness, and last but not least fury. These experiences give rise to increase the intensity of the anger which each experience can be found in episode 1. Although the main character wants to buy her dream house, she encounters these experiences towards the end of the episode. For instance, when she tries to be in the wedding as a bridesmaid, she experiences tough events which at the end generate stark anger towards everyone who is part of the brutal system. She realizes that her anger comes from the social system that is built from each person who cannot realize that social system rules everybody’s life. Even though she plays the game of the social relationships (sociopathic system, I believe), after couple experiences in either the dialog with his brother or in the dialog of the truck driver, I strongly think that she disgusted herself for not acting in the scope of her own personality. Moreover, the system that is integrated into the society itself (rating all people that you have somehow had a connection), has responsibility for the control over individuals’ emotions. This situation, I believe, can easily become toxic and create fear in each person. This fear comes from the nervousness, anxiety, dreadfulness, desperation, and last but not least horror. These experiences can be seen as in a few examples in the episode. One of them is that the nervousness or even horror and desperation that is originated from losing stars (a way of evaluating people). Each person is obligated by the system to act “nice” or in a positive manner in order to survive in life and get exclusive benefits. By this way, people cannot break the system because there are crushed under so bad that no one can risk it even though they know how the system brings the despotic regime on the social norms. The reason why is the system can be functional does not only come from fear. The so-called “enjoyment” that comes from the high ranking enables the main character to sustain the game of social relationships. The strongest triggers of “enjoyment” can be originated from excitement, relief, amusement, and pride, which we can propose examples in episode 1. The pride of having high rank is the main reason why the “enjoyment” comes from.  The more point they have, the more they have pride. Also, the memory(childhood “friends”) and imagination(“dream house”) can bring up enjoyment. To wrap up, all emotions can be found in an exaggerated way to boost the points or to live your life for the system not for you. It is clearly demonstrated that every emotion is “real” in a sense. The reason why the main character lives her own life is in other people’s opinion.

According to Paul Ekman, there are 9 pathways to Emotions. The most common one is automatic-appraising mechanisms. The reason why the despotic system is so functional is that this system is actually built in all humans. The reason why people cannot realize why this is toxic is that the first common method is integrated with the system. The automatic-appraising mechanism unconsciously processes with us. In other words, another reason why society cannot realize why they are dominated by the system due to the smooth combination of psychology and the system itself. As I said about the automatic appraisal mechanism, there is one more important psychological pathway for emotions, which is a reflective appraisal that affects directly to the auto appraisers. The system in the episode is also built on the reflective appraisal. All people are in interaction; thus, this results in an elevation of emotions in each person and maintains the intensity of them.  Emotions come and go but the despotic system does not let people escape the high intensity of emotions. Then, this becomes a vicious cycle which cannot be broken easily. I personally admired the episode and the system who can think of such a thing that can manipulate the human psychology and keep it constant. Even though the episode is in futuristic perspective, I believe, we can still observe similar manipulations in our lives as well. One of them is Facebook and the way it affects people’s experiences. In the episode, people do not live for themselves but they live for the people around.  This reflective attitude creates a desperate form of seeking validation through other people. For instance, when someone posts a picture in social media, suddenly, their psychology becomes the victim of reflective appraisal and seek the affection of each person. The more affection he/she gets the more positive reflective appraisal outweighs. The contrary is also valid. Social media constantly pokes people to behave in an emotional way under it breaks them psychology apart.

According to Alfred Adler, I found similarities between the way he proposed the definition of personality and the main character. Adler proposed that the primary human motivation is a striving for superiority, not in terms of superiority over others but in a quest for self-improvement and perfection. In the main character, this can be explicitly related due to the striving for superiority. The main character wants to be at the top of the society by playing the game of despotic system. This mainly comes from in Adler’s inferiority complex to describe situations in which adults have not been able to overcome the feelings of inferiority they developed as children when they were small and limited in their knowledge about the world.

In conclusion, this type of system can bring Armageddon to the world, because its fierce force that can manipulate the social norms. The reason why Facebook’s success is originated from manipulation. Since the company has the power to affect the emotions, the system is being used more and more each day because of the system’s clever way to integration in psychology. I strongly suggest buying Facebook stocks.