Skip to main content

 


Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy

A rather broad definition of self-efficacy is provided by Bandura (the psychologist who coined the term) as referring to individuals’ belief in their ability to execute behaviors needed to attain specific performances. As such, the self-efficacy term is already fuzzy. Although it includes an array of loose constructs (belief, ability, behavior, outcome expectations), self-efficacy is qualitatively different from each of those taken separately. There are two main components in Bandura’s self-efficacy theory: competence or efficacy beliefs (believing to have the skills needed to do something) and outcome expectations (believing that engaging in certain behaviors will yield the expected success).

Lisa has self-beliefs of efficacy (of beliefs of self-efficacy) meaning that she engages in actions because she believes that she can manage to solve any arising issues leading to achieving her set goal. That is why she decides to challenge the company who manufactures her favorite doll, Malibu Stacy (A Simpson version of Barbie). The new version of the doll says things like "Thinking too much gives you wrinkles" and "Don't ask me, I'm just a girl” which is against Lisa’s identity and social values. Lisa’s self-efficacy in tackling the issue of Malibu Stacy dolls stems from her previous personal experiences such as past successes in questioning things and affect change. Indeed, many episodes of The Simpsons center on Lisa’s advocacy and activism for causes as diverse as animal cruelty, Free Tibet, women’s rights. And they all have a happy end which means that past performance accomplishments increase current self-beliefs of efficacy and expectations for future success.   

Fueled by her self-efficacy in changing things around her, Lisa’s behavior choices unfold in multiple ways. Emotionally, she is in a state of arousal because, she realizes that her life-long friend, Malibu Stacy doll, does not reflect at all who Lisa thought to be, i.e., someone with the similar social values. Instead, based on its utterances, the doll’s new talking version, is sexist, objectified, helpless, deprived of self-reported agency. Lisa asks for help to find the creator of the doll, a woman long withdrawn from the business and living as a hermit. Lisa convinces her to create a new doll, Lionheart, with Lisa’s voice uttering positive empowering affirmations. Lionheart seems to instigate interest but when an even newer version of the old Malibu Stacy is released, all the little girls rush to get it. Confronted with the choice, one little girl chooses Lionheart which gives Lisa hope.

In sum, Lisa’s behavior can be explained via an identity-based motivation where her self-concept is the driving force behind her persistant actions. However, if she didn’t have self-efficacy (skills and expectation to succeed), she might not have persisted in the process of creating Lionheart, overcoming the hurdles it entailed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lisa Simpson...

Lisa is the middle child of a working-class family who lives in Springfield, a small town in an unnamed state. Her father, Homer Simpson is a happy worker at the nuclear power plant in town. Her mother, Marge Simpson is a virtuous stay-home mom raising her school-age children a couple of year apart, Bart and Lisa, as well as her one or so year old, Maggie. The eight-year-old Lisa is a little girl with an unusually articulate vocabulary spanning her interests in environment, feminism, and the like. At the same time, Lisa is an ordinary child watching silly cartoons, playing pranks with her brother on older people, attending church dutifully and enjoying her bible school. Even more than her mom (who easily lets herself be misguided by her husband and others), Lisa is the voice of reason in the Simpsons’ home.
Post a Comment
Read more
 Appraisals...   Lisa does not typically engage in distorted primary cognitive appraisals of events which would go against her character’s nature, and probably, against the very point of the show’s authors that a child can have more functional appraisals of social experiences than adults, and better emotional responses. In fact, this is also the storyline of one episode wherein Lisa experiences sadness with no apparent reasons. She has the blues. Before dropping her off at school, Lisa’s mother, Marge, advises her daughter to swallow her sadness and be all smiles if she wanted to be accepted by her peers at the elementary school. Coming from her mother, that is a poor first appraisal of Lisa’s sadness (not caused by her lack of popularity with peers), and simply, bad parenting. Acting on her mother’s insensitive advice, Lisa tries hard to smile while feeling really in low spirits. Fortunately, her mother turns around, opens the car’s door, and invites Lisa’s back in, rushing a...
Post a Comment
Read more