Under the Sea of Personality Theories: A Character Analysis of The Little Mermaid

“If only I could make him understand. I just don’t see things the way he does.”

Almost every one of us has felt this way towards a parent, a teacher, a friend, or any other person at least once in our lives.
Like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, we all yearn to be heard and understood by those we hold dear. On the other hand, like Ariel’s father, King Triton, we also struggle to know and understand the people around us.

Fortunately, psychologists have proposed various theories of personality which could serve as tools in obtaining such understanding.

Using Ariel the Mermaid as an illustrative example, this paper will analyze the following theories of personality— Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development, Mischel’s Cognitive-Affective Model of Personality, Allport’s Trait Theory of Personality, and the Big Five Model of Personality.

For a more holistic view of Ariel, this paper will utilize the trilogy of the Disney franchise (i.e. The Little Mermaid, The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning).
In Walt Disney’s animated film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, Princess Ariel is the youngest of King Triton’s seven beautiful daughters.

Curious and rebellious, Ariel often defies her father by indulging in her fascination of the human world, even if it leads her into dangerous situations.
Perhaps in order to explain this headstrong teenager’s personality to her bewildered father, it would be helpful to consider the psychological challenges Ariel have encountered using Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development.

Erikson (1950) suggests that a person’s life is divided into eight distinct stages where he/she faces a specific psychological dilemma or “crisis”, the resolution of which determines the individual’s personality development

Presentation: Prepare a 10 slide power point presentation, with b...