The Saviour From Hell? Psychological Personality Analysis Of Sienna Brooks (Inferno, 2016)

THE SAVIOUR FROM HELL? PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSONALITY ANALYSIS OF SIENNA BROOKS (INFERNO, 2016)

This extended response is focused on scrutinizing the character of Dr. Sienna Brooks from the movie Inferno who serves as the lover and agent of a geneticist named Bertrand Zobrist whose ultimate task is to rupture the bag containing the Inferno virus that would force mass sterilization and subsequently annihilate population growth visioning that it would nurture humanity. Sienna though flamboyant and astute with a versatile skillset has been blinded by the forces of love and ambition to discharge the virus designed by her lover and achieve what she believes is self- actualization- “History will call us saviors!” (Brooks, 2016). Hence by gaining insights to her personality through established trait and humanistic conception, we can justify her actions and inactions and uncover her true character from her disguise as an agent.

TRAIT APPROACH (FFM)

It is confidently assumed that traits are personal characteristics that remain stable overtime that directly influence our behaviour as told by ancient philosopher like Aristotle who hypothesized that through actions dispositions develop that later effectuate further actions (Matthews, Deary and Whiteman, 2003). The Five Factor Model is one such framework that helps decompose personality into five distinct dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Costa &McRae, 1992). In fact, current theorists are at concord that the FFM constitutes the bass of all personality structures (Pervin,1994) making it appropriate model to factor the crucial variables of Sienna’ complex personality.

Openness is an intrapsychic characteristic that describes our willingness to new experiences (Costa &McRae, 199). Sienna throughout the movie demonstrates a superior level of openness through both linguistics and actions. For instance, when enduring the challenges to evade the WHO from seeking the virus with her companion, Robert Langdon she demonstrates a tone of voice that seems open to erratic and risky scenarios- “It’s worth a try, isn’t it? (Brooks, 2016). Evidence of openness can also be traced back to her teenage when she used volunteering ventures to battle her depression by reading and ladling soup to the blind. Afterwards she chose to live a diverse lifestyle balancing medical school, her acting career and caritative work as a strategy to help nurture the world. It is this same open-minded mindset that led her to meet a geneticist named Zobrist with who she shared a passionate relationship and concern for overpopulation accelerating her willingness to unleash Inferno which would counter overpopulation and save humanity. These insights conclude that being open to change and new ideas is a critical dimension within Sienna’s personality that allows her to be constantly engaged and active in life preventing any relapse of her teenage depression.

A key construct to Sienna’s personality is conscientiousness that describes our propensity to be self-controlled, responsible and hard-working (Jackson & Robert, 2017). Sienna demonstrates a diligent personality that is keen to be enlightened with knowledge. Her tone of intellectualism and alacrity exemplifies through her speech as she narrates the tale of Beatrice and Dante to

Robert and questions the museum curator further through inquisitiveness and the objective of decrypting the oath to seek the virus-“Who’s face was used in that mask??”(Brooks, 2016). Her hardworking capabilities are also manifested during her childhood when she is described as 208 IQ who pursued multiple fashions in interdisciplinary fields like biopsychology, theatre and symbology as she recounts on how she’s read Roberts books at just age nine-“I was crazy about puzzles” (Brooks, 2016). Unfortunately, her diligence combined with her love for Zobrist soon led to a deadly ambition in which she was committed to killing human lives so less dies in the future by releasing Inferno –“Doing nothing terrifies me!’ (Brooks, 2016). In fact, it is conscientiousness that allows her to formulate strategies and contingencies to seek the virus while strengthening her ambition to dust off the mission. It is this trait that made her decided to kill Vayentha and The Provost as they stood repelled as contrary forces to completing her mission.

The final construct to her personality is neuroticism which reflects our response and stability to environmental stress where high scorers are vulnerable to feelings of depression and dejection (Widiger, 2007). Sienna, during her childhood, used to be a high neurotic which explains her onset of depression as she felt threatened and stressed by her classmates who were not as bright as her. However, her emotional stability has ameliorated over the period as we she maintains a very calm and composed mindset throughout the movie despite the many exigent situations that she and Langdon encounter. For instance, she recovers quickly from the anxiety of having killed Vayentha by rationalizing it as an act of self-defense. Overall her low neuroticism helps protect the mission and prevent further anxiety that would inhibit the possibilities of Inferno being released.

HUMANISTIC APPROACH (MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS)

Humanistic psychology studies the person as a whole as it seeks to achieve self-actualization by which it realizes his/her true human potential (Buhler, 1971) rather than factoring personality into traits. Abraham Maslow was one such humanist researcher who proposed a five-tier model of human needs starting from physical survival to self-actualization. Practically the first thing that motivates our behavior is our strive for physical survival which is then followed by subsequent needs in the model (McLeod, 2007). However, motivations to satisfy needs are only determinants for behavior which can then be sued to formulate an individual’s personality at each stage.

Sienna has already satisfied her deficiency needs which are those whose need arises with deprivations comprising of physiological, security, social and esteem needs (McLeod, 2007). She owns an Italian flat while earning a comfortable income at a nearby hospital providing her with safety and security needs while her social needs are met by her lover Zobrist with who she shares a passionately bond through both ideas and desires which she sees as a phenomena greater than just love-“It’s not love, it’s beauty” (Brooks,2016). Her esteem needs were already met

during her childhood notably after she was title a drama prodigy after starring as a Puck in Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night dream at just age four.

In the movie, Sienna is motivated achieve self-actualization which is to save humanity but due to the moral conflict between her love for Zobrist and love for humanity, she ends up resorting to Zobrist’s extreme method of saving mankind which is to release a virus so less die in the future. Consequently, this ambition becomes her set pathway and motivation to attain self-actualization.

Sienna demonstrates certain self-actualizing qualities as prescribed by Maslow such as problem- solving capabilities sand resilience. For instance, upon releasing the strength and proximity of the WHO to contain Inferno, she quick-wittedly plans a new contingency to release Inferno – “I need to trigger an explosion to ensure its release” (Brooks, 2016). She also demonstrates resilience as she prevents any disruptors irrespective of their potential risk to achieving her target signifying how mission-focused she is- “I’m not afraid to act Robert” (Brooks, 2016). Overall these pointers conclude that Sienna is definably on a journey to achieve her variation of self- actualization despite the empathetic nature of her goal.

EVALUATION OF INSIGHTS

Conclusively, the simplicity of trait conceptions like the FFM helps structure personality logically (Costa& McRae, 1992) allowing is us to comprehend Sienna’s complex personality using only crucial variables like openness and neuroticism. However, it may appear less useful dues to its reductionism in reducing personality to just five variables meaning it does not represent a monolithic enterprise (Pervin, 1994). For instance, it could be that certain trait behind Sienna are like openness and neuroticism in a sense that Sienna uses change in her life to reserve a stabilized mental state. Furthermore, The FFM, only provides a summary of traits and does not take into account how trait might possibly deviate and change making it ambiguous on how Sienna converted from being a high to low neurotic.

On the contrary, humanistic method lack validity due to the research method used by Maslow which was meta-analyzing biographical accounts (McLeod, 2007) meaning the prescribed self- actualizing qualities deduced may be subjective to only those individuals he studied.

Furthermore, Maslow’s sample proportionately lacked enough females across different races (McLeod, 2007) meaning the same findings may not coincide with a young British-Italian woman like Sienna. Nevertheless, the sequential achievement of the needs seems consistent with her life and each motivation can be linked with her personality meaning the model is indeed useful in analyzing personality. I believe that the humanistic approaches are far better an uncovering personalities due to their holistic nature in which the characteristics of a person can be linked with their motivations to achieve needs making then dynamic contrasting with trait conceptions which suggest that personality is only a network of trait evading the fact that they can change with time.

CONCLUSION

Overall, through the analytics and deductions of this analysis, it concludes that Sienna is a dynamic, smart, quick-witted and resilient young woman on a pathway to achieving self- actualization. However, due to her being blinded by her love for Zobrist and dedication to do good to mankind, she is compelled to believe Zobrist’s virus can save mankind and dedicates her entire life to achieving this objective breaking her conscience and moral grounds.

Overall, the utilization of personality theory like the FFM and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was useful in uncovering the complexity   of Sienna’s character making it an effective approach to personality analysis. Despite this we must note the specific weaknesses in each theory that such as their use in explaining the dynamism of characters and other issues that maybe inherent in the research methods that were used to construct such theory. Nevertheless, for the purpose of casual character analysis, these models are rich in their use and deduce meaningful insights that helps psychologically ground the behavior of its characters and their actions.

References

Buhler, C. 1971. Humanistic Psychology. American psychology Association. 26(4). (p.378)

Costa Jr, P.T and McRae R. R., 1992. 4 ways 5 factors are basic. Personality and Individual Difference 13(6) (pp. 653-665)

Jackson, J.J & Robert, B.W 92017). Conscientiousness. In T.A Widiger(Ed.). Handbook of the Five Factor Model. (pp. 113-147)

Matthews, G. Deary I.J and Whiteman, M., C, 2003. Personality trait (pp.03-05). Cambridge University Press.

McLeod, S., 2007. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. (1-18)

Pervin, L.A, 1994. A critical analysis of our current trait theory. Psychological Inquiry 5(2) (pp. 103-113).

Sienna Brooks from Inferno 2016. Directed by R. Howard. Hollywood: Sony Pictures Releasing

Widiger, T. A, Neuroticism In M. R Leary & R. Hoyle (Eds.) Handbook of the Five Factor Model. 13(6) (pp. 653-665).