Artifact Analysis: Life As We Know It

This blog post is intended for communications 333: Persuasion, with the purpose of critically analyzing the persuasive evidence in the 2010 romantic comedy film, Life as We Know It. The film centers around two opposite-personality acquaintances whose lives change forever after their married best friends die tragically and leave them with their newly orphaned baby to raise. For the sake of not summarizing, the movie trailer is available on the right for viewing purposes.

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This is probably one of my favorite ‘rom-coms’ due to its casting and comedic delivery, but we can now add the persuasive elements that are visible while watching the story unfold. The entire storyline in and of itself is one massive persuasive journey regarding the two main characters, Holly and Messer, who are both essentially thrusted into parenthood together based off their friends’ guardianship decision. There are several scenes in the film where certain aspects or theories of persuasion are evident. Firstly, here is a brief summarization of the two main characters. Keep in mind that they are both single, attractive by societal standards, and are financially stable for their respective lifestyles. Holly is responsible, owns her own bakery, and clearly wants a husband and children someday, while Messer is a typical non-committal bachelor, camera director for professional basketball games, and wasn’t even thinking about marriage, let alone children. One of the theories of persuasion that instantly comes to mind when these characters find out that they have been appointed guardianship over 1-year-old Sophie is the Social Judgement Theory.

According to Robert Gass and John Seiter (2014), the Social Judgement Theory argues that on a continuum of positions that a person can hold on any topic, we each have a most preferred position called an anchor. Within this theory, there is the latitude of acceptance (position we find tolerable), the latitude of noncommitment (position we are undecided about), and the latitude of rejection (position we would object to). Because Holly and Messer both have substantial reasons why they feel that they should not raise a baby together, they both initially fall into the latitude of rejection on this topic.

It’s apparent that their anchors are similar in that they want what is best for baby Sophie, while still wanting what they feel is best for themselves. However, the theory also contends that a person’s perception or position may change over time for numerous reasons. In the case of this film, Holly and Messer move to different latitudes throughout the movie. Both characters transition to the latitude of noncommitment because while they agree that Sophie needs love and care from family members and not the foster system, they are both undecided on raising her themselves. After searching and failing to find loving, willing-and-able family members to take Sophie in, Holly and Messer’s latitudes start to go in different directions. Messer’s latitude of rejection and noncommitment appear bigger than Holly’s due to his reluctance to give up his bachelor lifestyle and the career sacrifices he’d likely have to make. Holly, appearing to know the sacrifices she would have to make to become a parent practically overnight, seems to transition into the latitude of acceptance a little smoother than Messer does. While it’s apparent that the concept of motherhood is overwhelming to her, Holly knows that their late friends’ decision was for she and Messer to raise Sophie together and feels obligated to commit. Both characters are also ego-involved, which is when a matter has personal significance to them and their sense of self (Gass & Seiter 2014). Because baby Sophie is an innocent infant who just lost her parents, they feel an emotional sense of attachment and guilt plays a part if they decline their guardianship roles.

Ideally, new parents are well informed and prepared for raising a child. Our characters however, are anything but. They have an idea about what “perfect parenting” looks like and try to conform to that mold particularly when a case worker is assigned to them to monitor their parenting skills on baby Sophie’s behalf. There are two scenes in which the case worker shows up unannounced, and Holly and Messer feel that they must appear to look like they know what they are doing in the case worker’s presence. This recalls the Social Desirability Bias, which is the notion that when people know they are being watched, they exhibit what they perceive to be socially acceptable norms of conduct (Gass & Seiter 2014). The video above shows the first time the social worker arrives, in which Holly is uncharacteristically drunk and Messer stalls to give her time to quickly “sober up” and act responsible. It is a bit long, so to see the Social Desirability Bias example, skip the clip to minute 3:30.

Another persuasive theory that comes to mind is the Theory of Reasoned Action, developed by Martin Fishbein and Isaac Ajzen, which assumes that people are rational decision makers who utilize all information available to them before making a choice (Gass & Seiter 2014). We can evaluate a person’s attitude toward a behavior, their beliefs about the outcome of performing said behavior, and their evaluation of that outcome using this theory. For our main characters, both initially have a negative attitude about raising Sophie together because they are ignorant and inexperienced in parenthood. This leads them to believe that the outcome of raising Sophie together would be a disastrous mistake, which they feel would be dishonoring their late friends wishes in raising their daughter. In analyzing this information, along with the amount of data they’d need to quickly learn about raising a baby, Holly and Messer’s decision to find a way out of guardianship is reasoned and carefully thought out. An important component of this theory to mention now is called the subjective norm, which is a person’s perception of what other’s think about the behavior in question (Gass & Seiter 2014). They already know the wishes of their dead friends concerning Sophie, but now Holly and Messer also have the thoughts of their late friends’ neighbors, a group of other parents that try to give input and support to them throughout the film. It’s apparent that these parties have faith in Messer and Holly’s parenting abilities together, and that Sophie will receive what she needs in their care, thus contributing to their ultimate decision to raise her together.

Persuasive communication is apparent in many aspects of life and guides decision-making most of the time. When it comes to convincing and compliance gaining, this film was helpful in showing real life persuasive techniques and elements, albeit in a dramatic format. The characters involved are facing a major dilemma that effects all parties involved, and the persuasive methods used highlight the components of the mentioned theories and elements of persuasion. These learned elements will emerge in future media as well.

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References

[El Mehdi Grande]. (2013, June 12). Katherine Heigl- Life As We Know It- Fun drunk scene [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF8ugRZK8w8

Gass, R. Seiter, J. (2014). Persuasion: Social Influence and Compliance Gaining 5th Edition. New York, NY:Routledge.

[Hollywoodstreams]. (2010, May 27). Life As We Know It Trailer HD [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqzjDrrZIdE

Josephson, B., Brooks, P (Producers) & Berlanti, G (Director). (2010). Life as We Know It [Motion Picture]. United States: Warner Bros/Roadshow Entertainment.

Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel and Amir Kovacs in Warner Bros. Pictures' Life as We Know It (2010) [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.aceshowbiz.com/still/00005718/life_as_we_know_it06.html​