Psychology in "Jerry Maquire"

             The purpose of this paper is to relate concepts that we learned in class to different aspects of human life. The movie "Jerry Maguire- is analyzed to draw a connection between the topics of psychology that were covered in class and the story of the characters in the movie. .
             "Jerry Maguire- is a story about a sports agent that has lost his job, but gained love. The main story line of "Jerry Maguire- revolves around Jerry's love with Dorothy.
             Physical attractiveness is a very important factor in choosing a mate for several reasons. Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger were not accidentally chosen to play roles of Jerry Maguire and Dorothy Boyd. Tom and Renée are very attractive people. .
             In the course of the movie these characters experience attraction towards each other. Physical attraction was very important for Jerry and Dorothy because their first impression of each other was formed when they met for the first time in the airport. A phenomenon called the halo effect suggests that we attribute qualities to physically attractive people, and critical qualities to physically unattractive people. Dorothy demonstrates halo effect when she realizes that he is not successful in his career. She doesn't pay attention to his failures. She loves him "for the man he wants to be, for the man he almost is."" He seems to be so attractive to her that she quits her job to go with him.
             I suggest that every person forms criteria for their mate. If all the criteria are satisfied then it is the ideal person. If primary criteria are satisfied, but less important criteria are not, then these inferior criteria are attributed to physical attractiveness of that person according to halo effect. If primary criteria are not satisfied, then these people mate. In such a way Dorothy was looking for a guy such as Jerry, and he met all her criteria. She found a popular, handsome guy who could be a good father for her son.