Today’s fast-paced lifestyle and daily pressure can cause the stress and anxiety for teens. The movie, The Road Back, tells the stories of two teenagers, Allie and Christian, who are both in their senior years. They both are high-achieving students academically but feeling the pressures from family problems and peer pressures from school. This is a difficult journey for them even though they were told by the adults, “Senior year is supposed to be the best year of their lives, no work, no responsibilities”. Analyzing Allie and Christian situations, Erikson’s Psychoanalytic perspectives of identity as well as Kohlberg’s stages of moral development will be evaluated.
At the beginning of the movie, Allie expresses her feeling about raging hormone,…show more content… Stage three explains the mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships and interpersonal conformity of moral actions. According to Boyd, those who live up to the expectation of family or other significant groups try to become good players in the team. Boyd states, “Being good becomes important for its own sake, individuals who reason at this state believe that good behavior is what pleases other people” (Boyd, 2002, page 317). Allie tried to be a “good girl” for three years, until she starts having identity confusion. Being neglected by her mother causes the instability of her moral reasoning. Boyd mentions, “Teenagers’ level of moral reasoning appears to be positively correlated with pro-social behavior and negatively related to antisocial behavior” (Boyd, 2002, page 317). The person who has low moral reasoning is more likely to involve in antisocial behavior. Allie has become depressed over the years, she starts showing anti-social symptoms. With the loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once fun, she withdraws from school activities, her grades drop, she pulls herself away from family and friends, starting to spend more time alone. Her moral reasoning at the time is to try to hold on to get through her senior year, not having to deal with the expectation of others who don’t really care about her. Longitudinal research relates parenting styles and family climate of moral reasoning. According to Boyd, research in several countries has also found that teens who remain closely attached to their parents are most likely to be academically successful and to enjoy good peer relation ( Boyd, 2002, page