In this blog post, we will look at how Farhan in the movie Three Idiots kept his dream alive despite social pressure.
The social definition of “social identity” refers to what kind of society the group to which one belongs is making, and it indicates how religion, race, class, and occupation are structured. Social identity is an important factor that determines how an individual perceives himself or herself in society, and it has a significant impact on an individual’s values and behavior. The social identity in the movie is closely related to the social perception that engineers are highly valued in society and that men must become engineers to succeed. This social perception determines the direction of people’s lives and sometimes suppresses their free choice.
Farhan’s family is strongly aware of this social identity, which greatly influences their actions and decisions. In particular, Farhan’s father decides his son’s future early on, saying, “My son will be an engineer,” as soon as he is born. This prediction stems from Farhan’s father’s social background and his specific attitude toward his son. Here, “attitude” refers to an evaluative response to an object, which is formed by certain values or beliefs. Farhan’s father had the idea that an engineer was a symbol of success in Indian society, which led him to limit his son’s future to that of an engineer. In this process, the father appears to be trying to control Farhan’s life through his own expectations and social standards.
Because of his father’s attitude, Farhan’s future was predetermined from birth, and he lost control of his environment and learned “learned helplessness.” “Learned helplessness” is a state of helplessness in which an organism loses control of a situation by experiencing repeated failures or setbacks, and eventually gives up on trying to predict failure on a task. This is manifested in the thought, “It’s going to fail anyway. There’s no point in even trying.” Parhan falls into this learned helplessness and enters India’s top university, ICE, to meet his father’s expectations, but in the process, he gives up on his dream of becoming a photographer.
Despite his desire to pursue his dream, Parhan does not even try because of his father’s strong pressure and social expectations. This situation can also be explained by ‘conformity’. ‘Conformity’ refers to the compliant following of unwanted behavior due to social pressure. Farhan did not want to become an engineer, but due to social pressure and his father’s strong expectations that “to be successful, one must become an engineer” and “men must become engineers,” he became an engineer even though he did not want to.
However, despite this pressure, Farhan is persuaded by Rancho to pursue his dream of becoming a photographer and convinces his father. In the process, Farhan’s father still insists that Farhan should become an engineer and refuses to change. This can be explained by the tendency of Farhan’s father to not easily abandon his established beliefs, or the ‘belief preservation phenomenon’. The phenomenon of belief maintenance is a psychological phenomenon in which people try to stick to their original beliefs even when evidence is presented that the beliefs are wrong. Farhan’s father links Farhan’s success to his career as an engineer and tries to maintain his beliefs even when Farhan tries to avoid following this path.
Another reason why Farhan’s father maintains this belief is because of the “attribution error,” which is the belief that Farhan’s decline in grades is due to Rancho’s influence. Here, “attribution” is the process of finding the cause of an action, and “attribution error” means incorrectly estimating the cause of an action. Farhan’s father blames an external factor called Rancho for Farhan’s declining grades rather than objectively analyzing the situation. This is the result of his father’s decision, which is based on his negative attitude towards Rancho, ignoring the probability of Farhan’s grades dropping.
Eventually, his father’s beliefs are gradually changed by Farhan’s persistent persuasion, and Farhan is finally able to move forward towards his dream. In this process, Farhan’s actions were not simply a result of his father’s stubbornness, but rather the result of his active efforts to live the life he wanted. Through this, Farhan regained control of his life and learned important lessons in the process of finding his own happiness.
In this way, “Three Idiots” deeply depicts the social background of the characters and the psychological changes that result from it, and through this, it makes us think about the balance between social expectations and individual freedom. By analyzing the behavior of the characters based on psychological theories, we can better understand how social context and psychological factors shape and change people’s behavior beyond simple physiological responses. Understanding these complex processes goes beyond simply analyzing the characters in the movie and provides important insights into our daily lives.
