A Psychological Character Study of Sheriff Woody with the Theories of Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow
March 2010
Sheriff Woody is Andy's toy. He also learns in the course of the movie that he is a collector's item from Woody's Roundup, a 1950's television program similar to the Howdy Doody Show. This duality is the setting for the premise of the film: will Woody choose to live forever in a museum, or go home to be played with by Andy and eventually die? In a toy's world, death is to be unused, unloved.
It is important to consider Woody as a toy and a human. The character is portrayed with human characteristics, traits, and emotions. Although the situations may be toy-related (in nature), the underlying themes represent basic human conflicts. We connect with movies because the main characters often get stuck in archetypal conflicts and solve life problems with which we are familiar.
At the same time, it is impossible to consider a movie character as a real person. With certain exceptions (which are rarely found in animated movies), movie characters are archetypal caricatures. They often exist specifically for a purpose in the storyline, and are even color-coded on occasion (see all villains wear secondary colors: Ursula from The Little Mermaid, The Green Goblin from Spiderman, SS uniforms). Real life is not this clear-cut (unless you're Freud), so analyzing a movie character is probably a hundred times less complex than analyzing a real person.
Technically, Woody is not even human. I was originally going to analyze him with Freud's psychosexual development phases, but technically, Woody didn't grow up. No one really knows what he was like as a new toy. There are clues, though, that he's at least 50 years old (he knows how to use a record, Woody's Roundup is from 1957, and Andy's mother claims that Woody is a family heirloom).
The process Woody goes through in Toy Story 2 reveals more about his character than Toy Story. The first movie is about Buzz, but the sequel is all about Woody. Sheriff Woody, the extraverted, self-actualized child's play thing.
Maslow's theories or human motivations are a response to psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Humanism is a hippie child of the 60's, a psychology based on individual growth and freedom of choice. Woody goes through his own personal growth during Toy Story 2, when he overcomes temptation and realizes that his place in life, where he is loved and needed, is where he has been all along. Maslow requires that self-actualized people be committed to something greater than themselves, and follow through with full dedication ("Transpersonal Pioneers"). There is no one more dedicated to Andy than Woody.
The hierarchy of needs is similar to Freud's psychosexual stages of childhood. Both are somewhat about the different psychological needs while growing up, and it is possible to be fixated in one need due to childhood experiences. For example, a deficiency in security or an excess of fear while young may lead a person to overcompensate with safety concerns. Also, if is possible for someone to "regress to a lower need level" when "under stressful conditions, or when survival is threatened" ("Abraham Maslow").
The first four needs, before self-actualization, are called deficit needs. These are the needs that are only realized when they are missing.
The path to self-actualization starts with the fulfillment of basic physiological needs, for the body to be in homeostasis. Maslow did have a biological basis to his theory. This is also the basic need during infancy. Since Woody is a toy, and this stage is about physical needs, I will assume that his needs are covered.
Secondly is the need for security, which is necessary in younger children. This is almost the basis of Toy Story, when Buzz arrives and threatens the safety of Woody's position (after, of course, Buzz strips Woody's self esteem and sense of social belonging). In Toy Story 2, his security is threatened when he's stolen by Al.
Belonging is a kind of social need, a need to be a part of a social structure. Woody is an important part of the society of toys in Andy's room. This need is also based on the previous needs: without a sense of security or homeostasis, we would not be able to have a place in society. He regains a sense of belonging with the Roundup gang, after Andy's mom separates him from the other toys by leaving him on the shelf.
The final need before self-actualization can be achieved is self-esteem. Woody's self-esteem was also established early on in Toy Story, when he called all the toys to a meeting. As a self-respecting person, Woody is polite and reassuring to the other toys (who were worried about Andy's birthday gifts).
Toy Story 2 is partly about Woody's process of self-actualization, where he realizes that there is nothing better in life than to be loved. Toy Story, by comparison, is about Buzz Lightyear's self-actualization, finding out that he is a toy, and becoming the best toy he can be. This theme is paralleled in a subplot of the movie. While Buzz Lightyear and the toys are trying to save Woody, a second Buzz is knocked out of his box. The second Buzz goes through a parallel process of self-actualization, which is completed when he finds out that his meaning of life is to be with his father (and previous arch-nemesis), the Evil Emperor Zurg.
Woody decides, at the end of his process of self-actualization, that his purpose in life is to be loved by Andy. He actually says, "I can't stop Andy from growing up, but I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Maslow is also criticized for placing "such constraints on self-actualization" ("Abraham Maslow"). He clearly defined self-actualization and what a self-actualized person needs to be happy in their life. This is just too specific, and almost goes against the 'individual journey' conception. While the idea of self-actualization sounds wonderful, I don't think it encompasses everyone. People may realize something important about themselves one time in their lives, and realize a separate but equally important something at another time. Are both of these instances self-actualizations? Or is self-actualization simply a general term that can only be defined by what a person needs to feel to be self-actualized?
Maslow gave all the individuals of the world the same check-off list for the growth of personality ("Transpersonal Pioneers"). Carl Jung, on the other hand, classified people into different personalities, regardless of growth.
Trait theory is important because it gives people a base of classification for understanding themselves, and finding out about others with similar psychological processes.
Carl Gustav Jung wrote about the classification of personality, and made sure his work was distinct from Freud (a colleague). It was essential in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century that any psychological theory be compared or contrasted with Freud (who was running the show at this point with his radical analyses). Jung's attitudes are build upon some of the more general ideas from Freud, like subconscious conflict and the conscious and unconscious mind influencing thought processes. But, Jung believed people are not classified by their sexual desire, but by their interaction with their environment, how that interaction is internalized, and how the individual makes decisions based on that interaction.
According to Jung, there are two general attitudes within each person. They are the extraverted attitudes and the introverted attitudes. Each person has both within them (a small source of conflict), but one attitude always succeeds. The type of a person is determined by their major attitude. And the minor attitude is not forgotten, but almost feeds into the unconscious parts of the major attitude.
Jung also classified people based on their basic functions, which were similar to the attitudes in their duality of opposing traits. There is thinking and feeling, and sensational and intuitive. Thinking and feeling are both two parts of the rational type, and sensation and intuition are both parts of the irrational type. In the years since his 1921 publication of Psychological Types, Jung's functions and attitudes were translated into trait tests. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory are the most important ones, using both the attitudes and the functions for classification. But for the purpose of simplicity, the analysis of Woody's personality will be based on the conscious and unconscious traits of the two main attitudes, extraversion and introversion.
Extraverted people are objective. Their "decisions and actions are determined not by subjective views but by objective conditions" (Jung 333). The extravert does not by any means ignore his subjective (personal and internal) ideas, but they are often repressed due to the influences of the people and situations around him.
Unconsciously, however, the extravert shows a "psychic compensation of the conscious extraverted attitude will lay special weight on the subjective factor" (Jung 338). In other words, the extravert's introversive parts are expressed subconsciously. This compensation concentrates on the needs that are repressed by the conscious attitude. The unconscious mind is often primitive, self-serving, and egocentric (not unlike Freud's id).
Introverted people are subjective. An introverted person does not just make decisions based on their environment, but on how they view their environment. He is subjective, which means that not only is he taking in from the outside world, but he is also reacting to it. The combination is a much different vision than the extravert, often interested in the probable as well as or more than the actual. "The world exists not merely in itself, but also as it appears to me" (Jung 374).
Unconsciously, introverted people show "a mass of power fantasies coupled with fear of objects" (Jung 379). As soon as the introvert's "moral superiority collapses", power fantasies and domination desires crumble into "a pitiful craving to be loved" (378).
Woody is extraverted. He makes decisions largely based on the environment around him. His goal for most of Toy Story 2 is to get back to Andy, because Andy needs him. When the toy museum is first mentioned, this is Woody's first reaction:
Woody: No! I can't go to Japan
Jessie: What do you mean?
Woody: I've got to get back home to my owner, Andy.
His first thoughts are not of internal views, but of what other people outside of him need.
Later in the film, Woody finally decides to stay with the Roundup gang based on the Jessie's immediate needs (she is scared of going back into storage). He is then torn between Andy and his affiliation with the Roundup gang.
At the very beginning of the movie, Woody's arm gets torn. Andy's mom puts him on a shelf, the same shelf as Wheezy, a dying toy. When Wheezy is chosen to be sold at a yard sale, Woody goes after him. He goes into danger with concern only for the safety of others. If considered at the subconscious level, by trying to save Wheezy, Woody is subconsciously rejects death. Wheezy, lost and deteriorating on a shelf for years, is almost dead. By saving him Woody would prove to himself that being put on the shelf does not lead to death, and that he's still accepted by the toys of Andy's room. Because, unconsciously, Woody doesn't just selflessly care about Wheezy's well-being. Woody has to conquer his primitive rejection of death.
Overall, I like the simplicity of Jung's classifications. I believe that they are truer than Freudian personality classifications, and that they have survived time nicely. While Maslow's quest for self-actualization gives a clear list of how to succeed and be the greatest person you can be, I feel that Jung has already accepted you for who you are. Neither theory claims that any person is bad or good, but that sometimes people have innate discrepancies in personality. I feel that Jung's classifications were better at describing Woody, because they were much more clear about what kind of person he is. Maslow does not describe personality as much as he describes how to attain a goal of personality.
Personally, I believe I am an introvert. I took the Keirsey test multiple times on different emotional occasions just to make sure, because personality should not change depending on emotion. (That test labels me a Mastermind, which may lead to an evil lair and minions later on in my life.) But I'm also not an extreme introvert, so there are extravert parts of me, too. Insert some cognitive dissonance between the opposing parts, and there lies the seed to an angst-ridden puberty.
A lot of the general introversive tendencies seem to be true with how I interact with my world: I know I spend more time thinking about the world around me than paying close attention to it (that's gotten me in trouble before), and I make decisions after conscious consideration of personal preference. I can only see the unconscious parts after I make decisions by those reasons. Power issues? That sounds an awful lot like waiting for colleges to get back to me: I don't like someone else making a decisions, and I prefer the power to make my own. The fear of objects also seems to fit. As a visual artists, I create illusions, reflections of reality. I cannot actually make anything, though. Even clay is too close to reality for me. I don't think I fear real objects, but I observe them and copy them with illusions.
Now, how do you take this information? How can you use it or learn from it? Personality tests aren't meant to pigeon-hole you, but are a general statement about who you are and what you do in your raw moments. But they do no encompass the whole of who you are specifically. There are also different levels of introversion and extraversion that result in different strengths traits. An extreme introvert may have more apparent unconscious power problems than a person who is more balanced between introversion and extraversion.
I think I should continue reading Jung's book. I think Maslow is introverted, that he should decide who is self-actualized and who is not.
In the end, Woody is still Andy's toy. But in June, there will be a final installment to Woody's story, when Andy goes to college. Then we'll see what happens to Sheriff Woody.
Boeree, George C. "Abraham Maslow." 2006. 21 March 2010 .
Frager, R., and Fadiman, J. "Transpersonal Pioneers: Abraham Maslow." Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. 2006. 21 March 2010 .
Jung, C.G.. Volume 6 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Psychological Types. Princeton: Princeton University
