Stephen Crain Essay, Research Paper

Stephen Crain?s The Red Badge Of Courage shows clearly how the fear and courage soldier goes through in war. The psychology in war changes the soldiers that are in it. Psychology can also be displayed by the propaganda the government will put into the one-sided war effort. Another point would be the pre-programming or instinctive learning people develop by adaptive behavior.

In the beginning of the story The Red Badge Of Courage Henry has an internal conflict about whether or not he should go to war. He was influenced by his friends to make the decision on enlisting to a regiment that was forming outside of town. Henry?s friends were influenced by the government?s heavy influence of propaganda. When Henry tells his mother that he had enlisted she was very disturbed by it. Although his mother disapproved she still supported him. Henry met some people right before his first battle.

The First battle was an extremely sensitive high point in the story for Henry. All of the young men who had enlisted were in the same position, at the same place, on the same side. This was the point where one person?s actions could influence everyone on the same side. There was one person threw there weapon down and ran from battle then some more people threw down there weapons and fled too. Henry watched his comrades flee and this triggered an instinctive reaction embrace cowardice and to flee as well. As Henry sprinted through the woods a fellow soldier had struck him with the butt of a rifle rendering Henry unconscious. When Henry regained consciousness he confronted the soldier. After a while the soldier explained that he got separated from his regiment.

The woods symbolized a turning point for Henry. This place was the place where he became a man. These woods are the place where Henry lost all of his previous fears and cowardice. The soldier was the entity that changed Henry indefinitely from his old self. He made Henry realize his past mistakes and change him in to a new person. This was almost like he had been changed when that soldier had clubbed Henry over the head with the butt of his rifle.

The word ?Psychology? has a two-phrase meaning. This word means in Greek ?soul-study?. The segment ?psyche? translates to ?soul? and the other segment ?loges? translates to ?study?. In the field of psychology scientists usually agree that the people who they study act almost always on their reflexes. Every psychological experiment is calculated with the same level of criticality. This means that all scientists examine all of their experiments the same and treat them the same as any other.

Psychology can be used differently by what variables are used. Normally there are two different variables. A situation is devised into comparing the subject?s behavior by using his/her actions in two different points in time. In this case the subject would be Henry. The variable would have been either if Henry would have stayed at home and not have went to war and the other would be him going to war and seeing how he would react in the heat of battle. The comparing two points in time is called ?cognitive perspective.? The cognitive perspective believes that a subject?s behavior is a result of information acquired, stored in the brain, and the interpretation and retrieval of this information. This basically interprets into what a person has learned and how he uses this information to make the same decision. For instance if a person touches an electric fence and it electrocutes him he uses the past information and tells himself not to touch the fence again.