Riley's Emotions In The Film 'Inside Out'

In the film Inside Out, a character named Riley is an eleven-year-old girl is introduced to the audience and brings us on a journey revolving around her experiences and emotions during her last year of middle childhood development. We are also introduced to her emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. These emotions play a role in influencing the way Riley navigates the environments around her and that we eventually discover that her emotions go hand-in-hand with each other (i.e. Joy and Sadness). Along the way, we are shown the overwhelming things she faces and how her emotions play a part in that. The film analyzes what kind of person Riley is and what her interests are; therefore, it is evident that Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple

One of those memories consisted of Riley’s first hockey goal when she was a toddler. In addition, when Riley goes to sleep, Joy puts on a memory for her dream about, which was a memory of her ice skating and enjoying herself. According to this, it shows that Riley has an interest in sports and may perhaps carry bodily-kinesthetic intelligence from Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. According to the text, the theory defines intelligence in terms of “distinct sets of processing operations that permit individuals to engage in a wide range of culturally valued activities” (Berk 2017: 316-317). In this case, it shows that Riley enjoys playing sports and that it is one of the core things that have made her happy to create a close bond with her parents; hence, why this piece of her core memories stood out. She assesses a gift in sports in which it was “detected in the combination of parents with other assessors” (Milic et al.,

At this point of the film, Joy and Sadness end up in their own conflict where they are stuck in the place where all of Riley’s memories go, resulting in Fear, Anger, and Disgust to be in charge of headquarters. Typically, Joy is the one who is in charge of Riley’s happy emotions; though, since she (and Sadness) are not there it is up to the last three emotions to cover for them, meaning Riley would begin to show a little attitude and become moody. The text states that middle childhood are the years where an adolescent “advances in self-understanding, morality, and friendship; and the beginnings of peer-group membership” (Berk 2017:8). Specifically, when it comes to self-understanding Riley begins to act on her emotions; thus, the reason why she is upset is because of the transition of moving to a new city and school. She realizes that her family moving is the cause of why she eventually takes matters into her own hands and runs away from home. “Middle childhood is a period of potential transition and change” and that “self‐control from early childhood to early adolescence and genetic and environmental influences contribute to differential developmental trajectories” (Pener et al., 2022). This shows that Riley’s transition from moving to a new state and a new school is a pivotal