Assembling the Avengers

The idea of an Avengers film was daring: to put together A-list actors who have played Marvel superheroes recently, give them a good plot, script, and director (Joss Whedon). As opening weekend box office sales indicate, the risk paid off and the film was a success.

What about the psychological aspects of the film? (After all, I’m a psychologist, so that’s what I look for in films.) I anticipated that the film would focus on team-building: taking superheroes who are, for the most part, alpha males and female who are used to acting autonomously, and who comes from diverse backgrounds and have diverse experiences. They are:

• one rich incredibly smart industrialist (Tony Stark/Iron Man),
• one Norse God (Thor),
• one supersoldier out of his era, and who grew up a small weakling (Steve Rogers/Captain America); he probably still has at least a partial view of himself as a weakling (just was someone who was “fat” as a kid but slim as an adult still feels “fat,” and someone who grew up poor but becomes rich never quite feels he or she has enough wealth),
• one emotionally scarred spy who can lie flawlessly and take down multiple guys simultaneously (Natasha Romanov/Black Widow),
• one humble scientist who prefers to be alone and who has been working to master anger management techniques (Bruce Banner/The Hulk), and
• one guy who’s a fantastic archer (Clint Barton/Hawkeye).

(Plus a one-eyed “leader,” Nick Fury, who sets the goals and parameters for the team—or who tries to do so.)

The task laid out for these heroes (aside for saving the planet from the bad guys) is to figure out how to function as a team. To cooperate. To subordinate their own ideas to a designated leader. To be part of an ensemble.

In other words, the film is an origin story—about the origins of the Avengers. How they collectively came to be. With this many A-list superheroes, each superhero doesn’t get that much screen time, unfortunately. (Unless a longer director’s cut is in the works for a DVD.) So the film doesn’t have time to delve into a lot of character development for an individual character. It’s about group process. 

Psychologically, the origin story wasn’t as rich as I’d hoped it would be because a significant chunk of time was spent on the requisite action scenes and the who-can-piss-higher-up-the-tree scenes in the first half of the film: Iron Man versus Thor, Tony Stark versus Bruce Banner, Hulk versus Thor. Black Widow versus Hawkeye. And the who-is-more-of-a-real-hero scenes (which Captain America wins hands down). I was hoping more time would be spent focusing on a topic to which most of us can relate from our work experiences: How do people from disparate backgrounds and experiences come together to work as a team?

The film did address this point, though I would have liked to see more depth to it. Like all origin stories, there is a transformational moment in which their dynamic shifts for the better. [spoiler alert] That moment occurs after a “sidekick” dies (Agent Coulson), they have gotten creamed by the bad guy (Loki, Thor’s adoptive brother), and Nick Fury gives them a talking to about being a team. In fact, it becomes clear that more of the same bickering while fighting Loki and his minions will be ineffective. They need one leader, and the rest of them need to be willing to be led. It works. [end of spoiler alert] Instead of trying to piss higher, they cooperate, they support each other, they praise each other’s efforts. They become more than the sum of their parts. They become a team and figure out how to each member’s strength’s to their collective advantage.

The transformational moment rests on a staple used in science fiction: a common enemy or threat brings people together to work as a team. (In some science fiction stories, for instance, Earth’s nations put aside their differences and join forces to protect Earth from a hostile alien force.) This dynamic is explored in a classic psychological study by Muzafer Sherif, in which 11-year-old boys in an overnight camp were initially divided into two groups and the groups competed in various contests for prizes. Tensions between the two groups ran high, with name-calling and vandalism. As part of the study, the boys were then told that the camp’s water supply was cut off, and all boys needed to cooperate as a group to help restore the water supply. After uniting and working together against the threat (lack of water), their previous opposing-team tension decreased. This is what happened to the superheroes in the Avengers: They had to cooperate to defeat Loki and his enemy army, and their previous in-fighting and tensions dissolved as they focused on the common and important task at hand. Good job, Avengers!

Reference:

Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The robber’s cave experiment. Norman, OK: The University Book Exchange.

Forging Steel, Part 1: Forging Superheroes Versus Forging Soldiers

I had the opportunity to speak with some former and current Special Forces soldiers about their training and experience; these are real-life heroes (though they wouldn't necessarily use that term to describe themselves). Their missions and actions rival those of fully human superheroes such as Batman, Black Canary, Batgirl, Oracle, Robin/Nightwing, and Avengers Iron Man, Hawkey, some versions of Black Widow, and Nick Fury, among others. But unlike these characters, our real-life military folks are mortal and may not survive a given battle. When killed in action they, and police officers and fire fighters, can't be brought back to life, unlike human superheroes. (One of the soldiers I spoke with, Fernando Lujan, noted that it doesn't take the same type of courage to go into battle if you know that you can't die, as is the case for relatively invulnerable superheroes such as Superman and Wolverine. For more about Special Forces Officer Lujan, click here.)

The soldiers that I spoke with shared some (nonclassified) information about their training. To get a sense of what a soldier must undergo to be picked to be in elite units, click here for an overview; for more detailed information, watch this video (it is the first of six parts; if you are at all interested, I highly recommend that you watch all six parts). In addition to the grueling physical demands of the training, psychological training is a big part of what the soldiers experience.

For instance, the military psychologists who are part of the evaluatingteam help identify each soldier's psychological vulnerabilities. Not as a rationale to send the soldiers home, but to increase each soldier's self-awareness. So that they can know when they are nearing the limit (of pain tolerance, hopelessness, fear, shame, cockiness, to name several dimensions) of being able to maintain and function adequately. In learning where the limit is, they can then learn how to push through that barrier or mentally regroup to be able to go forward and complete the mission. How to withstand interrogation. Not just the physical aspects of interrogation. The mental aspects. How to become stronger and moreresilient. How to regulate their emotions when their buttons get pushed.

Most superheroes do not undergo this type of training. (There is a sense of which it seems ridiculous to compare soldiers and superheroes. I do so here to emphasize the ways in which superheroes are different and arefictional. Nonetheless, we can learn from those differences.) Christopher Nolan's brilliant film, Batman Begins, showed us the ways that Bruce Wayne received some military-like training from Henri Ducard (Ra's al Ghul) and the League of Shadows. It is through this training that Wayne becomes a master at self-control and emotional self-regulation. By self-control, I mean the ability to control one's actions. To act in planned, intentional ways, not impulsively. By emotional self-regulation, I mean the ability to shift one's emotional states. (For more on the definition of self-regulation in general, click here.

From descriptions of the first step of any military training, the discipline and control for some soldiers may come from-and are enforced by-external forces, such as the challenging training schedule imposed on the soldiers, the rigid rules they must follow, the drill sergeant's enforcement of those rules.

Over time and with field experience, the discipline and control of behavior become internal, to a degree that wasn't true before. Self-discipline. Self-control. Moreover, soldiers don't want to put their team members' lives at risk. Self-discipline benefits not just the individual soldier, but the entire unit. They must all depend on one another.As part of the training process, soldiers face their fears, learn to put aside their grief when they need to, to bite their tongue when angry (because it is counterproductive to the mission). Like Batman, then, soldiers acquire the "superpower" of emotional regulation.

More about emotional regulation and resilience in the next post.