Nicole+Polizzi

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi



** Biography ** Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was born on November 23, 1987 in Santiago, Chile. She was adopted at six months old by Italian- American parents and was raised in Poughkeepsie, New York. Nicole received her nickname, Snooki, from her friends after she became the first person of their group of friends to kiss a boy. During her middle school years she reported being picked on and teased because she was really shy and had little self confidence. Snooki attended high school in Marlboro, New York where she became a confident and popular cheerleader. Unfortunately, she had a darker period of time in high school when she suffered from an eating disorder. After graduating she attended a community college to follow her dreams of being a veterinary technician. The self proclaimed “guidette” had her first bout with reality television stardom when she and her boyfriend at the time appeared on MTV’s show // is she really going out with him? // A few years later MTV launched // Jersey //// Shore // which focused on the lives of eight stereotypical Italian-American roommates living in Seaside Heights, New Jersey for the summer. Snooki has become one of the most popular members of the cast. Her party girl life style on the show has caused her to be the target of ridicule by many, but that hasn’t stopped her popularity. In fact, in 2010 Snooki was the most popular Halloween costume. The fame from // Jersey //// Shore // has led into numerous business endeavors including writing her first book, // A Shore Thing //, appearances on // WWE Raw //, and the launch of her slipper line called Snooki Slippers. MTV has also announced a spin off of // Jersey Shore //in which Snooki and fellow cast mate and friend Jenni will star in, the show is about the girls’ love lives and friendship with each other. ** Trait and Skill Aspects of Personality ** Hans Eysenck put forward the idea that biological factors can cause people to behave in one of three basic ways. According to Eysenck the dimensions of personality are extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Of these dimensions Snooki behaves on extroversion. Snooki is very outgoing and has a sociable attitude. In the first season of // Jersey //// Shore // the cast mates had never met each other before moving in, for Snooki to want to participate in the show and be willing to live with strangers puts her high in extroversion because she was willing to put herself in that situation and get to know everyone. Also, in the first episode of the show Snooki walks in the shore house to meet her roommates and proclaims, “The party’s here!” The fact that she refers to herself as a party shows that she is outgoing and has an extroverted personality. Snooki is driven in part by her extroverted personality as well as motives. Henry Murray identified four needs that describe how a person responds to a certain situation. The four needs are the need for achievement, the need for affiliation, the need for power, and the need for exhibition. Snooki is highly motivated by the need for affiliation meaning that she needs to be close to and win the affection of other people. Being motivated by the need for affiliation means that the person is extroverted and agreeable which are both characteristics that can be used to describe her. On the show Snooki always likes to be the center of attention and wants to make sure that everyone likes her and is enjoying themselves while she is around. When she first arrived at the shore house in the premiere episode of the show she drank too much and realized the next day that everyone was annoyed by her actions. The idea that the house that she was living in was full of people who didn’t like her made her made her upset and want to leave the show. Snooki is also motivated by the need for exhibition, meaning that she likes to entertain and amuse people. When a person is driven by the need for exhibition they tend to be colorful, dramatic and showy. On many occasions she has been interviewed saying that “I really don’t care what people say about me, as long as they are talking about me”, she puts her self out there in public as “America’s number one party girl” to get everyone’s attention. The whole reason why she is famous is because she is on a very successful reality television show that was created for entertaining people. She has the attitude that you may love me or hate me but either way you know who I am and watch my show, which is the kind of personality that manifests itself with the need for exhibition. ** Neo-Analytic and Ego Aspects of Personality ** Alfred Adler developed a theory called individual psychology which focused on the idea that individuals have unique motivations and each person has their own place in society. Adler believed that people’s personalities are goal-directed and depend on social condition. Before high school Snooki was shy and unpopular and often got picked on by other kids she went to school with leading me to believe that she developed an inferiority complex. According to Adler all people are striving for superiority and when people do not achieve this they get an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and develop an inferiority complex. To overcome the inferiority complex a person may develop a superiority complex which helps boost the person’s sense of self. I believe that Snooki created a superiority complex when she reached high school because she became self confident and popular to handle the fact that people made fun of her, but she still felt inferior deep down and developed an eating disorder. Adler also identified three fundamental social issues that every person must deal with. The first social issue being occupational tasks which is when a person chooses a career path that makes them feel worth while. Snooki has addressed this social issue and has admitted to not wanting to do anything else with her life besides be a reality television star and make appearances because she feels it is the perfect job for her. She has made herself a successful brand, putting her name on products and getting royalties from the sales, as well as making $30,000 an episode for // Jersey //// Shore //. The second issue that must be confronted is societal tasks. Societal tasks mean that the person has created friendships and social networks. Snooki has been successful thus far in addressing societal tasks. The third aspect of social issues that must be addressed is love tasks. The love task is finding a suitable life partner. This aspect of the social issues is one that Snooki has yet to successfully complete. In the third season of // Jersey // // Shore // the roommates created the term “Snookin’ for love” which was what they called Snooki’s attempt to find love at Seaside. According to Adler the three social issues intertwine in people’s lives. Snooki’s successful occupational task has intertwined with her societal tasks because she meets people everyday through her work that she is able to network herself to become more successful in occupational and societal tasks. Both her occupational and societal tasks have had an impact on the love task. This is seen in all three seasons of // Jersey //// Shore //, she tries to meet nice guys and they end up being “jerk offs” and only come around because they want to get onto the show. Karen Horney developed the idea that there are three selves within every personality. There is the real self, that is the inner core of the personality, the despised self, which consists of perceptions of inferiority and short comings, and there is the ideal self, which is what one views as perfection and hopes to achieve, the ideal self is molded by perceived inadequacies. Based on these three selves Horney proposed three coping strategies. The “moving toward” coping strategy best describes Snooki. People who use moving toward coping strategies are more likely to have the need for affiliation with people, they want to make others happy, gain love, and secure the approval from others. People who cope in this way are seen as over identifying with their despised self. Snooki’s over identification with her despised self could have come from being bullied and her lack of confidence at a young age.

** Discussion ** Both the trait and skills aspect and the neo-analytic and ego aspects are suitable to describe the personality of Snooki. Using both of these aspects you can understand how her personality has been shaped to be the person that she is today. The trait and skills aspects show her outgoing and extraverted side and touch on her need to be near people and to make people happy. When you look to the neo-analytic approach it explains on a deeper level why Snooki has such a high need for affiliation because of aspects of her childhood. Adler’s inferiority and the counter balancing superiority complexes lead me to believe that that is how Snooki got to be as famous as she is today. She over compensated for when she was shy and being picked on and developed an over the top extraverted personality. ** References ** Friedman, H.S. & Schustack, M.W. (2009). // Personality // (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson Higher Education

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