Psychology And Drama

Drama and Psychology is the study of behaviour which specializes in improving role performance. It shares some of its research area with the psychology of sports and business management. The overlap in the research is interesting in its application. Take, for example, Alicia A. Grandey's (2003) study of surface acting and deep acting in job performance. In acting, surface acting is when the actor changes behaviour to fit his or her role but does not internalize the role whereas deep acting is when the actor modifies his inner feelings to and actually becomes more like the character being portrayed. What Grandy found was that in the workplace, surface acting (just doing what you're told without personally agreeing with it) is positively related to stress in the workplace. Moreover, affective delivery ratings of performance were positively related with deep acting.

But psychology within the realm of acting is interesting in its own right. Many of us remember well how Heath Ledger died of a drug overdose following his Oscar-award winner performance of The Dark Knight's Joker. Kasidy told me about how Jack Nicholson allegedly warned Ledger about the dangers of playing The Joker. But what dangers could he be talking about? Burgoyne, Poulin and Rearden (1999) discuss the phenomenon of blurring of the boundaries in their qualitative study of actors who engage in deep acting when taking on a role. They theorized a life/theatre feedback loop, whereby an actor's negative aspects of his/her personal life may affect the character on stage, leading the actor to lose control. Alternatively, playing a fictional character's dominant role on-stage may also bleed over into the actor's personal life creating additional negative feelings and unwanted drama. This theoretical descri ption of the phenomenon can easily be applied to Ledger's unfortunate case of The Joker taking over his personal life, making his outlook darker and more mad. Fortunately Burgoyne et al. also identify a positive process whereby an actor's on-stage growth in a character may lead to personal growth in his or her life offstage.

It's also worth remembering that acting in itself is not an independent behaviour, but rather an interpersonal relationship between the actor and the audience. Kasidy told me in our conversations that an audience doesn't go to theatre to watch the emotional projection of an actor, but rather to project their own emotions onto the acting. Many good psychology studies originate from 'common sense' and observation. In this case Kasidy could be right! Elly A. Konijn (1999) tested this theory with 350 audience members from sociological, psychological and theatre backgrounds. She found that across all three disciplinary points-of-view, all audience members named the actor's performance as the strongest source for their emotional connection with the show.

If you are interested in studying performance psychology with an acting emphasis, A-levels you should take in addition to psychology would be Drama and Theatre Studies, English Language and Literature, Media Studies, Film Studies, Philosophy and Sociology.

University programmes which combine psychology and acting are The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Ulster, Manchester Metropolitan University, Swansea Metropolitan University and Kingston University.