Running head: GONE GIRL ANALYSIS 1

Analyzing Social Psychology in Gone Girl

Maraiah Jaramillo

Pasadena City College

Psychology 23, Professor Lamb

July 30, 2018

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Gone Girl written by Gillian Flynn is by far one of the best books I’ve read. It portrayed

so many different aspects on how a psychopath can manipulate people using social psychology.

Amy and Nick Dunne seemed to have some pretty strong chemistry. Nick was the funny guy and

Amy the interesting pretty girl and the party. Who would’ve thought Nick would be framed by

his own wife. According to an article called Emotion in the Criminal Psychopath: Startle Reflex

Modulation, there are certain characteristics psychopaths lack, and those are “include absence of

nervousness, lack of remorse or shame, egocentricity and [the] incapacity for love” (Patrick,

Bradley, & Lang, 1993). Amy Dunne possessed almost all those characteristics except for the

incapacity for love, since in the end, in a crazy way it seemed as if she actually loved her

husband. Although psychopaths could be extremely social like in the book, it is all an act. The

same article talks about how a psychopath’s feelings is knowing the lyrics to a song, but not

feeling the music within (Patrick et al., 1993).

Coming back to Amy, she was able to manipulate everyone throughout the whole book to

frame her husband Nick. She made a detailed plan in a short period of time that involved making

friends fast, fake stories about being threatened, and even a fake diary that contained two-year

worth of entries. Starting off with friends, Amy made friends based on proximity, which

according to the Social Psychology textbook by David G. Myers, is “one major predictor whether

any two people are friends” (Myers, 2011). In the book, Amy makes friends with her neighbor so

that she could steal a urine sample and fake her pregnancy as well as fill her mind with the idea

that Nick was abusive. Then, Amy went on to using the mere exposure effect which means that

after repeated exposure, people tend to like you more just because you’ve interacted more often.

Amy accomplished this by going for jogs and telling people she was expecting a child with Nick

(Myers, 2011). After a couple weeks of setting up her plan, she set up her murder scene at her
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own home and went on the run so that her husband could be charged for murder. As the book

progressed, it turns out her act was all part of revenge for Nick cheating on her and had to do

with the social-exchange theory. The social-exchange theory explains how human interactions

aim to maximize someone’s rewards and minimize their costs (Myers, 2011). In Gone Girl Amy

does mention how Nick sucked the life out of her as time went by. Only using her when he

wanted intercourse or money to spend. This shows how Nick was trying to maximize his benefits

with Amy since she was rich and young early on in their marriage. After Amy followed through

with her plan, she almost succeeded, until she was robbed of her money and Nick made a

convincing broadcast on how she wished Amy was back home. She then altered her plans and

killed an ex-boyfriend (without remorse) who she later blamed for kidnapping her. That allowed

her to go home to Nick and continue their toxic relationship, especially since Nick knew her

whole sinister plan.

Furthering Analyzing Amy’s character, she was an outstanding liar. She manipulated

almost anyone who watched/read her news story. She made people hate Nick because people

believed he abused her and murdered her plus her unborn child. As more people believed that

Nick killed his wife, the harder it became for him to come out of a hole she put him in. Even the

detectives on the case started resorting to confirmation bias, which is finding evidence that

confirms one’s beliefs but not any that disproves them (Myers, 2011). Every time the detectives

found something, they tried tying it in as best they could towards Nick being guilty. Then, in the

end when she came back to Nick as a victim of her crazy ex-boyfriend, she was without remorse

and anxiety, that she was able to elaborate on her story of how she was kidnapped. The way she

confronted the situation led the FBI to feel pity for her and let her be after taking the statement.
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There was no way for her to be caught now that her abductor was killed by her hand as “self-

defense”.

In conclusion, the book Gone Girl was an amazing thriller on how a psychopath can use

social psychology to develop an almost perfect plan. Amy was smart and charismatic, meaning

she was the typical mentally ill genius portrayed in thriller movies. This book reminded me so

much the book Primal Fear written by William Diehl, except that Primal Fear had an even more

astonishing ending and therefore not spoil the book. I would definitely recommend this book to

anyone who adores thrillers or is interested in how charming psychopaths are. The story was

great with probably no flaws in my opinion. Tying this movie to social psychology was

extremely fun to do and a good way to apply what I’ve learned.

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References

Flynn, G. (2018). Gone girl: A novel. New York: Broadway Books.

Myers, D. G. (2011). Social psychology (10th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Patrick, C. J., Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1993). Emotion in the criminal psychopath: Startle

reflex modulation. Journal Of Abnormal Psychology, 102(1), 82-92.