#i didn't intend to extend me that long with Kristoff but how was i supposed to ignore my boy

[frozen-orbit]

Love and belongingness needs in Frozen

To understand: Abraham H. Maslow was a psychologist who established the Holistic-Dynamic Theory, in which he discussed how there are different kinds of needs: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.

The love and belongingness needs can be manifested, for example, as desire for friendship, wish for a mate and children, the necessity to belong to a certain group, etc.

People can be classified based on the amount of love and belongingness they have received:

People who have had this need adequately satisfied from early years

People who have never or very less experienced love and belongingness

People who have received love and belongingness only in small doses

We are not going to talk about the first kind of people cause they're like the ideal type of and unfortunately there aren't characters like this in Frozen lmao, at least not during the development of the first film, the part in which we are most focused right now.

I like to imagine the second kind of people as Kristoff. According to Maslow, these persons have seldom or never been hugged or cuddled, nor experienced many forms of verbal love. Taking into consideration that Kristoff was an orphan since a very young age, I imagine he lacked of this need when he was a kid. And though he was embraced by the trolls and had always Sven's company, I do think he received affection, but only in a small amount that maybe never fulfilled the amount of love he really needed, not to mention that this affection never came from another human. Also, I simply love the idea of Kristoff being hug starved. I mean, just look at this big soft man.

Maslow believed that people who lacked of love and belongingness needs will eventually learn to devalue love and to take its absence for granted, something that in fact started to happen to Kristoff. He was a dude almost secluded from society, even starting to hate people in some way, thinking he didn't need anyone but his reindeer.

As far as we know, he didn't feel the need to love or being loved, at least not before knowing Anna. So bless Anna and amen to Kristanna.

Talking about Anna, I think we can all agree on how she can be a pretty good example of the next kind of people. Let me explain.

According to Maslow, these persons will be strongly motivated to seek love and belongingness because they have received only a taste of it. I'm basing this on the fact of Anna being excluded from Elsa from a young age, but also considering what many people think, that she might have been neglected by her parents since The Accident™, and that was just before they died and Anna ended up practically all alone.

Maslow said that people who have received only a little amount of love have stronger needs of affection and acceptance than people who have received either a healthy amount of love or no love at all. Should I still explain why does Anna acts the way she does when she meets Hans?

I think this could also apply to Kristoff in Frozen II, where he now has experienced more love after three years with Anna, but maybe not enough to consider him "completely satisfied", specially having in mind what I previously said, that he received a poor amount of affection or even none, meaning that he could now be included within this kind of people. This could be portrayed in Kristoff's desperation to propose to Anna and all the worries it carried.

Finally, I'd like to quote some things this book I'm basing all this on, Theories of Personality, says.

"Adults need love, but their attempts to attain it are sometimes cleverly disguised. These adults often engage in self-defeating behaviors, such as pretending to be aloof from other people or adopting a cynical, cold and calloused manner in their interpersonal relationships."

"They may give the appearance of self-sufficiency and independence, but in reality they have a strong need to be accepted and loved by other people." Yes, I feel this fits Elsa too.

"Other adults whose love needs remain largely unsatisfied adopt more obvious ways of trying to satisfy them, but they undermine their own success by striving too hard."

I think this doesn't need more explanation.

Anyways, if you're interested, all the info about Abraham Maslow and the Holistic-Dynamic Theory was taken from the book Theories of Personality by Jess Feist & Gregory J. Feist – 7 ed. :)✨