Running head: GHOST, GOBLINS, AND MONSTERS

Ghost, Goblins, and Monsters; Oh My

Hayley R. Remmel

Hannah R. McInerney

Western Illinois University

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Ghost, goblins, and monsters make many people run away, but not Mystery Incorporated

(Inc.). Mystery Inc. is a group of four diverse friends; Fred, Velma, Daphne, and Shaggy as well

as Shaggy’s dog, Scooby-Doo who come together to solve mysteries for fun. The fun does not

always last as in the first five minutes of the Scooby-Doo Movie, the gang breaks up. For two

years the group members do their own thing until they are invited to a popular resort on Spooky

Island. Upon arrival the gang is given the task by Spooky Island owner Emil Mondavarious to

solve the mystery of visiting tourist who have been cursed into a brainwashed state.

Instead of working together, Fred, Velma, and Daphne exclaim they will solve the

mystery first, while Shaggy and Scooby-Doo want the team to reunite. While each member

looks for clues they are introduced to the evil N’Goo Tuana and his henchman Zarkos along with

the local voodoo priest. The voodoo priest advises Daphne to not go up to the haunted ghost

ride, and Daphne does not listen and goes anyways but, not before grabbing Scooby-Doo and

Shaggy too. While at the castle, the gang is starting to come back together and once again Fred

splits the gang up to hunt for clues. Like in the past, the gang runs into the villain in this case

N’Goo, but not before Daphne grabs the Daemon Ritus. The Daemon Ritus is a pyramid shaped

artifact that captures souls and replaces them with demons.

Physically the gang is back together but, not before the demons come and kidnap Fred

and Velma. Roles are now reversed when Daphne, Shaggy and, Scooby-Doo are in charge of

coming up with a plan to save Fred and Velma. The plan does not last long due to Daphne being

kidnapped by Zarkos along with Scooby-Doo being kidnapped by the demons. Shaggy comes to

the rescue and rescues Fred, Velma and Daphne’s souls from the pit of souls and as the soul’s

travel to their bodies, roles are reversed again as Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy’s souls

bounce between bodies due to the Daemon Ritus. Role reversal is “a circumstance wherein two
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people adopt the opposite role of their normal one or switch normal roles” (Role Reversal,

n.d).

Once the souls are returned to their normal body, the gang creates a plan to recuse

Scooby-Doo from Mondavarious and return the souls to the tourists of Spooky Island. The gang

saves Scooby-Doo, destroys the Daemon Ritus and reunite as one group again. Lastly, when

reporters ask Fred how the gang solves the mystery, he points credit to Velma and the gang

instead of himself. Throughout the Scooby-Doo Movie, there are many examples of group

dynamic concepts which will be laid out in the paragraphs to follow.

Johnson and Johnson (2013) defines social judgement theory as focusing “on

relationships among diverse individuals” (p.97). This concept heavily applies to Scooby-Doo

because each character has a unique personality. For instance, in the movie, Shaggy tries to calm

down conflict by stating everyone’s stance in the group. Shaggy says that the group is similar to

a banana split; Fred is the big banana, Daphne is the pastrami and bubble gum flavored ice

cream, and Velma is the sweet and sour mustard sauce that goes on top. We can only assume

that Shaggy and Scooby’s role in the group is to eat the banana split because, to us, it sounds like

a pretty disgusting dessert.

In other terms, we decided that Fred is the implicit group leader, Daphne is the damsel in

distress, and Velma is the genius, while Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are “just the dudes who carry

the bags” (Roven and Suckle & Gosnell, 2002) the social loafers of the group. Social loafing is

defined by Johnson and Johnson (2013) as “a reduction of individual effort when working with

others on an additive group task” (p.555). These concepts then in turn led the gang to split

because they did not feel needed.

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At the beginning of the movie members of the group decided to withdrawal from the

group for the fact that they did not want to engage in conflict. The conflict being who should

take credit for creating the plan and solving the mystery. Johnson and Johnson (2013) compared

withdrawing from conflict as a turtle hiding in its shell because when one withdrawals from

conflict, they “put off discussing the conflict until [both parties] want to resolve it and are in

control of your emotions” (Johnson & Johnson, 2013, p.356). So by not interacting with conflict

and leaving the group, the members gave up on the group goals as a whole. By these members

leaving the group they are acting out one of Tuckman’s stages, adjourning.

TALK ABOUT TUCKMAN. End of paragraph talk about forming in the creepy castle.

There are five different types of power according to Johnson and Johnson (2013).

Reward power, is defined in the book as “power based on the power holder’s control over the

positive and negative reinforcements desired by other group members” (Johnson & Johnson,

2013, p.553). Coercive power is defined by Johnson and Johnson (2013) as “the group leader’s

control over positive and negative consequences for other group members” (p.543). Expert

power is when the members of a group believe that their leader has knowledge or skill that they

do not possess, where informational power is when the group leader has informational resources

that are helpful when accomplishing the group’s goals (Johnson & Johnson, 2013). Referent

power is defined by Johnson and Johnson (2013) as power based on the group members’

identification with, attraction to, or respect for the power holder” (p.553).

Staying on the scene from the creepy castle, Daphne uses reward power by telling

Scooby-Doo and Shaggy that if they come in the castle they can have a Scooby snack. So by her

saying that, Scooby-Doo decided to go in the castle with her because he wanted that Scooby

snack. Then, Daphne uses coercive power by asking Shaggy “you don’t want to stay out here
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alone do you?” (Roven and Suckle & Gosnell, 2002). With the use of power dynamics, there is a

lot of talk about leaders, so let us dive into the specific leadership styles.

There are so many different leadership styles out there, but Johnson and Johnson (2013)

only mention three styles; laissez-faire, democratic, and autocratic. Laissez-faire leaders tend to

be stand offish during the decision making process within a group, while a democratic leader

“sets policies through group discussion and decision, encouraging and helping group members to

interact, requesting the cooperation of others, and being considerate of members’ feelings and

needs” (Johnson & Johnson, 2013, p.177). Within Scooby-Doo, we will be focusing more on the

autocratic leader, which is defined by Johnson and Johnson as the one who “dictates orders and

determines all policy without involving group members in decision making” (p.177). We

believe that in the movie, Fred is somewhat of an autocratic leader simply because he orders the

rest of the gang around and tells them what roles they are playing while they are solving the

mystery. This could also be because he is task-oriented and wants to stay on task and get the job

done in a timely fashion, but that is just an assumption.

Speaking of task-oriented leaders which Johnson and Johnson (2013) describe the

behavior as “orientated primarily to task achievement (such as directing, summarizing, and

providing ideas.). Fred is not the only task-oriented member in the gang, Daphne is a task-

oriented member as well. In the movie Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are adding memories to their

friendship by having a farting competition before Daphne walks in saying with attitude “We’re

here to solve a mystery.” (Roven and Suckle & Gosnell, 2002). Reminding them to focus on the

task.

In the gang there are also members who are social-emotional leaders, which if one has

not guess, those members are Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. As a social-emotional leader behaviors
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include “alleviating frustration, resolving tensions, and mediating conflict” (Johnson & Johnson,

2013, pg.187). There is a scene in the movie where Scooby-Doo has been captured and the rest

of the gang is on the beach. Shaggy steps up saying the most important thing to do is save

Scooby-Doo and all frustration must be targeted towards finding Scooby-Doo. Also, the going

back to the farting scene, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are focusing on their relationship while

Daphne is about the task.

All in all, we believe that Mystery Inc. is a high performance group, which is defined by

Johnson and Johnson (2013) as “a group that meets all effective group criteria and outperforms

all reasonable expectations, given its membership. Most groups are unable to achieve this level

of development” (p.549). Since it is rare to reach high-performance group level, we believe that

they only did this because it is a cartoon. In this paper, we have given clear examples of group

dynamic concepts that Mystery Inc. demonstrates throughout the Scooby-Doo Movie.