Mean Girls and Conformity BY KELA FINLAYSON

Psychological Basis

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Conformity

Conformity is defined as the the tendency to act like members in a group. Normal social influence- persons desire for others approval or “approval

motive” Informational social influence- persons desire for accurate information or

“accuracy motive”

~Media~

Mean Girls • Cady Heron has moved

to America from Africa. She meets the popular group in high school that has the name the “Plastics” which is made up of Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. She soon is overwhelmed with the stress of high school and decides to conform to the “plastics.”

Gretchen

Regina

Karen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akbCmxb_w8s

• Cady began showing signs of conformity by following the “plastics” rules such as wearing a ponytail once a week, tank tops can't be worn two times in a row, pink on Wednesday’s, and sweatpants or jeans only on Friday.

Mean Girls

• When Cady conforms to the

“plastics” she starts to become a new person, she is mean, fake, and starts to drop her other friends.

• So in the end Cady finally realizes she has conformed and regains all her new friends but overall in this case conformity could have potentially ruined her reputation.

Mean Girls

Connection

Connections

• Actually started wearing pink • Normal social influence- she wants their approval by wearing pink on

Wednesday Valid yes

• Writes in the “Burn Book”• Conformity- she starts to become like them and writes in the burn book

• Valid yes

Connections

• Stops talking to Damian and Janis• conformity- the ”Plastics” don’t talk to

them so she stops talking to them • Valid- yes

Janis Damian

Personal opinion

Personal opinion

• This movie is the typical high school with cliques and I believe the producers perfectly showed this.

• It shows how people especially kids in high school will conform and change themselves just to fit in with the people around them

• This movie gave a message about conformity and clearly shows it, so I I think the people who watch it may see how she changes so drastically and recognize that conformity is being showed there.

Reference

• https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/social-psychology-20/social-influence-104/conformity-394-12929/

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akbCmxb_w8s