Conformity in the movie,

Mean Girls By: Brooke Lopez

Conformity

Principle that requires people to adjust their behavior to thinking, to match a group standard

Best explained when relation to peer pressure, especially when in large groups of people that hold the same opinions and beliefs

Part of growing up is learning how to distinguish between what you believe, what others want you to believe, and how willing you are to understand another point of view

Two types of Conformity

Normative Social Influence

Person’s desire for others’approval

Informational Social Influence

Person’s desire for accurate information

Mean Girls

PlotCady, a girl who has been homeschooled her entire life, is forced to learn the rules of high school. She immediately makes two friends. These friends, Janice and Damien, are seeking revenge on the three most popular girls in school known as the “plastics”. They have Cady pretend to be their friend in order for her to snoop on them and make fun of all of the things they says. Cady must conform to the “plastics” rules so that she can be considered as one of them.

The rules of the “plastics” include wearing pink on Wednesdays, jeans or sweatpants can only be worn on Fridays, and you can only wear your hair in a pony tail once a week.

How Mean Girls Ties in with Conformity

Cady conformed to the rules of the plastics in order to “fit in” in high school. Since she was suppose to be pretending to be their friend she had to act like she was interested in the same things such as shopping, boys, and make up. In reality, Cady was the opposite of all of these characteristics. She was a sporty, outgoing, down to earth type of girl. She changed her entire personality so that she could be popular.

Conclusion

As stated in our Psychology book, in most instances, it’s a tough road to follow when you find yourself disagreeing with the popular opinion. Mean Girls expresses a good example of conformity. A girl is trying to fit into a crowd that goes against everything she believes just to be popular.