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Cognitive Dissonance
Jessikia Westmoland
Psychology: Liberty University
Professor
June 1 , 2023
st
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Cognitive Dissonance
The plot centers around a young girl named Cady Heron, who has
just entered the American school system. She is introduced to
many different social groups, one of which is named the Plastics.
She decides to take down the group's leader, Regina George by
sabotaging the group with the help of some social outcasts.The
film concludes with Cady realizing that these social constructs
shouldn't matter.
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One of the most iconic scene of the film is where Cady is introduced to all of the social groups of
her new school. Each group is described and her friends explain why the groups are acceptable to
be social with. The one group that she is supposed to avoid, the Plastics, asks her to join them for
lunch. She is then told by that group what is socially acceptable behavior in school according to
"the popular kids". She experiences concepts such as conformity and discrimination for the first
time.
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Conformity plays a huge role on how these students
interact. Conformity is the tendency to align your attitudes, beliefs,
and behaviors with those around you. In this scene, Cady is
pressured to align herself with the Plastics. There is a huge
emphasis on these girls teaching Cady to conform to their social
standards as a group. She is hesitant at first, but eventually gives in
to the social pressure. Conformity involves changing your behavior
in order to "fit in" or "go along" with a group. Gretchen and Karen
doesn't let Regina sit at the lunch table because she was wearing
sweatpants for the second day in the week—breaking the rules that
came along with being their friend.
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Discrimination is any behavior directed against persons
because of their identification with a particular group. The Plastics
explain that any other group that isn't like theirs is socially
unacceptable. They blatantly describe other social groups and
individuals as weird and freaky. This makes Cady uncomfortable,
because she feels that everyone is unique and beautiful in their
own way. However, the Plastic see things differently. Also, Regina
refuses to invite Janice to her party, because she perceives Janice
as being a lesbian.
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Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect attitude (usually
negative) towards an individual based solely on the individual’s
membership of a social group. Another example of prejudice and
discrimination is the Burn Book. This is when the three members
of the Plastic's would single out a person in their grade, even
teachers, and devote a page in the book to placing a picture of that
person and captioning it with what was wrong (in their eyes) with
them. A stereotype is a fixed, over generalized belief about a
particular group or class of people. Ms. Norbury assumes she is
from Africa because she's black.
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Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving
conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. Cady experiences
cognitive dissonance because she says that she hates Regina
George, but really she admires her.
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Group think refers to a psychological phenomenon in
which people strive for consensus within a group. The plastics tend
to think very narrowly, they rely on the opinion and confirmation
of their leader.\
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An in-group is a social group to which a person
psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-
group is a social group with which an individual does not identify.
In Mean Girls, the Plastics are the in-group. With Regina George
being the leader, this exclusive clique believes they rule the school
and are superior to everyone. In this movie, the out-groups are the
non members of their group. More specifically Janice and Damien.
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The Scapegoat theory that prejudice provides an outlet for
anger by providing someone to blame. Cady blames her teacher,
Ms. Norbury, for her bad grades. Ms. Norbury is being blamed for
Cady's bad grade in math because Cady is failing on purpose and
figures she has to explain to the Plastics why she is failing since
she is actually smart at math. Cady blames Ms. Norbury by
claiming that she sells drugs to other students.
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Aggression refers to a range of behaviors that can result in
both physical and psychological harm to oneself, others or objects
in the environment. Cady was a little salty with Regina's fake-ness
so she was about to pop off but then she realized where she was
and how classy ladies act.
