Group dynamics and adolescent behavior in Mean Girls

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The Psychology of Mean Girls: Group Dynamics and Psychology

Everyone remembers the anxiety of high school. Group dynamics play a huge role in defining our selves and our behavior in those crucial developmental years. As we continue to gain autonomy and independence from our parents, peer groups become that much more influential, thus making social structures and relationships a crucial part to adolescence. The film Mean Girls takes this concept to an extreme, comically illustrating the complexity of group dynamics in American high schools, and how these intensely braided social structures affect self-worth and behavior in vulnerable adolescents.

Most of the psychology in the film is geared towards group dynamics and how those social structures impact the development of the teen characters. Essentially, "the protagonist is 16-year-old Cady, a newcomer to American high school after years of being taught by her parents in Africa -- i.e., a clean slate" (Edelstein 2004). She is a reliable outsider, at least at the beginning of the film, because she is not immersed in the complex culture of the school she is observing. This allows her to make reasonable assumptions about the psychology tied to the group dynamics. Her observations are an examination of teen rituals and how they are tied to developmental milestones within adolescents (Edelstein 2004). Through her initial observations, the film begins to categorize teen behavior in scientific terms based on an anthropological study of behavior. It is therefore a study of the psychology of behavior from a sociological perspective.

What these observations show is an intense network of groups that are interrelated, yet also constantly in conflict with one another. On the campus of the high school, there are various subgroups within the larger group. Membership to these groups is essentially based on teen behavior and sometimes physical characteristics, as in the case of the "plastics," the popular girl group that was at the top of the social hierarchy in the school. In this sense, membership to a particular group then influences behaviors and the social interaction between group members, both within and outside of their specific sub-group. There are a number of specific examples from the movie that illustrate this concept. For example, Janis, Cady's original outsider friend gives the audience a tour of the strange social structure of a typical American high school and how membership of those groups influence behaviors and attitudes of teens today. Each is defined both by its internal behavior, as well as an external judgment that has been passed on by an outside group.