Inter-group relations have a great impact on the actions that people partake in each day. While many when first asked to think of groups and hierarchies may first think of race to be a distinguishing factor, all one really has to do is think back to middle or even high school. Remember those days when the most important part of your day was not to get a good grade on a test, but rather to get a compliment from the coolest person in school. I for one, remember spending hours each week picking out my outfits in order to find something that would set me apart and bring attention to me. Using hind sight, I see now that all the actions I took part in then were really only for one reason, to make myself one of the “cool” kids. It is always desirable to be part of the superior social class, because it brings with it high social regard and admiration.
One of the best examples of inter-group relations is from the all familiar movie, Mean Girls.The first clip demonstrates the different hierarchical groups in the movie.
The below clip exemplifies how the high societal regarded group know as “The Plastics” is admired.
Below is what happens when someone breaks the “rules” of the group, “The Plastics”.
Social dominance theory explains the behaviors that I participated in and experienced in middle and high school as well as the behaviors in the above mentioned move, Mean Girls.
The theory states that people all belong to groups and members protect their group and act to maintain their hierarchical groups. The last clip demonstrates this principle in how a member of the group did not follow their standards and therefor, in order to protect the group, she was dismissed. The top group has high social value which motivates and maintained the hierarchical status. Such social value leads out group members to have out group favoritism towards the high status group due to hopes of joining and also acquiring high social value.This is also viewed in the movie Mean Girls in how everyone admires the members of the plastics (PSU WC, 2015).
This movie was a great example as to the social dominance theory and how it has affects on real life. Looking back the behaviors that I did in order to achieve positive social value look absurd now, but at the time the benefit of high social value was more than enough. Social dominance continues to persist in our world, not only in a school environment, but in many aspects as well. So not only can the influence of desire for positive social value lead to mean girls, but in turn a mean world.
References
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (PSU WC). (2015). PSYCH 424: Applied Social Psychology. Lesson 6: Intergroup Relations. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/psych424/001/content/07_lesson/05_page.html
I have to confess to being the one person commenting here who has not seen this movie, but because bullying a concern of mine in relationship to my grandchildren, I might need to watch it.
We have a cute (from all reports) movie and an idea of how life in high school plays out from this movie, but as social scientists, how doe we effect change to stop the bullying? A report called “Social Network Predictor of Bullying and Victimization, published in Adolescence is an interesting read on how bullying manifests and gives potential solutions to curbing the problem. (Mauttapa, Valente, et al., 2004)
The link is provided in the reference below, but the implication from this study is that based on Bandura’s social cognitive theory, learned behaviors diffuse across peer groups and there is potential that teaching bullies other ways to interact can have benefits beyond the individual bully. Possibly a focus on treating the epidemic can be on the “Regina’s” of a school to help stop bullying.
Mouttapa, M., Valente, T., Gallaher, P., Rohrback, L., & Unger, J. (2004) . Social Network Predictors of Bullying and Victimization. Adolescence. Retrieved 3/28/2015 from: http://find.galegroup.com/gic/infomark.do?&idigest=fb720fd31d9036c1ed2d1f3a0500fcc2&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=GIC&docId=A124698511&source=gale&userGroupName=itsbtrial&version=1.0
In another course we studied social dominance theory, and on a previously composed page this was one of the biggest examples! Alot of people may think this is just another chick flick, but to an extent I think it is a wonderful film for its representation of social dominance theory and how things really work in highschool. We see the main character who starts off as a nobody, as we all do until we find our own friends, losing her original friends because she wants to fit in, and then ultimately being alone. She takes the social dominance too far and ultimately sabotages herself. Another factor we see is as Orlena stated, about Regina changing the rules when she can no longer comply, she can no longer control anyone thus, loses her status. She showed a weakness and was attacked for it, which is similar to the scene in the movie where they are presented like animals. I found it eerie how we could tell so much from the animal scene, seems like their social dominance theory isn’t too different from our own!
I absolutely love this movie. In fact, I instantly thought of this movie as we learned about social dominance theory. In addition to all of the examples you provided from the movie, social dominance is also within the “plastics.” Regina is the “queen bee” and is the leader of the plastics. She enforced the rules, and when she was targeted for wearing sweatpants, she claimed that the rules weren’t real…implying that she is above the rules. Social Dominance theory is based on dominance and oppression. Without anyone to oppress, Regina is stuck with nobody. She had “fallen” from the top of the social structure. Eventually, Cady out-shines Regina, and becomes the “queen bee.”
Another concept that Regina displays throughout the movie is retaliatory aggression. This is the idea that revenge or retaliation is a response that is provoked. Regina retaliates against many people in the film. Her retaliations just so happen to add into her social dominance and getting what she wants.
https://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/psych320kaj/chapter16.htm
This was a well thought out post, and I especially liked the addition of the video segments for a point of reference. I hate to be “this guy,” but I have to admit that I have seen this film as well. This film does a good job at portraying the Social identity theory (SIT). “SIT posits that an individuals self-knowledge is based on two types of identity. . . personal identity. . . [and] social identity” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012, p. 340). This film has made it apparent that both forms of identity are present among these “women” (I use that term very loosely here). At the end of the film, one of the girls wins the glory of being prom queen; shortly thereafter she destroys her crown in an attempt to make peace between students. According to our text, this would be “[t]he compromising style of conflict management involves reaching an agreement that is mutually satisfactory to the self as well as to others” (Schneider et al., 2012, p. 346).
Works Cited
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.
I have to admit that this film is one of my secret guilty pleasures. Being one of those movies that you turn on to sort of “tune out” for a bit, I never bothered to analyze it through any specific psychological lens, but rather chalked it up to mundane yet totally hilarious high school clique chick flick. Social dominance theory is indeed what is happening in the film in terms of how the characters all related to one another, specifically within the “plastics” clique. The scene relatively in the beginning of the movie, where all of the “cliques” are introduced is another good example of SDT being portrayed. Thanks for reminding me about this movie!