Mean Girls Personality Theory Paper

The movie that I decided to watch was mean girls. This movie is about a teenage girl who lived in Africa because her parents were doing research and then they had all moved to America. The girl’s name in the movie was Cady and she had never been home schooled before she moved to the United States of America. Her first couple of days was rocky but she eventually made friends with two art students by the name of Janis Ian and Damien, her new friends told her to be careful around the popular girls in school known as the plastics. One day while Cady was looking for her friends, a girl by the name of Regina George the main leader of the plastics wanted her to join their group because she thought she was really pretty. Cady becomes a part of the group, but Janis convinces her to get revenge on Regina George because of Janis’s personal experience with Regina. Cady declines on getting revenge until Regina George gets back with her ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels who Cady liked and Regina claimed she would put in a good word for Cady. Cady then decided that she would get revenge on Regina, so the movie is basically showing how Cady evolved from a sweet girl into a typical teenage girl. The three theories that I decided to pick for this movie were Social Learning theory and Behaviorism. I chose social learning theory because the theory stated that an individual’s behavior will be influenced by the environment around them, and since Cady was around the plastics that always spread mean and vicious rumors she became one of them. I chose behaviorism because Skinner stated behavior is a response to the environment which would explain why Cady decided to get even with Regina because that is what Regina George would do. Another theory that I thought that was displayed in the movie would be Dollard and Miller’s learning process which consisted of five steps, those four steps would be drive, cue, response, reinforcement effect. Drive is defined as a promotion of a specific action.