In the 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls the main character, Cady Heron, shows many interesting psychological developments from her environmental change. Beginning the movie with sweet, innocent, Cady starting high school for the first time after being homeschooled in Africa, she was challenged with many different changes in her world that she was not used to; for example, a new environment to learn in, different audiences to please, relationship changes with her parents, and labeling are all challenges that were thrown at Cady at the start of her high school career. (Waters, 2004) These obstacles can be considered examples of the Social Learning Theory, imaginary audiences, parenting styles, and social labeling.
Social Learning Theory First, Cady…show more content… Cady began to develop “imaginary audiences” that allowed her to be concerned about her appearance. Imaginary audiences are formed when a person confuses one’s thoughts with those of a hypothesized audience for their behavior. (Sigelman & Rider, 2015) One of the scenes from the film shows Cady walking into her first friend, Janice’s, place of employment and continues to show her carrying on a conversation with Janice while staring in the mirror fixing her make up. While this is unusual for Cady, all she cares about is how she looks to others; for instance, Cady was now a part of “the plastics”, Regina, Karen, and Gretchen, and had to look as if she was. However, underneath it all, Cady genuinely cared about her appearance the more she hung out with these girls. (Waters, 2004) Once Cady had developed these imaginary audiences, her whole personality changed because she was constantly worried about what others had thought of her. Just like her “queen bee” Regina George, Cady had built her new identity off of these imaginary audiences; furthermore, in reality, Cady was determined “a regulation hotty” at the very beginning of the movie. So for Cady to go the extra mile by fixing her appearance and the change in her actions proves that she thought everyone was always watching and judging her. (Waters,
