The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

1. What is your first impression of: (What perceptual error makes you label the character this way?)

• Claire Standish (a "princess"):

My first impression of Claire is a spoiled, rich brat who usually gets what she wants. When she is dropped off at detention she says to her father, “I can’t believe you can’t get me out of this?” When she first speaks in detention, she gives the impression that she thinks she’s more important than anyone else. Since she shows this distinct behavior with her friends at school, I based my perception on an internal attribution. However, her family has influenced her to feel as though she is better than others.  The perceptual error used here is stereotyping, basing these judgments on the fact that she is from a wealthy family.

Her parents are in the process of getting a divorce, and she doesn’t know how to handle being tossed between the two of them. She feels like she is often used as a weapon by each of them to get back at the other. When criticized during the movie by Bender, she is, at first, very sure of herself. As he continues with his teasing, she becomes less and less confident.

 The way she is treated at home affects her thoughts and feelings about her self-worth, which leads to her seeking approval from others. In the movie, Brian describes her behavior as conceited because she is “popular” and looks down on those “under” her on the social hierarchy. This shows that her behavior, internal thoughts, and her environment are all contributing factors to her personality. She has become a product of her environment.

• Andrew Clarke (an "athlete")

Andrew Clarke is a competitive wrestler who has to deal with pressure from his father, coach, and friends. He is viewed as being one of the high schools most promising athletes. Through selective perception, the first impression I drew upon Andrew was a lost soul, who was just trying to please his father while hiding behind a tough boy attitude.

Although Andrew is frustrated and disappointed in himself, he comes across as very confident. He is protective towards Claire when Bender gives her a hard time. When speaking to others, he too seems to think of himself as superior. In reality, Andrew feels terrible amounts of pressure from his father. Having always been told that winning is everything,� he has fallen into his fathers way of thinking and shows displayed emotions. He is very reluctant to tell the others why he was sent to detention. He doesn’t really want to be the person his father wants him to be. Being sent to detention makes Andrew really think about telling his father to stop with all the pressure. He rethinks if he likes wrestling too, or of he should find another sport he actually enjoys.

 “Hey I screwed around, we all screwed around it’s just that you got caught” Do you want to miss a match?” No school is going to give a scholarship to a discipline case.” His father’s comment takes me back to my high school days, growing up near a small rural farm town where boys were pressured to play league hockey. Their fathers would just assume that their son wanted to play and would put the pressure on them to make the AAA team.  Many times these boys had no passion for the game but went along with it to please their parents.