The Social Cognitive Approach

The Social Cognitive Approach

This approach takes several views and combines them. Social Cognitive perspective believes we learn many of our behaviors through conditioning or modeling. However, the difference is that social cognitive theorists also emphasize the importance of mental processes such as what we think about our experiences. With these two ideas then, social-cognitive theorists focus on how we and our environment interact. How do we interpret and respond to situations? How do our schemas, our memories, and our expectations influence our behavior patterns?

Throughout the film Mean Girls, Cady experiences various personality modifications. She has always been home schooled and came to the United States from Africa. At the beginning of the movie, when Cady first enters high school, she is friendly and knew who she was as a person as well as her potential goals in life. Through the duration of the film, she is negatively influenced by her peers who change her views and manipulate her. Cady gradually loses her individual personality and restyles herself in the image of Regina, also known as the "Queen Bee" of the plastics. She becomes as spiteful as Regina, abandoning Janis and Damien (her two TRUE best friends who were seen as outcasts as she was), in the process and focusing more on her image. Cady Heron is an adolescent; therefore she is trying to form an identity which is pleasing to her and others. Cady identifies her authentic personality towards the end of the movie, where she grasps an understanding of how much she has changed for the worse, and how much it has affected the people around her. Therefore, it's safe to say Cady possess a dual personality throughout the movie. When she is being herself, she is thoughtful, understanding, and generally a happy girl seeking long lasting relationships with family and friends. As a result of the change in personality influenced by her peers, Cady is perceived as rude, ignorant and self-absorbed.

Along with her changing personality, Cady finds that her interests alter as well. At the beginning of the film, Cady was interested with finding true friends, adapting to a new culture and first time at a public school and spending time with family. Overtime, Cady became most interested in becoming popular, fashion and getting attention from a boy. She believes that being noticed and hanging