Movie Review- Mean Girls
Brooke Millett
Sheridan College

Personality and how we behave have been of much interest to psychologists for a long time now and because of this there have been many theories and theorists that have been developed. Personality is defined as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within and individual (Fritzley, 2012, p. 10). There are six main approaches to personality psychology they include: biological approach, humanistic approach, behaviorist approach, trait approach, psychoanalytic approach and cognitive approach. Each approach shines a little light onto why we behave the way we do and how our personalities are formed, the approaches contain many different theories from …show more content…

12). Janis now sees that she can use Cady to get total revenge on Regina. In this scene, Janis is using sublimation. She is taking her socially unacceptable urges to be aggressive with Regina and instead is turning it into socially acceptable behavior by trying to ruin her reputation (Ciccareli, Hannigan, Fritzley, 2010, p. 474). Another example of Freud’s defense mechanisms would be when Cady begins to be just like “the plastics”. In one scene it shows the four girls walking in a row, all in pink and all with their hair down, all because Regina tells them too. Freud would say that the girls are showing us an example of identification which is trying to become like someone else to basically mask your own insecurities (Ciccareli, Hannigan, Fritzley, 2010, p. 474). This is also seen with many of the characters in the movie because everyone wants to be like Regina. In the movie, we also see an example of denial. There is a scene where Regina finally confronts Cady about kissing her boyfriend. Cady reacts completely blind sighted and denies this situation ever happened. Denial is when you refuse to recognize a threatening situation (Cherry, n.d. para. 1). Cady did not want to look like a bad person in front of everyone, so to get out of the situation she used the denial mechanism. Cady is not only confronted by Regina but also by her former friend at this point, Janis.