The Breakfast Club: Social Psychological Movie Analysis
Social Psychology
Professor Jamie Simpson
Afnan Mohammad
The breakfast club is about five high school students forced to spend several hours with each
other due to suffering the same consequence, detention. For a high schooler, detention might
seem like the end of the world, but, throughout this movie, they learn that it might have been the
best consequent they have suffered. Princess Claire, Bad boy John, Smart nerd Brian, popular
Jock Andrew and finally the outcast turned it to the beauty, Allison, suffer the same fate under
the angry discouraging principle of their school. Throughout the movie, the five students interact
with one another displaying many of the Social Psychological Principles that were learned
throughout this course. These principles are listed below in addition to the scene they were
displayed in.
Conformity
Conformity was seen in several scenes in this movie. During conformity, a person might change
their normal behavior in order to fit in with the group/ social norms.
– Despite the five students having a rocky start with each other, in the scene where bad boy John
decided to leave the detention room, everyone confirmed and followed along in order to meet the
social norm standard.
– Conformity was also seen when bad boy John decided to bring out his bag of marijuana, Brian
hides it in his pants, while they all hide the fact that Bad boy John was hiding underneath Claire’s
desk.
Normative Social Influence
Normative Social influence occurs when someone decides to fallow a group due to wanting to
be accepted.
-They demonstrate Social Normative behavior when the four other students follow John in the
hall and all hiding his actions and unacceptable behavior from the principles.
Social Contagion
Social cognition is defined as a group of individuals who decide in doing or accomplishing
something because the other person is doing it.
-The scene when all five high school students took turns to speak honestly about themselves and
their personal lives leading to the release of who they are inside towards the end of the movie.
Risky Shift
When a person decides to take a bigger risk with a group when compared to taking a risk by
themselves.
-The scene where they are all setting together and smoking marijuana before starting to act out as
the result of smoking. When comparing their personalities, it’s highly unlike for any of them to
smoke marijuana except bad boy john.
The Chameleon Effect
When an individual unconsciously mimics the behavior of another individual.
-This can be seen after the group of high schoolers smoked john’s illegal marijuana resulting in
the 3 boys dancing together on top of one of the log tables in the detention area.
The social identity theory
This theory is based on one’s social identity and how it’s defined by the social group they affiliate
with.
-At the beginning of the movie, a scene where all 5 high school kids enter detention and not
interact with each other clearly shows that each of them belongs to a different social group. This
can also be seen at the beginning of the movie when all five characters are in the car with their
parents discussing the events of detention that is about to occur such as when the jock Andrew is
with his father.
Self-Schemas
Self-schemas is essentially the belief that a person holds about him or her self that guides them to
process of self-relevant information.
-Throughout the movie, John, Claire, Allison, Brian, and Andrew represent the definition of Self-
schemas about themselves when in multiple scenes speaking about their personal self and beliefs
that lead to processing self-relevant information. Another example is John when talking about
himself and what he will do or won’t do when arguing with the popular jock, Andrew and
explaining to him what he will do with the knife he is holding in his hand as he throws it sharply
on his table.
Self-concept
Self-concept is the total belief in one’s personal attributes.
-This can be seen when the jock Andrew is arguing about one’s self against bad boy rebel, John
in the beginning hours of detention when Andrew expressed that he can beat John up, as John
embarrasses him and reveals that he wears tights.
Affective forecasting
Affective forecasting is when one predicts how another person will behave in response to future
emotional events.
-Affective forecasting can be seen throughout the movie. John is a rebel and decides to
demonstrate Affective forecasting with Princess Clair throughout the movie as he keeps telling
