She’s afraid to make ripples and therefore seeks comfort in numbers by appealing towards Andrews agreement to validate her feelings.Īndrew on the surface is a one dimensional, dumb, aggressive athlete who fits every stereotype in the book. She’s always seeking approval, this can be seen when she makes a bold statement she looks to Andrew for assistance, such as when she told Brian that they would no longer be friends after Saturday. In reality, her inner personality is very insecure. Due to that situation, she is very aware of her worth as a person and the benefits people have of associating with her which further results in her having a snobby outer personality. She sees herself as a tool that her parents manipulate for their own purposes. She groups people either as ‘in-group’ or ‘out-group’ this can be further rationalized by her initial disdain of Bender before he had even caused a disruption or even her patronizing tone that she uses when talking with Brian as if he is beneath her. She sees herself as higher in the social hierarchy because she is more ‘popular’ in the sense that she has more friends, attends more social events and is considered wealthy. She implements social categorization to understand and organize the world around her. Humans have a natural instinct to belong and in Brian’s sensitive state, it seemed that those feelings were amplified to a rather large extent.Ĭlaire sees herself as superior to everyone excluding Andrew, who is of an equal social status to herself. He adjusted his thoughts and behaviors in order to rationalize doing drugs because it seemed that that was how he was supposed to behave. Brian is visibly uncomfortable and verbally questions doing drugs in school, but eventually, conforms. This can be seen when Bender, by using majority influence, convinces the rest of the group to smoke marijuana. In reality, Brian’s home life can’t be good, the strain his parents put him through leaves him with a very fragile ego, leaving him susceptible to peer pressure. The group as a whole assumed that Brian came from an attentive and loving family, as seen when Bender mocked Brian’s wholesome lunch and acted out what he thought Brian’s home life was like. A completely ridiculous way to interact with someone who very nearly committed suicide. This is a huge red flag that his parents seemingly brushed off, his mom when dropping him off for detention was talking in a very hostile tone and demanded that he find a way to study. He couldn’t handle his failure and gathered the necessary materials to kill himself. This is damaging psychologically and resulted in Brian having a complete mental breakdown when receiving a D on an assignment. His family values his intelligence more than him as a person.
Brian conformed to what the ‘cool’ person, aka Bender, was doing in order to seem more socially acceptable. That example could also be categorized under conformity and minority influence from Bender.
For example, when Bender hassled Claire if she was a virgin or not, Brian hesitantly observed the exchange before joining in. He implements ‘informational social influence’ meaning that he observes others in order to understand social norms. Because Brian knows that he in a lower social caste than the others in detention, he is always vying for their attention. His self-given trope is ‘the brain’ meaning that his defining trait, defined by himself and others, is his intelligence. This is only for fun* And I know I left out Allison! So sorry, but I didn't feel like diving into all of her issues.īrian, unfortunately, is considered the lowest rung on the social ladder, a fact that he himself is all too painfully aware of.
I only took two years of it in high school.
* Disclaimer: I have rudimentary psychological knowledge.