The classic coming-of-age film, The Breakfast Club (1985), explores the psychological phenomena of conformity, attitudes, and behaviour. The Breakfast Club is a well-crafted narrative which explores the complexities of human behaviours as well as the impact of group dynamics. The film offers valuable insight into the social dynamics of ingroups and outgroups within society. In addition, the film provides a visual representation of how attitudes and behaviours change within these social groups. Conformity is the type of social influence which involves changing a belief or behaviour to fit in. Solomon Asch’s (1951) evolutionary exploration of conformity had confirmed the hypothesis that people tend to conform to a majority opinion to be accepted …show more content…
There are two main ways which can be used to persuade, the central route and the peripheral route. The central route involves the proposal of a strong and logical argument to alter a person’s attitude (Coufano, 2024). Contrastingly, the peripheral route evokes emotion to persuade, altering the affective and behavioural components of attitude (Coufano, 2024). In 1986, Petty and Cacioppo suggested the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which outlined these methods of persuasion. Their study had found that when participants were highly motivated and were able to clearly process the message, the argument strength was much greater and therefore, greatly influenced individual attitudes (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). ELM has the role of predicting behaviour of individuals and groups in society, however, in some cases, it may not be a sustainable way of predicting. This is because although using the central route may lead to a stronger change in attitude, it requires relevance for the receiver to change their attitude (Petty et al., 2009). Health ads, such as those about substance abuse, are designed to persuade people to change their attitudes. However, due to the use of the central route of persuasion, the advertisements are not guaranteed to resonate with everyone; the therefore, attitudes are not guaranteed to change (Petty et al., 2009). In The Breakfast Club, Bender latently uses both methods of persuasion through his suggestion “What do you say we close that door? We can’t have any kind of party with Vernon checking us out every few seconds.” Through this suggestion, he is using both his communication and logical skills to appeal to the groups cognition and affective component to persuade the group into closing the door. Bender is relying on the group’s logical reasoning that the detention would be a better experience if they shut the door and thus, appeal
The 1985 film, The Breakfast Club, directed by John Hughes shows how a person’s identity can be influenced by conflict he or she has experienced in life. First, John Bender is in the library telling everyone how he got a cigar burn on his arm from his dad. For example, his mother and father don’t treat with the most respect or any respect at all. They call him names and say he can’t do anything right. One day him and his dad got into a really bad argument and his dad burnt him with is cigar that he had. Because his parents treat him that way, he treats everyone he’s around very badly.
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
The Breakfast Club demonstrates the interpersonal concepts “I-It” and “I-Thou” as it follows students whose immediate reaction is to treat each other as nothing more than the stereotypical person their titles assume them to be; however, as the film progresses and the characters begin to develop friendships, the characters abandon the stereotypes and begin to look at each other as individuals who have unique personalities and stories.
The movie The Breakfast Club is a perfect example of peer relationships in the adolescent society. It shows the viewer some of the main stereotypes of students in high school you have a jock, a nerd, the weirdo, a rebel, and a prep. Over the course of a Saturday detention the different types of peers learn a lot about one another by hearing what each one has done to get into Saturday detention as well as why they chose to do it.
The movie The Breakfast Club was released in 1985, and is based on a group of five high school students from stereotypical cliques; the popular, jock, nerd and the outcasts, who all wind up stuck together for Saturday detention. Throughout the movie many themes present themselves such as teenage rebellion, peer pressure and family issues as the students get to know each other. The most prominent theme throughout the movie is the student’s placement in the social structure of the school. From the very different reasons why they are in detention to the way that they are all treated differently by the principle, their social placement is evident.
The 1985 film, The Breakfast Club, takes place during a Saturday detention in a Chicago high school. Five students, all from very different backgrounds, must serve this detention together for a nine-hour period. Everyone is at the detention for diverse reasons but throughout the course of the day, they soon discover they are not as different as they thought they were. The Breakfast Club analyzes how social interactions between students and their social contexts lead to the prevalence of discrimination and prejudice within the high school environment. Demonstrating how it is contrary to other films of the era, The Breakfast Club particularly examines these social issues through the establishment of cliques which were founded based on the hierarchy
The definition of belonging is shaped by various factors. Personal, Cultural, historical and social influences can determine in which way the theme is related to. It is associated with the depression as well as issues that are current. The two text types that i have analysed to further explore belonging is the novel “To Kill A Mocking Bird” and the film “The Breakfast Club”. I will further establish the techniques including foreshadowing, stereotypes, emotive language and metaphor that have built the theme.
The Breakfast Club is a cult classic film from the eighties that centers around five teenagers in high school and their Saturday spent in detention. The movie is completely centered around the social interactions of the five characters and the blooming of their unlikely friendship during their detention. This development is the source of a majority of the plot points, as there is not much action or outside based plot points within the film. Due to the heavy focus on social interaction, various social psychology principles and theories are quite prominent within the film. Stereotyping is at the very heart of the film and several plot points revolve around these social psychology principles, but also aspects such as the social identity theory are important in the film.
“Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.” Iconic words from an extremely well-known and highly praised movie. The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink… These are just a few teen movies that were directed and/or produced by the brillant John Hughes. Films such as these helped to change the way that teen movies were filmed, and the culture of teens was portrayed, forever.
John Hughes’ 1985 film, The Breakfast Club, gives countless examples of the principles of interpersonal communication. Five high school students: Allison, a weirdo, Brian, a nerd, John, a criminal, Claire, a prom queen, and Andrew, a jock, are forced to spend the day in Saturday detention. By the end of the day, they find that they have more in common than they ever realized.
The breakfast club was to say the least a boring 80’s movie. But it was a good movie for the purpose of analysis. Simply put, it will not be on my list of movies to rent next time that I am at the rental store. I chose to explain the points of view of Andrew, the jock, and Allison the loner/quite person. I will also be making use of the key terms Clique Groups, and Identity Crisis.
Five teenagers who don't' know each other spend a Saturday in detention at the suburban school library. At first they squirm, fret and pick on each other. Then after sampling some marijuana, a real encounter session gets underway. The stresses and strains of adolescence have turned their inner lives into a minefield of disappointment, anger and despair.
In the 1985 movie, The Breakfast Club, five diverse detainees are forced to spend a Saturday in detention (Hughes, 1985). When they first arrive, their stereotypes and biases keep them blind to the fact they could possibly have empathy and understanding for the different dilemmas they are all going through. At first glance, The Breakfast Club is a heartwarming story of a group of adolescents who turn from being strangers to realizing they have a lot more in common than they thought. After looking beyond the surface, it is obvious the story consists of many problems adolescents have to deal with every day. The Breakfast Club exemplifies the major struggles teenagers must deal with such as adolescent egocentrism, identity confusion, parent-adolescent conflicts, and peer pressure.
Elliot Aronson (2012) provides a definition of conformity, two social psychological processes that underlie a conformity and cited examples of reasons why people conform in the book, The Social Animal. Aronson (2012) defines a conformity as “a change in a person’s behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people” (p.19). In accordance with Aronson’s (2012) definition of conformity, people do conform owing to the social influence, which are two main social psychological processes: belonging and getting information.
Conformity is defined as a change in behavior or belief to accord with others. (Meyers 170) What other people do and say can gradually influence others to deviate from ones beliefs and conform to others. One of the most famous documented studies to better illustrate this was a procedure performed by social psychologist, Solomon Asch.