The Mean Girls Effect: Women enjoy it when their friends are mean to people they don’t like

Anyone who has gone through high school already knows that the iconic 2003 movie ‘Mean Girls’ was more of a documentary than a comedy.

But a new study may provide some insight into why many women gravitate towards friendship groups that rival Regina George and her infamous “Plastics.”

Researchers at Oklahoma State University in the US surveyed 1,183 people about their preferences for the behavior of a same-sex best friend.

This showed that many people – both men and women – prefer friends who are nice to us, but mean to our enemies.

They say it’s because these people behave in a way that “maximizes the friendship benefits” by both supporting us and undermining our adversary.

Study participants’ average preferences for traits in their best friend by the person (self, stranger, or enemy) on the receiving end of them

There’s been a lot of research into how people like their friends to treat them, which generally, and unsurprisingly, indicates that we like them to treat us well.

But just as Lindsay Lohan’s Cady finds herself replacing her real friends with Rachel McAdams’ “mean girl” Regina, sometimes it seems like kindness isn’t the only thing we’re looking for.

For their study, published in magazine Elsevier Evolution and human behaviorthe psychologists wanted to examine friends’ behavioral preferences when they were directed towards others, including strangers and enemies.

“Because one’s friends also interact with other people, including your rivals, we suggest that people sometimes prefer friends who behave more monstrously than brotherly love,” they wrote.

To do this, they surveyed individuals in student and non-student communities in the US, as well as non-student communities in India.

They were asked to rate different behaviors based on how much they would like to see this in a best friend on a scale of one to seven.

These include kindness, trustworthiness, cruelty, indifference, exploitative behavior, similarity, physical closeness, familiarity, and impartiality in conflict.

In some surveys, these hypothetical behaviors were directed against no one, but for some, they were directed specifically at the participant, the participant’s enemy, or a stranger.

In “Mean Girls,” Lindsay Lohan’s Cady (right) replaces her real life friends (left, center) with Rachel McAdams’ “mean girl” Regina George

The results showed that people generally want their friends to be nice and trustworthy to themselves and strangers.

However, they also wanted them to show this “prosocial” behavior more towards themselves than towards both strangers and enemies.

The researchers say this makes sense, since one feature of friends that sets them apart from others is that they provide “preferential support.”

Participants also indicated that they seek friends who are more cruel to their enemies than themselves.

Sometimes they even prefer to act maliciously or indifferently towards these adversaries than to act kindly and trustworthy.

The same was not true for strangers, as the participants generally preferred when their friends acted kindly to them rather than meanly.

So it shouldn’t be surprising if we see someone supporting a friend’s behavior that they previously criticized someone else for.

If the friend directs this behavior at his enemy, it may reflect a “deeply strategic social cognition.”

They choose friends who can keep their enemy from harming them, rather than friends who generally display prosocial characteristics.

“This framework may help explain instances where sports fans, voters and other coalition members accept or even celebrate behavior that they would otherwise view as immoral,” they wrote.

“As long as that behavior is performed in a way that benefits itself (for example, when my friend’s cruelty harms my enemy).”