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The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a 2012 'coming-of-age' film focussed on the life of Charlie, a socially awkward teenager. He is known as a 'wallflower', the type that stands on the sidelines and observes. During his first year of high school he establishes friendships with two seniors, Sam and Patrick, and they help Charlie to discover the joys of friendship.

This movie features many examples of conformity, obedience, compliance, social inhibition, social facilitation, and groupthink, with a specific focus on obedience, conformity and aggression.

Attached below is the trailer for the movie.

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The Perks of Being A Wallflower - Trailer

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The Perks of Being A Wallflower - Trailer

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THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER - DVD/BD Trailer

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One aspect of conformity that is displayed evidently in this movie is social inhibition, which is defined as "a conscious or subconcious avoidance of a situation or social interaction," by www.psychestudy.com. A specific scene (attached below) is when Charlie attends his first lesson of advanced english. The teacher asks questions that Charli clearly knows the answer to, yet he never puts his hand up. He instead writes the answers on the page in front of him, which the teacher notices as he walks past. They make direct eye contact for the next question, with the teacher trying to convince him to answer the question that he clearly knows the answer to. At the end of the class the teacher asks why he didn't respond, but Charlie is unable to give a circumstancial response.
Factors affecting conformity include; the size of the group, possible presence of an ally, awareness of social norms and group cohesiveness. (pg. 94 & 95 in Psychology: Stage 1 Textbook)
In this specific scene the size is around 20 students, which increases conformity as people don't want to stand out, instead wishing to fit in the crowd. Charlie has no friends - or 'allies' - in this class so he is even more alone. He feels as though if he responds everyone will judge him, something he wishes to avoid. The lack of the presence of an ally increases his desire to hide himself from the class. In terms of social norms Charlie is aware that the answers are not just common knowledge and that people will pick on him - possibly referring to him as a 'nerd' - if he knows the correct answer, therefore he simply avoids it.

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Secret Santa Party Scene The Perks of Being

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The Perks Of Being A Wallflower charlie and bill scenes. Disclaimer: I own nothing. All copyrights belong to their original owners.

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Asch's Experiment vs The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

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Asch's Experiment vs The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

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The aim of Asch's experiment (attached below) was to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. Social pressure is evident in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower too, with Charlie being the largest conformee. He aims to fit into social norms as much as possible, yet he doesn't even realise it. In Asch's experiment he shows a set of lines to a group of men. All but one have pre-organised responses, and the test is to see if the one that isn't aware changes his clearly accurate response purely to fit in. In the same sense, Charlie stays on the outer in order to not make the wrong decision and make people think he's weird, yet he is coersed at some points and ends up making a fool of himself because it is the first time that he is managing to put himself out there.

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The aggression theory, theorised by Leonard Berkowitz, states that
anger (emotional readiness) or frustration + environmental cues = aggression.
In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower one of the protagonists, Patrick, gets himself into a fight in the middle of the cafeteria. Patrick was in a secret homosexual relationship at the time with one of the 'popular' jocks at school, named Brad. In this scene one of Brad's friends trips Patrick and they all laugh. Patrick glances at Brad, hoping to see him standing up for him, but instead Brad joins in on the laughter. The fact that Brad laughed at him falling over provided Patrick with anger and therefore emotional readiness. After a heated argument where patrick tried to get Brad to confess, he walks away and is then met with the name 'faggot'. This remark makes Patrick turn around in anger, punching him in the face - the environmental cue is evident in this. This led to a punch up as the end product - an extreme case of aggression.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower -  Fight scene

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower , Patricks cafeteria fight scene.

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Charlie started high school with no friends and a lack of confidence, yet he left with an increase of both friends and confidence. The friends that he did make were not like him at all; Sam and Patrick were outgoing and confident and experimental when it came to partying, drugs and alcohol included. To fit into their group he becomes someone else; he starts drinking, attending parties and even tries a pot-brownie for the first time ever. He figures that this is what will allow him to create friendships. Below is an image of Charlie at his first party after their homecoming celebration. The girls pictured, Alice and Mary Elizabeth, both influenced Charlie to try the pot brownies and as he thought that was the only way to fit in, he conformed.

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At one point in the film Charlie gets very close to Mary Elizabeth. This relationship is essentially forced on him by Sam, who is trying to get his attention off of her. Mary Elizabeth makes him a mixtape, the ultimate display of affection, yet when they're alone together Charlie tries to move the conversation away from anything sexual - even mentioning how nice the fire is to direct the conversation in any other possible direction. Mary Elizabeth asks Charlie if he likes her, to which he feels obliged to say yes purely to make her happy. Charlie states that she is "a real nice person underneath the part of her that hates everyone," after writing that he doesn't think she's "all that bad," essentially hinting that she's not all that good either. All of these circumstances direct to the factor of obedience, defined as "compliance with an order request, law or suggestion," by dictionary.com. In this case Charlie is being obedient to both Sam's request to find interest in a girl that is not her as well as Mary Elizabeth's hint of attraction. Charlie just goes along with it because he wishes to please everyone around him, aiming to maintain the peace despite how unhappy it makes him.
This is comparable to Milgram's experiment where there are figures of authority that the prisoners obey, no matter how bizarre the request. Sam told him she wanted to be left alone, so he obeyed despite his own feelings.

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Relationship   The Perks of Being a Wallflower   YouTube

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Groupthink is a term created by a social psychologist named Irving Janis (1972) that is defined as something that "occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement. Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups."
In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, the group that Charlie becomes friends with are victims of groupthink on an everyday basis. They have all become influenced by one another so much that they have adopted certain characteristics from the others. They do not have the same level of mental efficiency or moral judgement, as the definition suggests, because they 'ignore alternatives' and only accept one another.
To support her theory Janis specified 8 symptoms of groupthink, most of which apply to Charlie's friends;

1. Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.

2. Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.

3. Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.

4. Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.

5. Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.

6. Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.

7. Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.

8. Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

If a majority of these symptoms are present within a group it is evident that groupthink is occurring within the group. When there is an overwhelming pressure for unanimity group members are less motivated to realistically appraise any alternative courses of action available; essentially the group is one.
A particular example is the Rocky Horror Picture Show that they put on for the town. Sam and Patrick are involved, meaning the rest of the group must be involved too. They wear particular costumes because the rest of the group does. They act in unusual roles within the show because the rest of the group does. Charlie, the most socially awkward character in the film, ends up barely dressed in front of the audience because of the level of groupthink within the group

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Unknown. “Social Inhibition.” Psychestudy, www.psychestudy.com/social/social-inhibition.

Unknown. “What Is Groupthink.” Groupthink, www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm.