We've all seen mean girls (and no, I'm not just referring to the movie). The backhanded compliments, the whispering, even the Twitter death threats (poor Selena Gomez!)—chances are, if you've experienced junior high, you know exactly what we're talking about. But now there may just be science to back up the female tendency towards this particularly bitchy form of bullying.
In a recent study published in Psychological Science, researchers asked volunteers to play a game in which they accumulated points for money. Volunteers had the options to play by themselves, to form an alliance, or to cooperate with the opponents. When players were threatened with the possibility of social exclusion, female volunteers chose to join an alliance far more often than male volunteers did. Let this scenario loose in the real world, and it helps explain why we often see girls forming cliques and shunning others when they themselves feel the threat of exclusion.
Be honest: Have you ever excluded a girl to get closer to a clique?
PHOTO: COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES