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The deviants, however, are powerful. The role of the deviant can be such a catalyst that it can cause a group to reverse its in-group bias. In 1988, researchers discovered an anomaly they dubbed the “black sheep effect.” First, they found that students evaluated likeable fellow group members more positively than likeable outsiders, as expected. But then they unearthed something strange. Those same students evaluated unlikeable outsiders more positively than similar, unlikeable insiders.

How can the black sheep effect so clearly flip the concept of in-group bias? Group members, consciously or not, may want to manipulate group dynamics in the group’s collective best interest. According to one theory, a deviant member is more of a threat to the group than a deviant outsider because he goes against group norms, which are in place to distinguish that group from other groups. If a group member rebels against group norms, then he challenges the group’s belief that it is better than other groups. A deviant outsider, however, not only poses no threat to the group, but also validates group norms because the group adheres to them and the outsider does not. The preps nearly drove Whitney out of their group for wearing her own distinctive hippie-chic style. Yet when a non-prep wore a similar fashion later in the year, the preps complimented her.

So who are these deviants? They may be people with unusual interests and opinions, like Eli or Blue, students who do not fear being alone, like Danielle, or guys who are unafraid to express their emotions, like Noah. Some groups choose to exclude a classmate for no significant reason at all. I heard from dozens of students whose cliques or “best friends” turned on them for no apparent cause. There may be a psychological explanation for this sudden 180: Attacking a third party makes people believe they have something in common. Australian psychologist Laurence Owens observed, “Bitching, gossiping, or storytelling serves to bind the friendship together and create intimacy for those who are in as against those who are out.” This method of exclusion is particularly common in schools. As a drama kid in Georgia put it, “Gossip is like word vomit here.”

The good news is that if people are left out because a group needs a scapegoat, they are not doomed to a life of social rejection; they should, according to Coie, “experience some relief when they join new groups in which they are not cast in this same deviant role.” As with the black sheep, these scapegoats illustrate another case in which a student might be excluded not because his or her behavior is offensive per se, but because of its potential effect on the group as a whole. Is that, then, what exclusion is all about—not necessarily cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but a valid way for kids to coordinate and organize their social environment? That’s what Stacey Horn, a University of Illinois psychology professor, wanted to know. Horn conducted a series of studies about exclusion to investigate how adolescents view group status and social identity issues.

In one study, Horn surveyed freshmen and juniors at a large Midwestern high school where the low-status groups included Goths, druggies, and dirties (a label, used there, for smart kids who wore grunge and sometimes participated in delinquent behavior). Horn presented the students with hypothetical scenarios about Goths, druggies, and dirties excluded from various activities because of their label. In one scenario, preppies didn’t want a classmate on the student council specifically because he was a dirtie. Horn asked if it was all right or not all right for the preppies to want to exclude the dirtie from the student council. Students in both grades said the exclusion was acceptable.

Horn’s work led her to conclude that students regard exclusion and teasing as “a legitimate way of regulating behavior that they viewed as deviant or weird.” Teenagers try to enforce the categorizations they use to make